Saturday, March 22, 2008

Morning Thoughts, Blog Traffic

This morning I got on the train to work. I was sitting drinking tea with lemon and honey. The train was mostly empty because it was a Saturday. It is very nice to be on an empty train with very few people around. It gives one an almost expansive peaceful feeling. I wasn't reading this morning because I wanted to have my head clear for the day. Sometimes, I don't read because I am tired or I just want to think of absolutely nothing and just sit.

It is also nice to look out the window. Usually, you see various brightly colored graffiti, tires, and industrial landscape. Sometimes there are patches of trees and greenery, or you can look out onto a street. It has a lulling effect.

It was rather odd. Directly across from me was poster. It had a picture of a happy fish and a sad fish. I noticed it was about something called The School of Practical Philosophy. I thought it rather odd that they might be teaching something like this. Apparently, it has been part of New York University since 1964.
http://www.philosophyworks.org/landing/who.php

The idea was rather intriguing. I am thinking a bit about it today. Sometimes, the right thoughts are everything.

I still haven't started writing my review for Superclass. I have to promise myself and you that I will start writing the review tonight. I usually write it out longhand then transfer it to the computer. Writing with a pen has a different feeling to it than writing on a computer. I like the feel of the pen on paper for the first draft of a review. I learn better sometimes when I can feel and see what I am doing.

I wrote some notes on the train home for the review. It is kind of awkward writing on a subway train. I feel a little cramped when I am doing it, but I do it anyway. So, I have enough material to write a review in the morning.

I also will watch Stardust by Neil Gaiman tomorrow. I actually finished watching it tonight. I would give the film three stars. It was light entertainment; not as good as the book.
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I am thinking about blog traffic today. I tried something a little nutty today. I clicked on 300 entrecard adds, it took me five and a half hours. It seemed to be almost a waste of time. I wanted to see what the results would be.

Like most people, I am trying to increase the traffic to my blog. It seems to be an incredible popularity contest. The first person who has the most traffic wins. Of course, they don't win anything monetarily unless they are selling or advertising something. I actually do have a goal. I would like to have by December, 1000 unique visitors per day. I know this is a tall order. I don't intend to buy advertisements to do it either. It is a kind of wishful goal that points towards creating a very popular site.

One of the things, I know I will have to do is learn how advertising writing works. One of the most successful science fiction writers, Frederik Pohl, wrote advertising copy. One of his most successful books was The Space Merchants, a classic of science fiction. I think part of his success was writing in a style that sold the book to the reader. I think many of the bestselling books on the New York Times list do this. They don't just write the novel to write a novel, but to sell an appealing idea to the reader.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know what all those clicks do for you. I just started doing entrecard and i don't like the idea of clicking on blogs just for the points. What good does it do to have someone come and click on your widget if they don't want to read your blog?

Book Calendar said...

It really doesn't do much for you at all. It is only for traffic generation to increase your clickthrough rate. If you are advertising on your site, there is a specific percentage of traffic that might click on an ad.

The objective is to get the number of appropriate visitors up that will either buy affiliate products, your products or look at something on your site. It does not necessarily have to be advertising. It could be if you want to increase the total traffic lets say if you are design studio and you want people to look at your designs, or you are looking to showcase your drawings.

It is not just about reading the blog, it is about viewing the blog. A lot of blogs are photographic or image oriented. Photograph blogs are very popular. Cartoon blogs with short blurbs are also popular. Maybe you are a budding cartoonist and you want people to see your cartoons.

I include a lot of stuff from youtube in my blog, short videos, images of books, free images from wikimedia, and similar material.

Anonymous said...

On writing: Ever since I had a laptop ideas would not come down well unles I got hold of one.


On blog traffic: 1000 visitors a day may not be impossible for this nicely written blog of yours.