4 Lessons from Matt Drudge on Serving Your Audience

Quick: what’s black and white, ignores SEO, scoffs at design best practices and is one of the most wildly successful websites in history?

If you guessed Craigslist.org you earn partial credit (only because their SEO is formidable). If you guessed DrudgeReport.com, congratulations, you go the lightning round.

A recent article by David Carr on NYTimes.com tells the story of how a one-time CBS gift-shop employee became one of the most powerful influencers on the web through smart, fast, and precise aggregation of news content.

DrudgeReport.com is a bigger referrer of traffic to news sites than the collective 500 million people on Facebook, according to data from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

But how was this influential empire built? Of course through the blood, sweat, tears, news acumen and elbow grease of its founder Matt Drudge, but also by bucking trends and sticking to an approach that worked.

Here are 4 lessons content marketers can learn from Matt Drudge:

1. Keep it simple.

Figure out what you’re going to deliver to your audience and do only that. Find your niche and guard it with your life by out-serving every competitor in your space.

“In the last 14 years, there have been no big redesigns, no big rollout of new features and no staffing up to provide original content. The initial site, designed to load quickly in the age of dial-up modems, remains relatively untouched,” writes Carr.

2. Don’t add obstacles.

Respect your audience’s time, patience, and experience. Don’t make them jump through hoops design-wise or nickel-and-dime them in the name of revenue. Those are short-term tactics.

3. Hone your differentiating skill.

Determine your competitive advantage over your competition and focus on developing it as best as you can. What makes you different can make you great. Hone it.

“He does one thing and he does it particularly well,” says Politico co-founder John F. Harris.

4. Ignore fads, trends, and everything but your gut.

Everyone’s adding a Flash rotator? Great, let them. Sites without social plugins are irrelevant to today’s market? Bummer, I’ll break the news to my millions of visitors.

From the looks of it, DrudgeReport.com could have been built in 1997 (in fact it was). There’s no flashy graphics, image rotators or videos. It’s plain HTML with simple links and small images.

It doesn’t try to keep up with the changing times – it’s too busy quietly and powerfully setting the news agenda instead.

DrudgeReport.com has ignored the battles and is winning the war.

http://www.seomkt.com bbrian017

I went and checked out their website. I’ll be the first to admit it’s extremely boring and to be honest I think it could benefit from some cosmetic changes. I guess my opinion is like this because I’m pretty new to the web so every website I use is all geared up with a nice design etc…

I agree however on not changing because if their readers like this type of environment changing it could take away from what the reader to perceive it’s current benefit or value.

Interesting article sure makes you think of the possibilities and drawbacks of change. I guess change isn’t always a good thing.
- http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly
  
  I think this case draws back to the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It’s tempting to employ the latest and greatest (especially as it pertains to web design) but sometimes it’s a step backward.
  
  DrudgeReport.com is great because it loads fast and quickly gives me what I want. Sure, I don’t fawn over its beauty, but that’s because I’m already clicking to a new article.
  
  Thanks for the comment, Brian!
http://www.expatlifecoach.com/blog john Falchetto

Drudge is an interesting case. Yes the design sucks, but what he does he just does it very well. I guess you could say the same about Seth’s blog.

Content over design. Does it work for your average blogger though?
I guess spending more time focusing on content rather than the size of the font on the header and the color of the sidebar is probably the key.

Designers won’t love you but your audience will thank you for delivering value.

Thanks Andrew for this post, I am redesigning my site and this is a great reminder.
- http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly
  
  Looking forward to seeing the redesign, John. Thanks for dropping by with a comment.
  
  I think you’ve hit on a key point: are you designing for designers, or are you designing for your every day audience? Unless your audience is made up of designers, I think you definitely need to pick substance over form and make sure you’re getting your audience what they came for as quickly as possible
Chris

I think Drudge took web design lessons from Warren Buffett.
- http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly
  
  I think they’re old drinking buddies.
http://lsgeekster.blogspot.com/ Kira Permunian

I visited the website and evaluate some parts of it using my SEO tools. Yes the site is simple yet I guess it has a problem with the on-page SEO. It is really effortless and maybe the age had helped it to rank well. N

Anyway, I loved the thought “Keep it simple.” and I absorbed your thoughts and tips mentioned in this article. Thank you.
- http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly
  
  I think it has definitely seen the benefits of age, but it also has a ton of inbound links, making it even more of an authority in the eyes of search engines. That said, so many people just bookmark or type in the URL “drudgereport.com” to start their day, so Matt is even less concerned about how he appears in the eyes of search engines.
  
  Thanks for dropping by with a great comment, Kira!
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4 Lessons from Matt Drudge on Serving Your Audience

1. Keep it simple.

2. Don’t add obstacles.

3. Hone your differentiating skill.

4. Ignore fads, trends, and everything but your gut.

Written by: Andrew Hanelly