Chasing the Ratings (how to bring traffic to your blog) Part 2.
I stopped taking pictures on holidays when I realised that instead of enjoying the sights, and taking it all in, I was seeing the beauty through the lens of a camera.
Experiencing it all through a viewfinder. Which I came to appreciate was not much better that watching it all from home on my big screen TV.
So I put down the camera and looked around, for real and began to notice the little things. After decades of travelling I was finally actually there. All of me, tasting the food, taking in the smells and scents, and breathing the air.
The addiction of having a successful site, is very much like that.
While the blog represents a fantastic opportunity to speak your mind and speak out against the "man". It allows you to invite friends, and random strangers to wonder around the often dark recesses of your mind. It is cathartic and a real rush, and it adds sparkle to an otherwise dull existence. In its purest form, it is the modern day soap box that allows the specialists and degree-challenged to express themselves as equals.
Then if you are true to yourself, really guts and gore, honest, and ernest, people will begin to notice.
The ratings inevitably begin to pick up and suddenly, you are invincible, superman on his best day, with the wind in his back.
And you are seduced by the numbers.
The sexy statistics that tell you that tons of people in Ukraine, took the time to read your work. The only country that seems immune your ideas live in China. You immediately wave that off with the explanation that the "great Firewall" was the only reason that those billion people were not bowing like everyone else.
Then overnight it all about the ratings. The page visits become the only reason you blog and everything you write, is adapted, and tuned for maximum appeal to the search engines and the silly pre-teen masses who are the real voters out there.
So you include high value search tags, (like how to bring traffic to your blog) and a little cute and fluff to attract and keep the voting demographic.
The blood and guts, whiskey and cigar, rough and ready approach to life is replaced with botox and crap.
It would be poetic, if at this point the ratings took a dive. If the minute that you lost your integrity, it all went down the crapper.
But life is odd, in that people love the crap, they revel in your fall from grace.
The public loves to see someone crash and burn. Train wrecks, make for brilliant copy. The more depraved you become, the higher the ratings climb. You increase your contribution, from "once in a while" to "twice a day", and the work is so watered down that its almost tap water.
And the ratings continue to soar.
You are now getting more hits in a day than you did in a year, and all it does, is drive you to double the numbers, again.
Day after day.
Hell Yes, it is an addiction.
And while you bask in the spotlight, it is a hollow moment, because you know that the work is crap, and that you rolled over, for the man.
Your original body of work still exists, standing apart from the current glossy slick pieces, and they stand in judgment of you.
Experiencing it all through a viewfinder. Which I came to appreciate was not much better that watching it all from home on my big screen TV.
So I put down the camera and looked around, for real and began to notice the little things. After decades of travelling I was finally actually there. All of me, tasting the food, taking in the smells and scents, and breathing the air.
The addiction of having a successful site, is very much like that.
While the blog represents a fantastic opportunity to speak your mind and speak out against the "man". It allows you to invite friends, and random strangers to wonder around the often dark recesses of your mind. It is cathartic and a real rush, and it adds sparkle to an otherwise dull existence. In its purest form, it is the modern day soap box that allows the specialists and degree-challenged to express themselves as equals.
Then if you are true to yourself, really guts and gore, honest, and ernest, people will begin to notice.
The ratings inevitably begin to pick up and suddenly, you are invincible, superman on his best day, with the wind in his back.
And you are seduced by the numbers.
The sexy statistics that tell you that tons of people in Ukraine, took the time to read your work. The only country that seems immune your ideas live in China. You immediately wave that off with the explanation that the "great Firewall" was the only reason that those billion people were not bowing like everyone else.
Then overnight it all about the ratings. The page visits become the only reason you blog and everything you write, is adapted, and tuned for maximum appeal to the search engines and the silly pre-teen masses who are the real voters out there.
So you include high value search tags, (like how to bring traffic to your blog) and a little cute and fluff to attract and keep the voting demographic.
The blood and guts, whiskey and cigar, rough and ready approach to life is replaced with botox and crap.
It would be poetic, if at this point the ratings took a dive. If the minute that you lost your integrity, it all went down the crapper.
But life is odd, in that people love the crap, they revel in your fall from grace.
The public loves to see someone crash and burn. Train wrecks, make for brilliant copy. The more depraved you become, the higher the ratings climb. You increase your contribution, from "once in a while" to "twice a day", and the work is so watered down that its almost tap water.
And the ratings continue to soar.
You are now getting more hits in a day than you did in a year, and all it does, is drive you to double the numbers, again.
Day after day.
Hell Yes, it is an addiction.
And while you bask in the spotlight, it is a hollow moment, because you know that the work is crap, and that you rolled over, for the man.
Your original body of work still exists, standing apart from the current glossy slick pieces, and they stand in judgment of you.
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