You Feelin' Funny?

Oddly enough, one of the ways to increase your popularity online is to tickle the funny bone. Any comedian will tell you this sounds easier than it is, but even a blind squirrel will find a nut now and again.

It only takes one time for your content to virally spread across the web to reward your efforts. People want a reason to connect with you, something worth sharing with their friends. Boring stats that prove a point might get some limited attention but have one truly funny video and your link campaign will take on a life of its own.

Now before you run out to buy a video camera, this idea can embrace humor in all its natural forms. Videos yes, but also cartoons, animations (and these don’t have to be high tech) jokes, or the other things you might share with your friends or coworkers. The Readers Digest is a great example. It is built for a quick read in our busy lives. In every issue of the magazine, they include some quick humor sections. If there is a little space at the end of an article they fill it with a joke.

One of the other brilliant things the Readers Digest has done is get readers to send in their own jokes and stories. Online we would call this User Generated Content. What makes this a great idea is that you don’t have to think this stuff up all by yourself. That’s a good thing. Mitch Hedberg, (a very funny guy) used to tell about how he had to keep a pad and pencil close by in case he thought of something funny. If it was too much effort to reach for the pad and pencil, Mitch would have to convince himself that the joke wasn’t that funny.

As I indicated above the tough part is being funny. If you don’t have the resources available to hire your own cartoonist or writers it does not mean you cannot use this. You can ask the people around you, employees, family to be on the look out for good material. Have them keep notes about funny things they hear or see. Give rewards for material you can use, if other people see a nice gift being handed out they’ll work harder for you.

My office people have incentive to share anything funny they hear during phone conversations with customers. The stories and notes are great inspiration for content. Plus from time to time it helps us fine tune the information we have on the website. If we have say directions or instructions that keep getting a funny reaction it can mean we need to make our content more broadly understandable.

For instance if you sell a line of clothing and you get feed back from customers that indicate they are putting the clothes on inside out. Well, yes it is funny. But maybe your instructions need a little work. Bill Engvall (another very funny guy) has a whole routine about the things manufacturers put on their products. Like Hemorrhoid Cream is not intended to be take orally. Funny? Yes, but no doubt customer service got a few calls before this was added to the packaging.

Funny signs are another source of great content. These days with every cell phone having a camera, it is easier than ever to snap a shot of something funny. These little shots are made for web posting and sharing funny.

Better yet get your visitors involved. Have the visitors to your website share their own funny stories or pictures. User Generated Content is a great way to get people sharing your website too. If they know you have posted something they found funny they will be sure to tell every one they know. Thinking up funny stuff on your own is good. Making others feel recognized will get you farther faster and since this is all about getting your website noticed isn’t that a better idea?

Another idea that can supplement user generated content is to offer those people that have submitted content a badge that can be pasted on to their own website.

Build It To Spread Easily

Under each of your many funny pieces of content, be sure to provide the “Copy and Paste” code to make it easy for users to share in email or from their own websites. This also makes it more convenient to point to your page than it would be to scrape it and paste on their own.

If You Build It, They Will Come

More importantly they will keep coming and they will bring their friends and along with them comes new people checking out the rest of your site which leads to more customers.

One note in closing. It is important to remember your potential customer is the goal. Remember, business is business. Just because I think it’s funny, if it offends a potential customer than it’s probably not worth it. Once you post it, taking it back is almost impossible so just take an honest look at it first. Research online. Look at what types of material are being used successfully by others.

If you need help with promoting your website, we would love to talk with you. At A SEO Pro, we have years of online business experience. Put our team to work getting your website better Search Ranking.

With this in mind, have you seen a website that works so poorly it's comical?

Do you wish you could share your funny findings with others?

Well here's your big shot at fame.

Send us what you have found, what you found funny about it and we agree we'll post it here. It can be a funny photo, something that just doesn't fit, navigation that is impossible to figure out, whatever as long as it's funny.

Please keep them family friendly if you want to see them here.

If we can post it on our site we will let you know by email so you can tell all your friends that you are famous.

Following my own advice
If you want to share this info with someone
simply copy and paste the code below on your website

<a href="http://www.aseopro.com"><img style="border: 0;" src="http://www.aseopro.com/images/GetFound.jpg" alt="Get Your Website Found, A SEO Pro " /></a>

It will put this handsome button with a link back here