If you want to attract visits to your blog, posting about a celebrity will spike your hit count for a short period, but blogging about a train will get you a steady stream of visitors.
Addendum: David Carr, of the New York Times, has a column in today's business section about his experience as a blogger. He has the following trenchant observation about having a blog: "[T]hink of [the blog] as a large yellow Labrador: friendly, fun, not all that bright, but constantly demanding your attention."
As I was still chuckling over that, however, I came to this chilling quotation from New York University professor Clay Shirky, with whom Mr. Carr was discussing blogging: "There is an obsessive, dollhouse pleasure in configuring and looking at it, a constant measure of social capital."
I could say more, but it's time to go check my Sitemeter.
Hit counts:
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to figure out how to work certain "hot button" phrases into my posts, for instance: anel secks. I figure the misspelling increases the probability of a hit, because the same people who are misspelling a banal search like that are the same people who think they're going to find anything topical on my blog.
On the other hand, there's the whole issue of attracting people to your blog that you'd like to stick around. I'm thinking your strategy works better for that purpose.
Though, I dunno - I imagine that if I find a way to weave "gerrilla lezbo secks" into a post, somebody very unusual, and interesting at least in a clinical sense, is bound to show up.
I'm going to try the train thing...
ReplyDeleteTrains are good. And, there's lots of action in your neck of the woods - all those old B&O, C&O and N&W lines serving the mines and hauling freight along the Kanawha Valley.
ReplyDeleteannals of sects?
ReplyDeleteOh hell, why not go straight for the porn?
I find that book reviews get a lot of strangers. One or two have even stopped to read a second post. (Whoopeee!)
And those are good observations. Check your sitemeter, I think I'll go cry in my soup.
K
Ah Keifus, I believe you've hit on the sitemeter goldmine here: reviews of porn.
ReplyDeleteMy thought was more along the lines of, people who misspell are also likely to make that low-probability click. Which I thought was really witty. However, I remember this dream where I was standing in a crowded room, the only one laughing at my jokes, everyone else avoiding eye-contact...
Oh wait, I'm awake.
Damn, but I hate it when that happens.
I tried the train thing but didn't get much of a jolt. Maybe a celebrity train thing might work...
ReplyDelete