Cameron Olthuis

Brian Provost wrote a great article outlining 8 simple steps for building traffic for your Internet startup. Here is his list…

1. Defensible traffic
2. Buy good domain names
3. Hire competent Internet people
3 a. Hold off on hiring MBA’s
4. Understand the cost of traffic
5. Build links
6. Engage your community
7. Engage social media
8. Push, pull, prod, and poke marketing

I’d like to add another one.

9. Usability - Nothing will keep a visitor from returning to your site more than poor usability. If they can’t figure out the value prop or how to use the site then you’ve just lost that person that you worked so hard to attract. And chance are they won’t ever return. It also helps if you have something of value in the first place.

My friend Jennifer Laycock who runs Search Engine Guide and The Lactivist has been threatened by the National Pork Board for selling a shirt that says “the other white milk”. The reason they are threatening to sue her is because they think she is violating their trademark “the other white meat”.

Sure, female breasts are plump and juicy but who the hell is going to think of pork when they see a slogan like that? Come on. Obviously just another case of big corporation trying to bully the little guy. Well they obviously don’t know what they just got themselves into but they’ll soon learn their lesson, you just don’t mess with the blogosphere. We fight back and in the end it will be a big loss for the pigs, or maybe it’s a win for them (the little piggys) since less of them will be slaughtered in the coming weeks.

I’ve boycotted pork for years because beef just simply tastes better, but now I have another reason. If you want to help consider emailing the following folks…

Jeff Hartz - Director of Marketing Communications
(515) 223-2629 JHartz@pork.org

Joy Johnson - Vice President Marketing
(515) 223-2631 jjohnson@pork.org

Michael Wegner - Vice President Communications
(515) 223-2638 MWegner@pork.org

Teresa Roof - Public Relation Manager
(515) 223-2616 troof@pork.org