I'm in a good mood, I need to lol. I finally got google analytics to accept my xanga pages as me being the verified author, yay! But that's not why I did this. Please to reference this chart. Hopefully you can see it gigantic. And bear with me, there is a reason I'm using myself as a spectacle.
See that first one from bluejacky that has tag/weirdal in the web address? 74 clicks in the most recent 3 months when that link was coming up in the 70th position in engine searches, which would be on the 7th page of a google search. I'm not told what the actual search words were, but my bluejacky blog seems to come up consistently at the top of all the content I've ever put on the internet because of Weird Al. Since I never had google analytics before a month ago, I have no idea how long this has been going on, I only get a 3-month report unless I go premium or pro or whatever google is calling their pay-package. What do people see when they click that first link? THIS. I just made your day. You're welcome.
Moving on. Note that the second link down has gotten 11 clicks even though it doesn't show up until nearly the 10th google search page. At the bottom. It's been one of the hottest single surveys I've ever put on that blog, and now even though all the vid codes got screwed up and disappeared, it keeps getting hits. Again, I have no idea what search phrases lead to this, I suspect something naughty. I know, some of you are scoffing- 11 hits, omg this chick thinks she's something, what a maroon, but hang on. Before Xanga relaunched, I snagged the view counts on the surveys, just in case the tracker crashed (and it did). BOOYA (see below), not bad, huh? And that view count stopped Sept 1, 2013. No telling what it's at now. My blogs literally disappeared for two months during the server move. Google analytics is proof that it's still indexed out there, even after it got roughhoused onto new servers. By the way, that little box clicks to the survey if you're interested. After my stuff is all turned in to the publisher I'm going to fix a few things, put vids back up on old surveys, etc.
Ok, third one, Little Lexx, goes without saying, of course Lexx fans are going to find my Lexx stuff. Most of my Lexx traffic comes from other Lexx areas on the internet, but it's interesting that WordPress doesn't seem to deliver the search engine BOOYA that Xanga does... just saying. I always did get excellent engine reference with Xanga. Moving on.
Fourth and fifth ones. What the crap is up with this bluejacky stuff coming up in searches? Basically it's showing me that the tagging works for search engines, blahblahblah...
Ok, let's skip all that, my analytics setup is still just now gathering info, what's really amazing is that I've got 207 PAGES of search engine links listing 9400+ 'impressions', which is how many times MY links have popped up in people's searches the last 3 months. Like these.
I'm a nobody, guys. I blather on a lot, yeah. I have tiny little blogs spaced out all over creation blabbing away (actually, only one of them is what we could really call active, lol), and most of them never get comments. I want to say something to you.
COMMENTS DON'T MEAN YOU DID IT RIGHT OR WRONG. I have posts with over 10,000 views and not a single comment. People stopping by to chat about what you write isn't your cue to stop or go on with your writing. Fishing for response is not the goal you should be setting. You could write down that your cat did something and have two people comment, but if two views were all you got, that's 100% response. Do you understand that? Would you rather have more response or more visibility? If you're serious about being a writer...
YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF MORE VISIBLE. I never use tags or categories on this particular blog, and guess what- google search engines can barely see it. This blog has the most continually updated content, it's got loads of links and pictures, it's hooked up to friends and even gets a few comments. I tweet a link to this blog nearly every single day. But the blogs that get the hits are the ones the google web crawlers can see tags and categories on. If you want your blog to be seen, it's ***vital*** that you tag and categorize everything you do on it. In the old days I was able to insert my own meta tags. Tumblr still lets you do that, and Blogger sorta does. But most blogs now have built in meta, and all you have to do is (say it with me) tag and categorize. For example, here is my blog coming up in search engines, BUT the link is nonspecific. You know what? There is another Pinky Guerrero out there who is both a radio personality and a retail blogger. I did my homework. So 'Pinky' me coming up in searches doesn't mean they wanted to find ME, but it does mean they will SEE ME. And they would see me lots more if I tagged and categorized. That I got the twitter handle first was a complete accident, I had no idea how popular this name was. Please note my Pinky blog came up in search just because of the name, not because of any of the content, and the only reason it came up by the fourth page (rank 47) in the search list was because someone else was already pushing the name. I got a free ride for my Pinky blog, but I'm sure I wasn't what they were looking for.
I created this blog to play on. The content I put here is the kind of stuff I used to put in my private blog, softened up a bit. If I were trying to get attention on this blog, I would tag and categorize the crap out of the posts here, but I'm not. This is my little pink cave where a few friends come over when they need a little bit of a brain splat, and I'll keep putting stuff in here whether anyone ever comes and looks at it or not. Because it's for ME.
I learned a long time ago I don't thrive on comments. Even when comments are 100% positive, there is something about comments that creates more pressure than anything. If people don't comment we worry our writing is bad or we offended someone and maybe they hate us. If they do comment, we feel like we have to comment back, or maybe the comment is too short and out of context for the blog content, or maybe the comment is way too lengthy and emotionally involved for the blog content, and it's weird that we feel we have to reply to the reply. If we're having a bad day and just wanted to dump it in a blog and suddenly got a bunch of people jumping in giving advice, it freaks us out or flares our tempers and next thing you know we're not friends any more, and omg, comments get so ridiculous that I literally turned them off when I first came out about being aspie. I thought being contacted by Lexx fans was overwhelming, people coming out of their closets over their diagnoses and fears and sexual questions was like being hit by a wave and sucked under, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Since that was before people could interact with me directly on twitter, I got a pretty good pile of lengthy angsty emails. I love social media, the more we have of it, the more people can see they're pretty normal (even weird stuff has normals) without having to go through personally gripping someone by the email lapels and begging for answers, or demanding whatever whatever.
Writers WRITE. We don't ask permission, we don't ask what people think about our content (unless we need help expressing it better), we don't ask for ideas because we don't know what to write... (You need to seriously investigate your calling to the writing vocation if you do that.) I've seen it all out there in ten years of blogging. YOU decide if you're a writer. No one else decides that. You do what you've gotta do to write, even if that means doing it privately or ignoring comments, or throwing a blog party. Don't assume anything about your content sucks if someone adversely comments, or doesn't comment. I even look at it like this- silence means the lurkers are thinking and nodding, haters mean you touched some buttons and whether they admit it or not they think you're worth hanging around to rip on, sweet people are like sprinkles on the ice cream, but in the end, would you write it again? If you say no, again, seriously investigate why you think you're a writer. From my experience, writers simply cannot stop writing. Whatever it is, it just has to come out, and you are miserable if you don't. Writing is a form of expression, like art.
Just write it, tag it, categorize it. Install a couple of different stat trackers. Link what you write up to a google account. Look up google analytics. Watch the numbers. If you don't want to go to all that trouble, that's fine, but don't let comments stop you from doing what you love most.