Promote What, Bitches?!

Someone asked how you, or did they specifically mean I, promote a blog.

Pfft. I don't know much about it, really. I'm complacent on that front. If I spent half as much time selling myself half as well as I know I could, I'd be making a mint off this blogging shit. Trouble is, I much prefer the writing and couldn't give a fuck about the selling. Leaves me in a dubious position. But I remember once sitting on the sand on a beach in Oregon and thinking (then writing a promise to myself) that all I ever wanted to do was be able to write. I didn't want recognition, fame, fortune, anything. I just wanted to write. I'd been creatively blocked 5 years by then. Being creative and writing was all I ever wanted to do. Now being read is important to me, and while I'd love the money, I sometimes think public appreciation is more important. But the money would be nice. :)

Anyhow, how I first got hits, and how I first got an audience, was through commenting on blogs by people I respected -- and having something worth saying when doing so. You need to put a lot of thought into saying something entertaining or thought-provoking that is concise and catchy.

In the beginning, I did what more esteemed bloggers frown upon (and now that I have a decent readership, I see it happening on my blogs) and that's hotlinking in their comments to their own blogs. It's seen as cheap and petty, and most good bloggers feel they're being used when it happens to them. When I was doing it, I didn't realize that was the perception. At least I was original about it and used to sign off with "Rise up and stab them with your plastic forks!"

Besides, when my comments were once in a blue moon as good as they get, the hits came. And you won't get hits from comments praising writing or saying something about yourself. Use good anecdotes, and funny appeals more than anything else, I found.

You need to track your statistics with a hits counter, and don't obsess about the number -- obsess about where you're generating hits. When hits materialize, somewhere you're doing the right thing.

I've been paying a little more attention to my own hits on the other blog and I'm concerned, because more than half my traffic is being generated through one specific image (and I know it's the image because the text is less than 300 words). That's worrisome because all I need to have happen is have that image slip in Google's image search for whatever term they've been seeking it with, or have the gods of Flickr deem it unworthy and remove it. I'd be far happier if my top hit-generating pages were coming as a result of links through others' blogs and such. But on the upside, people are fickle and blogs disappear and postings become untimely. Having my traffic generate through a public archive like Flickr is probably the most desirable thing, now that I think of it, as what's popular in a group of people will probably continually repopulate the site and grow in hits generation. (You think? Thoughts on this internal debate of mine?)

Then you need to join all the blog-ranking sites and put ranking tools (like my "smutty brilliance" link and such on the other place) on your page to ensure people are finding you.

You can also use tags, which I've never really understood. I don't use them and perhaps should, but hey. However, when I write, I'm like a pop-trivia nutbar. I throw the weirdest analogies out there and I name drop a decent amount, so I get some pretty obscure search results from people looking for random things. I write about everything under the sun and have a decent vocabulary, and I think the pop trivia angle and the wide scope has me landing better on search engines at times. Beats the shit out of Missy writing about her pissy coworker again and how she was 45 minutes late for the bus to the concert last night. (Go to a concert, then mention who and where, not just the concert, y'know? It's about being found on search engines in the midst of those 75 million+ blogs, baby.) Keywords are important, and I could do well to learn more about them and slyly slip them in amongst other topic streams. K-Fed!

And then I'm sure there's much more you can do -- like writing about someone else's work and ensuring they see it in case they want to address your thoughts and give you a link back, et al. It's a little underhanded, but it works. Most people are glad to have had your link, so.

But, shit, man... It all comes down to posting. Have something worth saying, write well, but most importantly, write one hellalot. If you're not posting 4, 5, 6, 7 or more times in a week, you'd better be pretty fucking special to carry off your blog when it's only refreshed once every week or two.

And don't do what I do, which is fill space with lameass postings when nothing better's coming to ya. Weirdly, I've been getting much more traffic since doing so. ;)