How to use fake news to promote a website
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
This has been the mantra of the UK tabloid press for years and it makes for very entertaining reading, taken with a pinch of salt.
Let’s take a look first at Nick Coates who last year made The Sun and Daily Mail (aged just 17) with a story about him turning down £8.5 million for a website that didn’t look to have any traffic at all. After the publicity the site was worth 100 times the original amount (still not £8.5 million of course).
Then there was Alex Tew and his milliondollarhomepage.com which was picked up by the BBC and every other website in the world. Do you really think Alex sold any pixels before his PR company started pitching the idea to newspapers? In reality he probably gave the first 200,000 away and then made his money on the final slots. The story was in the fact a young student had made loads of money even though he probably hadn’t.
You need to fake it until you make it whether you are marketing online or offline.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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Thats what all the rich people alive did! They faked.Great post!
Exposure is still exposure whether it’s a good or bad. It is one of those techniques that one should practice but of course you always longing for a good exposure to get well-known in different industry.
I’d totally forgotten about that million dollar webpage, that was a crazy time. Wonder what the kid is doing now?
(I’m setting myself up there, as he’s probably very famous and I just don’t know it!)
This is nothing new – it’s the old story about reporters inventing a scoop, just ported to teh Internet….