10 Great Ideas to Bring More Traffic to Your Blog

10 Great Ideas to Bring More Traffic to Your Blog

When I started this blog, over two years ago now, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t understand why people wrote blogs, or what made one blog more popular that another, or why anyone reads blogs at all. I never read blogs myself. I have better things to do with my time, and feel terribly sad for those who don’t.

After a couple of years in the blogosphere, however, I have discovered that the key to understanding the blog phenomena, and to blogging successfully lies in understanding one critical fact. That fact is, people are idiots.

Yes, the web is full of suckers, in fact, the web was designed for suckers, and these suckers roam the web looking for something to suck on. If you want them to suck your blog, the first thing you have to do is:

1. Think like an idiot. If you visit the web’s most popular blogs, you’ll find yourself wondering, “Who would be stupid enough to read this tripe?” The answer is that among today’s, “media savvy” content consumers, you won’t find many with an IQ higher than your average hamster. Intelligent people think for themselves, based on their own experience, and learn from doing things themselves. Consequently, intelligent people have little use for the internet, and spend very little time online.

2. Create the illusion that you are providing useful information. Your blog should look, on first glance, as though it might really supply something useful or insightful. Of course it doesn’t, because if you knew how to do anything, you would have something better to do that write a blog.

3. State your opinion. Like the old saying goes: opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and mostly they’re full of shit. Chances are, your stupid opinion falls somewhere on the continuum of idiocy between flaming liberal and lock and load libertarian. So, no matter how pea-brained, ill-considered or moronic your opinion, most idiots will either agree, or disagree with it. This encourages “reader engagement”, and soon your blog will overflow with stupid comments.

4. Celebrity endorsements. Sure, it would be great if you could convince a major celebrity to endorse your blog, but you probably don’t know any major celebrities, and they will never return your calls because they have better things to do than read your stupid blog. Instead, to increase traffic at your blog, I suggest that you endorse some celebrities For instance, I wholeheartedly endorse Mylee Cyrus’ decision to go braless.

5. Find a way to inject some T and A into your blog. Sure, sexualized images are exploitative and degrading, besides that, they are cruel, but if it weren’t for exploitative, degrading and cruel uses of technology, we’d all still live in teepees and hunt bears with stone tipped spears. Adding T+A to your blog is as close as you can come to directly injecting your readers with drugs. Sure it’s great if people enjoy your writing, but to keep them coming back, you want them to physically desire your blog.

6. Ask a provocative question that keeps people hanging until they click on a link. For instance: Is this a picture of Tom Hanks diseased penis? Click here to find out.

7. Write about famous brand name products, like this: McDonald’s to open luxury drive through lane for Lexus owners serving Crystal champagne and Absolut Vodka bloody marys. Not only are brand names like Starbucks, GAP and KFC some of the few words that idiots rarely misspell, brand name companies tend to google themselves a lot.

8. Use lots of photographs. Idiots don’t have much of an attention span. The quickest way to get them to leave your site is to post a whole page of text without a single picture, and the best way to get an idiot to read the copy you write, is to insert an intriguing, but inscrutable photograph into it.

9. Lists. 5 reasons lists work:

   1. Eliminate the need for pesky context

   2. Suit short attention spans

   3. No need to index

   4. Easy to pad out

   5. No need to think in complete sentences

10. Offer to help people attract more traffic to their website. Everyone wants more traffic at their website. They don’t care where it comes from, or how it got there. When it comes to web traffic, more is always better. You’ll never know if people actually read your post, but on the web, all that really matters is that they looked at the page. If, after reading a sentence or two, they decide to go looking for something else, that counts as much as someone who read every word, so all you really need is a title that sucks people in, followed by a bunch of blah… blah… blah…

Try these ten tips and see if they don’t dramatically improve the stats on your blog.

A Didgeridoo Diversion

 

A Didgeridoo Diversion

Remember the old TV variety shows? They always used musical numbers to pad out the funny stuff. Well I thought I would borrow a page from their playbook, and use this new video I shot of me playing electric didgeridoo to pad out this weeks post. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Come hear me play at the North Country Fair in Arcata, CA on Saturday September 21 and Sunday September 22 on the North Stage from 10:30 to 11:45AM both days, and please “like” my fb page.  It will keep you up to date on future appearances.  Thanks!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Hardin-Electric-Didgeridoo/345710938798286

Word Power; Misology

 

Word Power

 

Building Your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

 

Misology

 

 

misology (miz olleh gee) n hatred of argument, reason or enlightenment

 

 

Usually the suffix “ology” at the end of a word means “science of” whatever the first part of the word refers to. In this case, however, “misology” does not refer to the science of hatred, but rather the hatred of science.

 

 

Personally, I enjoy a good argument. I don’t go out of my way to start them, and I do my best to avoid them at parties or other social events, but I find debate invigorating and I’m open to having my mind changed by a thoughtful and well reasoned position.

I don’t think that argument is necessarily a great way to uncover the truth of a matter, but I still find them a worthwhile intellectual exercise.

 

Many people however, find any dispute distasteful. They want harmony and positivity at all times. Strong opinions, controversial ideas and differing perspectives make them uncomfortable, and will likely provoke a hostile response. For them, small talk is big enough, I guess.

 

Where’s Godzilla When You Really Need Him?

Where’s Godzilla When You Really Need Him?

The Professor suggested that I write something about the recent revelations from Tepco about the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. What humor could I possibly find in the worst industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind? How about:

What’s the difference between Tepco and Bradley Manning?

Bradley Manning saved innocent civilians by leaking secret information to the press, while Tepco killed innocent civilians by keeping information about the leak secret from the press.

Or how about…

What do Tepco and Jorma Kaukonen have in common?

They both produced Hot Tuna.

How many Tepco employees does it take to change a light bulb?

Two, a janitor to hold the bulb up to the socket, and the CEO to screw the whole world around it.

There’s a start, I guess.

When faced with an overwhelming situation like Fukushima, it can help to look on the bright side. For instance…

A glowing ocean means people can now surf at night.

Now you can use your Geiger counter to locate nearby sushi restaurants.

Fish enthusiasts will find new mutant species for their marine aquariums

Pacific seafood now comes out of the water pre-cooked

See, even though the Fukushima nuclear meltdown has become an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, it’s not all bad news. In fact, the Fuk Nuke Puke will create tremendous economic opportunities for people who know how to take advantage of them. For example, there’s never been a better time to become a pediatric oncologist. The pay is great, and you’ll be up to your eyeballs in bald six-year-olds in no time.

You know what they say, “When GE sells you a lemon of a nuclear reactor, make the ocean into radioactive lemonade.”

Word Power; Insessorial

Word Power;

Building your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

Insessorial

insessorial (in seh ‘sore ee ehl) adj perching, or adapted for perching

OK, we have a word, a nice adjective that they probably use often in the field of ornithology. I think you might find it useful in other circumstances as well. I don’t think I’ve ever come across it in context before, but when I stumbled across it in my dictionary I thought it noteworthy.

When I looked “insessorial” up online, however, I found this definition which gives us a little more information about the ornithological origins of this word, and provides us with a curious example of the word’s use in literature.

What the fuck was Guy Davenport trying to say in 1974? I mean, I understand that Bruno is not lactating in order to provide nourishment for his coffee. I get the first half of this sentence. Bruno is standing by the fire slowly sipping his coffee, but what the fuck is going on in the last half of that sentence. Unless Bruno has a bantam rooster stuffed in his trousers, the last half of that sentence makes no sense.

I assume that by “cock” Guy Davenport means “penis”. Then you get to “snub and insessorial” which according to my dictionary must mean “short and perched like a bird”.

A penis does not perch like a bird. A penis can dangle, waggle, protrude, penetrate or flop, but it does not perch like a bird.

And where is Bruno’s penis allegedly perched? “…in the codpiece of his curt briefs” Briefs don’t have a “codpiece”. Suits of armor have codpieces. Trousers from the 15^th and 16^th century had codpieces, but not briefs in 1974. Briefs have a “hammock” or “pouch”, but not a “codpiece”, and they’re “briefs” for god’s sake, no need to tell us they are “curt”, or “short”. Have you ever seen long briefs?

So Bruno is standing around the fire, sipping coffee in his underwear. Guy Davenport, on the other hand has surrounded Bruno’s dick with flowery, nonsensical language, even though it, and in this case “it” can refer to either the penis or the language, is doing nothing.

All of this points to one thing. Someone, perhaps you, needs to find a better use for the word insessorial in writing.

It’s All About the Beer

It’s All About the Beer

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know that I am not a big fan of civilization. I don’t think civilization is an advancement, culturally, evolutionarily or technologically. Far from it. I have asserted that civilization has thus far been a 10,000 year wrong turn, and the biggest mistake in the million odd year history of humanity.

I believe we made that wrong turn, that dreadful detour to which we can trace all of the major crises that threaten our future, like overpopulation, global climate change, habitat loss, mass extinction, overfishing, etc. etc. to a historic period, roughly 10,000 years ago, known as “the agricultural revolution”, a period in which humans began a major shift away from a hunter/gatherer nomadic lifestyle, and towards a farming lifestyle in which people were much more tied to a single piece of land.

I asserted, in the piece titled Hello, My Name is Civilization, and I’m an Alcoholic (worth reading), that the so called “agricultural revolution”, as well as our entire cultural heritage since then, from written language, to the Old and New Testament, to science and mathematics, has been one disastrous 10,000 year drunken bender that resulted from the invention of beer.

If you thought I was pulling your leg, watch this documentary:

OK, now, the documentary claims that “Beer saved the World”, but while it ignores that disastrous consequences of civilization, like overpopulation, the environmental crisis etc. they point to plenty of evidence that proves my point.

At the end, you notice that as they look to the future, they discuss the challenges of taking beer into space. They don’t talk about how beer is going to solve global warming, slow down the exponential growth in human population or address the progressive desertification of planet Earth. No, instead they warn us that if we want to escape the hell-hole that our planet has become, we will have to learn to drink flat beer.

“Saving The World”, according to this documentary, means drinking flat beer in space. I think that counts as one of those futures where the living envy the dead.

You be the judge. Do you think, as human beings, we made better decisions before the invention of beer, or afterward?

Word Power; Toxophilite

Word Power; Toxophilite

Toxophilite (tock ‘soph eh light) n One fond of or expert at archery

Which reminds me of a particularly paradoxical toxophilite I once knew. A nationally ranked archer, expert and avid bow hunter, vegetarian and radical PETA activist, he also collected guns and military ephemera. I got to know him when we worked together at Greepeace. Interesting guy, played guitar pretty well too. It takes all kinds, I guess.

The Power of the Press

 

The Power of the Press

Today, I am especially grateful to all of the writers and editors of our local newspapers here in Humboldt County who helped save my most recent gig. First, I want to thank Jennifer Savage who has been covering the music beat for the North Coast Journal while Bob Doran recovers. Not only did Jennifer do a nice write up about my show, she reminded me to send a photograph, which would not have occurred to me if I hadn’t read her column. The Hum, the NCJ’s weekly music feature is the best single source for upcoming music events in our area, and it was great to see my picture prominently displayed there.

Kevin Hoover gave me a nice bit of ink in his colorful, and colorfully written paper, The Arcata Eye. Humboldt County’s only daily newspaper, the conservative Times Standard printed my entire 800 odd word press release almost verbatim in their Sunday edition, as did their SoHum sister paper, The (weekly) Redwood Times.

Not to be outdone, my favorite SoHum newspaper, the family owned, left-leaning, free, weekly paper The Independent printed two great stories about my little gig way up there in Eureka, in the weeks preceding the show, and listed it in the calendar section as well. Special thanks to Managing Editor Joe Kirby for going the extra mile.

Even the Tri-City Weekly, an oft ignored, but ever present collection of classified ads fluffed out with entertainment and human interest features, gave me a mention on their Calendar page. Counting the listing in the Arts Alive section of the North Coast Journal, that was a total of six newspapers, six stories, one picture, and nine listings in our local print media, for one little performance at a record store. The show had also been mentioned on one of KHSU’s most popular music shows, Fogou with Vinny Devaney, as well as on KMUD’s Community Callendar.

The biggest surprise in media coverage was a great piece by John Olson that appeared on the RadioHum Yahoo Group web site. John not only plugged my didgeridoo gig, but also mentioned the radio show that I host on KMUD on behalf of the Southern Humboldt Amateur Radio Club called The SHARC Report. Judging by the number of Hams that turned out for my gig, John’s piece clearly made an impact, and all of that coverage really saved the day for me. Besides putting my name and picture in front of thousands of people and luring some of them to come out to hear me play, that press actually saved the gig itself.

To me, as a musician, this little gig at the record store was a pretty big deal. It’s the only gig I have scheduled this month, and Arts Alive actually draws a pretty big crowd in Eureka. I knew that a lot of people would hear me play over the course of the evening. To most downtown business owners, however, Arts Alive is a pretty small part of running their business. Most business owners want to support local artists, and hate to say “no” to anyone who asks to show their work, or play in their establishment.

Bandon, owner of The Works Records in Eureka is especially supportive of local musicians, so when a personal friend of his asked him, just a few days before the Arts Alive event, if his band could also play at his record store on the same night, Bandon said “yes”, thinking that the two of us could split the three hours of Arts Alive.

Now you might think that an hour and a half of unaccompanied didgeridoo solos might be more than anyone should have to endure, but I very much wanted to play for the whole evening, knowing that there would be a completely different audience at 8:30 than at 6:30. I have two new CDs, and I wanted to make this event my CD release party for both of them. I intended to play two sets and demonstrate some of my circuit-bent instruments between sets. Like I said, this performance was a pretty big deal for me, and that’s why I pulled out all the stops on the press coverage.

My experience tells me that August is a good time to send out press releases because the news gets a little thin this time of year, but newspapers still have the same amount of space to fill, so items that might get ignored during busier times of the year, have a better shot at getting ink in August. Sure enough, every single paper I sent a release to, covered the story, and every single paper told its readers that I would be playing from 6:30 to 9:00pm.

So, when I checked in with Bandon on the day of the gig, I pressed my case. In a calculated assault, I began with a Savage blow, and dropped a copy of The Hum from the NCJ, that included that great picture taken by Traci Bear Thiele, in front of him, and let it sink in for a moment. Then I dropped the clipping from the Arcata Eye on top of it, followed by the piece in the Times Standard, The Independent, The Redwood Times, the second story from The Independent, and the Tri-City Weekly. Finally, I dropped a printout of John Olsen’s story from the HumRadio Yahoo Group, which was quite well written and flattering, Boom!

Bandon was overwhelmed. All of the clippings said that I would be playing from 6:30-9:00pm, none of them mentioned any other band playing at his venue that night. Bandon apologized for the mixup, called his friend and told them they could play at his store for Arts Alive next month, but their gig for that night was canceled. Success!

I got to play two sets, show off my circuit-bent creations and sell my CDs all night, as I had hoped. I had a great time, Bandon seemed happy about it, and the audience dug it too. It just goes to show you that despite the explosion of “new media”, newspapers still have clout, and Ham radio can still save your ass in times of emergency. Let that be a lesson to all of you seeking attention in the modern media landscape. Do not underestimate the power of newspapers to to change the course of history.