The end draws near
I started this blog in July of the year 2006. As it approaches nearly 2 years old I am just as confused about what it’s really about now more than ever.
- In the past I’ve tried to say it’s about celebrities, video games, and all around entertainment.
- I’ve used it to make extra income with payperpost and google adsene.
- I’ve used it as a way to meet some really great people who leave awesome comments.
- I’ve used it as something to do when I have to mark tons of comments as Spam every once in awhile so I am not promoting poker sites, x rated sites, or experimental drugs.
Lately though, I hardly find the time to post and when I do its just a tidbit about my life as I don’t have time time or want to really put much effort into posts anymore. I think I can honestly say that this blog will end soon.
The thing about comments
This is a response Bush Mackel’s Apex Says Speak Up post.
Firstly, I have called off my comment for $1 ‘contest’. I agree with him that is not the way to get comments, now I’ll explain why.
Secondly, I want to point out that one of the main goals of my blog is to make money. As I have read on countless blogs, people in the blogging and web development world typically don’t click on ads. So, to get readers who click the ads you need to bring google traffic. On the flip side of that bloggers leave comments and google visitors don’t. So, you’ve got to ask yourself want you want out of your blog.
It’s hard to get both, and as is evident, I do want both. I guess I see comments as approval. It means that people are reading your blog, and enjoy it. I comment on other people’s blogs even when the topic of the post is something I had never thought of, or would never blog about on my own blog.
That being said. It’s not as bad as Bush makes it seem. I would not call myself frustrated about the situation. I understand many reasons why my blog doesn’t get a lot of comments. A few people commented on Bush’s post with some suggestions
Chuck made a suggestion:
Recruit some friends to comment on your site. Have them pose as regular readers. Take down your feedburner stats banner until it gets closer to the 50 readers range at lesat.
The thing is, I did this! I still do this to some extent. It has just slowed down some. In part because I am no longer returning the favor and because a lot of my friends have gotten a little more busy as of late. I like commenting on other people’s blogs, but there are many that I used to go to that I no longer do, and I don’t know why. As far as the feedburner thing goes, depending on the day it fluctuates from about 20-35 usually, and I think that is high enough to display it proudly.
Opal Tribble made another:
Respond to your comments especially if you don’t have a lot it shows you’re interested and most likely if you post something interesting your readers will come back. Always follow up with your readers especially if they ask. I always check back to see whether the author has answered my questions. I’ll check up to three days but after that I usually won’t visit them again.
I do this too, but you bring up a great point about ‘3 days’. Sometimes it may take me longer to respond, and thus the people that left the comments are probably not re-checking for my responses anymore.
Bush Mackel’s Answer
If you want to target guys, that’s great. If you want to target bloggers that’s great too. But I wonder if you only target “Keira Knightley†and “Keeley Hazell†how much room your site will have to grow in terms of comments you know? Plus, as much as I like reading the randomness of your site, it’s pretty freakin’ random!
The truth of it is, my target audience is me. To that end though, that means it is college age guys. However, a very important thing to consider is that a large part of my blog is inspired by PayPerPost and arguably it has suffered from that. PayPerPost makes me write posts that are completely off the topics of movies, video games, and technology, which is in general what I would like it to be about. It also though forces me to sometimes write interim posts that also lack those qualities.
My Conclusion
In the end, it’s pretty simple. I do think I am disconnected with the blogger community a little bit. I do realize that the randomness and ‘paid posts’ on my blog deters readers. So, I am tempted to take a step back and not post so many paid posts, or maybe even slow my post rate down all together, but start developing a focus.
That being said though, if I take out the randomness and ‘paid posts’ I don’t make that money. So, I guess it I just have to ask myself what I want out of my blog. I don’t know the answer to that yet.
Lastly, I’m happy that Bush has caused me to take a dramatic step back and look at it.
Comment on this post, get $1 (first 5 only)
Update: The ‘contest’ has been called off. See this post
Read the title. It’s no joke. However, there are some rules.
- This is Comments, NOT Trackbacks
- Comment must contain ‘Keira Knightley’ or ‘Keeley Hazell’
- I’ll pay with paypal, so your e-mail address must be a confirmed paypal e-mail address
- Comment must be meaningful, per my discretion, see below
That’s it! Those are the rules. As to what this post is actually about so your comment can be meaningful, here goes. I find it highly ironic that google analytics reports so much traffic coming to my site based on Keeley Hazell and Keira Knightley related searches, yet hardly any of the people comment on my site. If they do, it always seems to be on older posts. While I don’t mind comments on older posts, it just concerns me a little bit.
So I ask you, do you think I am doing something wrong? Is randomness about Keira Knightley and Keeley Hazell not good to write about on a blog? Is there anyone out there that has been subscribed to my blog’s feed more than a month? Who do you think is hotter: Keira Knightley or Keeley Hazell?
I hope that gives you some direction as to what I want to see in the comments. Otherwise, if this is the first time your commenting on my blog, I’d love to know why that is.
Good Luck!
Update: I also want to point out, the point of this post is to get people to comment, so I will only send payment if this post actually gets 5 comments. I apologize for not making that clear initially.
Update 2: Another late requirement is that this post much reach 5 comments before it leaves my main post feed.
Separate Trackbacks and Comments in Wordpress
Recently, my friend Ryan made a post about separating comment in trackbacks. He also suggested to me that I implement it on my own site. I did not, because I had not done any trackbacks within my posts, or at least none that I noticed. However, that all changed with my new-found-time-without-eve post, so I’ve just implemented this little fix. Just like Ryan, I used the easy tutorial located at Binary Moon. I suggest this for anyone who finds the trackbacks showing up as comments to be annoying.
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