Give ‘em What They Want

So, a little while back, I got to complaining about those folks who pop onto my blog here in search of information on b10-data sheets.  (Yes, that’s code, so this post doesn’t show up in the searches; from now on, I’ll refer to it as “BD”.)

If you missed that post somehow, the gist of it is this: I get a lot of traffic for folks seeking information on BDs.  I don’t know why.  One time, I asked how someone constructs one, what it was, etc., because I was applying for a job with a company as a writer of some kind (tech writer, I think).  They wanted writing samples, and all I had was some of my fiction … which probably isn’t appropriate to the task.  I needed to put some together, and one of the suggestions the company offered in their posting was a BD.  Okay, I thought, what the heck is that and how do I write one?

Well, I put out a call for some input here on my blog and got a couple of helpful pointers.  Next thing I know, I’m getting hits for BDs … not just professional ones, but personal ones used for marriage proposals.  Now, I’m not going to do any sort of cultural commentary here about why you have to submit a resume to propose marriage.  To each their own.  But I got tired of having so many search terms come up that way and that post be so popular for one lousy statement, which didn’t provide what they needed.

In jest, I got off my rump and did a Google search.  I compiled as much information as I could find, included the links to relevant sites, and made all manner of disclaimers.  In short, I caved and gave the masses what they wanted.  The traffic on my blog went up over the next couple of weeks, and anywhere from a third to a half of my hits now are from people searching out BD information.

All well and good, but I’m tired of catering to that crowd on a blog that’s not about that, never was, never wanted to be.  So I thought about moving it.  I didn’t do it last weekend for laziness’s sake.  But yesterday, I finally made the plunge.  I used to keep a free web site over on a defunct host called FreeWebs.  They’ve since become Webs.com, and they’ve done a lot to improve the joint.  So I went over, decided against using my existing account to host the BD stuff, and started a new site.  I copied all the information over, with all the links, re-did all the specifics so we have live links instead of text code, and voila! – a new BD-specific site lives.

The nice thing is, I could register the site with Google, Yahoo, and include SEO site tags.  I put the description in.  And I enabled (finally! stupid thing) the stats counter.  Then, I went over to my BD main page, put in a notice of site change, and now, I’m watching for the hits to gradually move over there.  (This may not happen until I don’t physically have the information on this site anymore.)  And, for a traffic whore like me, this is going to sting … seeing all that traffic, all those hits, go somewhere else and watching my little bouncing hit-counter ball drop?  Oh yeah. Hard to do.

So, that’s my big news for the weekend.  It took me about half an hour to do it all told; the site builder there is really terrific and easy to use.  It’s not going to have the power or flexibility of a pay site, but for free?

Hey, I’m all about the cheap and free, baby.

So go check it out and let me know what you think.  Here’s the link.

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

Cutting Our Darlings

Writers are familiar with the phrase which titles this post.  It generally refers to our writing, wherein we’re being encouraged to cut stories, trim them, get them lean and strong for submission.  Remove what’s not relevant and strengthen what is.  But now, I’m thinking of applying the expression to this blog and its content.

I’ve told you before about how I’m popular in India because of my bio-data posts.  Those are, without doubt, the most traffic-generating items on my blog.  A couple of times, I’ve had my own weekday posts outstrip the CV information in popularity, but not consistently.  More often than not, the marriage requirements in south central Asia keep beating a path to my door.

I’m okay with that, for the most part.  Well … I’ve made my peace with it, at least.  But it’s one of those things I did as a cave-in to the search terms I saw on my blog.  Rather than just letting the search term turn up nothing, in my frustration with constantly getting the search hits for something I mentioned in passing, I spent the better part of a day at work (yeah, I worked then) pulling as much information about marriage bio-data CVs together as I could, from as many sources as I found credible, and compiled it here with as many links as I thought viable at the time.

It worked.  My hits started going nuts.  Before long, I became one of the top searches for “marriage bio-data” on Google, along with a couple of other related searches.  I’m near the top for most of them, and not much deeper than the third page on the weaker ones.

Now, that traffic accounts for most of what I get here on my blog.  Which means I don’t really know what my blog is doing with active readers as opposed to random searchers seeking love via resume.  I guess that’s not really a problem, but it did bring something to my attention I hadn’t thought of before:

What if I move that stuff off to its own blog?

I wouldn’t have to update it, could take down all the comment capability, and could just generally let it fly all on it’s own and forget it.  Doing so would give a much better idea what traffic I’m seeing here on my personal posts, and what interest lies with what topics.

I don’t know if I can live with watching my line graph go into the crapper though.  My hits now are pretty consistently over a hundred a day, but how much of that is traffic to this single topic, in which no one else has interest?

What do you all think?  Should I move that stuff away to its own blog and let this blog’s hits rely on you, my faithful readers?  Or should I leave well enough alone and STFU?

Sound off, y’all.  I’d like to know.

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

Traffic Patterns and Blogging

Image by cambodia4kidsorg via Flickr

So it must be wedding season in south-central Asia.

I can tell, because most of the time, my daily posts will outstrip the posts about bio-data information during the week, then lag behind over the weekend when I’m not posting.  It’s always neck-and-neck, down to the wire, but my posts are usually more popular in terms of views on a daily basis than the bio stuff.

Not so lately, though.  This week, the wedding resumes are more popular by a fair stretch.  Today (as I write this, which is a Wednesday), it’s a 33% margin of lead.

I get over a hundred views a day now pretty consistently, but I owe most of that to the personal and professional bio-data information I compiled last year.  If I remove that from my blog (and don’t think I haven’t considered it), I wonder where I’ll end up?  Probably something more akin to what I have on my fiction blog (which ain’t much, rarely more than five and never consistent).

It’s been sort of tricky for me to figure out what would drive traffic to my blog over the time I’ve been interested in that.  For one thing, I don’t have a consistent topic about which I blog.  For another, my search terms were always slanted toward the personal CV stuff because I mentioned it in a post once.  Since it was ticking me off, I decided to give ‘em what they want, and now, I have no other search terms at all bringing people to my blog.

Nothing wrong with being focused, I guess, and having a targeted audience.  That just isn’t the one I wanted.

Here’s a few things, if you’re interested, that I found in my research to drive traffic to your blog:

1. Comment on other blogs.  Folks who see your comments around the blogosphere will follow you home, so to speak.
2. Join a forum.  Got a hobby or interest you like blogging about?  Find a forum about that topic, comment and post, and put your blog address in your signature.  Voila, more hits.
3. Put your blog address in your signature on your emails and anywhere else you might correspond or be seen.  Your Twitter profile for instance, or your Facebook or MySpace page.
4. Make sure you link to other blogs similar to yours or of interest to you and your intended audience.  Also communicate with similarly targeted bloggers and see about exchanging links and link-backs.
5. Make use of ping sites like Technorati.
6. Add chicklets to your blog for sites like Technorati, Reddit, Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.
7. Put an RSS feed button on your blog.

Just some general items you can use to pull some traffic your way.

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I’m Huge in India, Yo

Image via CrunchBase

I have a big contingent of hits on my blog from India.

Know why?

Yeah, you know why.  (If you seriously don’t know, check here.)

But I have hits from all over the place.  I have my buddy HalfCrazy in the Philippines, and Annie up in Canada.  I even got a hit from the southern tip of Africa, though my ridiculous hit-counter map didn’t tell WHERE in Africa (looks like somewhere in South Africa, but my geography’s REALLY rusty, so who knows?).  I’ve got views from the UK, and from Europe, but I can’t top the US and India for my hits.

No one in China likes me, apparently.  Japan either.  I’ve had visitors from Australia and New Zealand, too, but nothing recently.  I just don’t have worldwide appeal.  Big surprise there, huh?

South America?  Nope,  No appeal.

I did get a hit from Central America – Nicaragua, to be precise.  And I know once in a while my buddy Damyanti will come by from Malaysia and say hello.  So I have at least one interested party in that neck of the woods.

The Russians don’t care what I have to say, either.  I don’t seem to appeal to the middle eastern bloc either.  Go figure on THAT one too.  Heh.

What about you?  What exotic visitors have you had to your blog?  What’s your worldwide appeal like?  Most of you have some sort of visit tracking widget on your blog, be it the MapLoco utility like mine, SiteMeter’s tools, or whatever.  Where does the bulk of your traffic come from, and what’s the farthest-flung reach you’ve managed?

Sound off, y’all.

God bless,
-JDT-

Weird Search Terms and Weekend Updates

Well, folks, weekend at last.  Thank GOD.

Y’know that Teriyaki chicken I was going to make last weekend?  Well, I’m making it this weekend instead.  I couldn’t do it last weekend for a number of different reasons, not the least of which was lack of time.  So, this weekend, I took steps to prepare in advance.