This hypothetic scenario does teach us however about the basics of generating traffic. What is simple is not necessary easy and effective, you only have a limited amount of time/money at your disposal to accomplish this task, the amount of traffic received per unit of time/money should be as high as possible and traffic generation techniques should ideally be of the residual type. What does residual traffic mean? Well, the term has been coined right now under your very nose, but the principle behind it is rock solid. Basically a residual traffic technique will continue to generate traffic long after the mechanism has been set into place, without further investment of time/money. Its opposite is what I call flashflood traffic techniques which naturally generate traffic for a very short amount of time or ongoing only for as long as time/money is invested.
Sounds simple enough, but the devil is in the details. Let me give you 2 quick examples that will show you clearly how the two types of traffic differ:
1) Imagine that you just bought a permanent link on a blogroll (the collection of links found usually on the right side on a blog). Of course the amount of traffic you will receive won’t be too consistent (unless it is a very popular one), but the traffic will keep on coming for months if not years, not to mention that the link will also get you some attention from the search engines. This is a clear example of a residual traffic technique.
2) Now imagine a different scenario. You have an article dealing with a very controversial topic posted on Digg. Before you know it, your servers can barely keep up, as the story made it to the front page. A week later however, the traffic from Digg has stopped to a grinding halt. Now this is an extreme example of flashflood traffic. Of course the situation is not that simple if you think further. The story might be picked up on forums or blogs, and the link to your website will remain in place, but that’s already a different matter.
This is basically how you will learn to quickly evaluate any traffic technique. Again here is the list that highlights these factors:
1) What’s the amount of time/money required
2) What amount of traffic will you obtain per unit of time/money
3) What type of traffic (residual/flashflood) does the technique generate
4) Are there any hidden benefits or problems?
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