The Mysterious World of Search Engine Optimization

I probably don't spend the time on this internet contraption that I should, given it's my primary marketing tool. But every now and then I do poke my head around the curtain to look at the behind-the-scenes portion of this blog. There you'll find all kinds of interesting data, most of it more interesting than useful.

Usually when you pull up the "Stats" tab on your blog's dashboard, Google Analytics defaults to a "what's happened in the last week" overview. So, if you haven't taken a look here in more than a week and don't care to expand the reach of the summary, then you tend to miss data points. From a social media marketing perspective, this is probably--no, definitely--bad business practice. Not knowing what sites are referring back to my blog, what URLs, and so forth makes it harder to sort and shape the content I put up here to bring traffic to the blog.

But, hey. I'm doing okay, right? I've got you three.

But if one day I want more than three people and the good automated folks over at vampirestat (don't go there unless you want viruses on your computer) checking in here, then I should pay attention to the "Stats" tab on a more regular basis.

It was in that vein of thinking then that I said the hell with it and changed my summary period from one week to all time. Now, I'm not one to get giggly over numbers, but my vanity finally peeked its head. I've lived in a blogger world where my page view numbers have crept along steadily, though only in small increments. But in the 'all time' summary, my graphs and numbers challenge those of Vince Flynn, John Le Carre, Stephen King and probably even CNN's homepage for what they get in five minutes of traffic. For the briefest of moments I felt like a celebrity.

And then I scrolled down to the Search Keywords listing. This is where you find information on what key words people used in various search engines that led them to your site. At first glance, they looked as I would expect.

"thejmparkhangout"   "book cover missionary position"    "catchy titles with innuendo"

And then I saw this entry: "blog peepee"

Uhh...peepee?

So, someone got to my blog by looking for blogs about peepee? Or with the word peepee in them? I knew at once which blog post to attribute this to. One from my early days on the JM Park Hangout talking about something in my book, The Missionary Position. The question that came to mind, however, was "Is this something I want? Do I want people looking for pee-pee to come to my blog?"

The answer, of course, is HELL YEAH, I DO! Hey, if someone gets here, I don't care how it happened. That's one more set of eyeballs on my site, and potentially one more reader for my book. I'm not proud. I'll take what I can get.

I think that's a fine place to finish up this posting.

So, on that note, I'd like to throw up a couple other random words in the bodily excretions category for the search engines out there to look at: pee-pee, poo-poo, puke, vomit, spit, Dirty Sanchez (okay, admittedly not a...well it kind of is a bodily excrement), booger, the runs, sweat, weird bowel movements, hemorrhoids (it's close), and, last but not least, corn poop.

Who knows what alternative minds I might bring to my readership!

New Page on the Blog: "On Writing"

This morning I found myself doing something I initially felt guilty about. I was on the internet reading a blog when I've got so many other things needing my attention. But that blog led me to a video interview of author Anne Rice doling out some pretty interesting and motivating advice. One video led to another and before I knew it I'd basically squandered a full hour listening to what effectively became an Anne Rice writer's seminar.

I thought I might feel guilty for having wasted away precious minutes to "playtime" on the internet, but no. To me it didn't feel like playtime. Anything that furthers my education and inspiration in writing is as important as a college student going to classes or a potential lawyer putting in the time to pass the bar. Listening to the knowledge that other writers, especially über successful ones like Rice, have to say is time well spent.

In the end, I left motivated and decided to throw up another page on my blog dedicated to those interesting and inspiring things I've found and did not want to lose. Things I can go back to later and watch for inspiration when times are tough. Hence, you'll notice the new "On Writing" tab at the top of the blog. 

There's not much populating it yet, but it is a project I suspect will grow fast in a short time. And while it may not be very interesting for book readers, I hope that other potential authors out there might find it as useful as I do.