We work a lot in the music space and as such, with many music editorial websites – AOL, Rollingstone.com, etc, etc. This space is fairly unique because there is so much content. There is way more content than anybody ever cares to check out or listen to. In the grand scale of exciting editorial content, music is not the top of the food chain. The new iPad is way more interesting and whatever TechCrunch is posting is way more interesting than anything Coldplay or some artist you’ve never heard of is doing.
As such, there are two ways to bring in organic traffic. In the first, a website picks an audience to cater to and posts content relevant to that audience. They build the audience overtime by giving them content that their readers are genuinely interested in and share with their buddies thus bringing in more traffic. In this scenario, the individual post isn’t as important. The average user reads more posts and subscribes to the lifestyle the website is selling. Pitchfork followed this model. This is why they’re able to break bands. Their readership is generally interested in what Pitchfork posts and trusts the site to filter content on the web to post content relevant to them.
