Some Knowledge

If this blog had a million readers a day, I might be an authority on web traffic.  As it stands, so far today 73 people have found this blog.  That’s pretty average recently.  Still, even though this is not enough traffic to make any money off advertising, it is still a lot more than my other blogs get, which is maybe one page view a week.

It’s not just quantity of posts that attracts people to a blog.  It’s what you write about.  Look at the popular blogs on WordPress.  They are about celebrities, sports, and politics.  If you look at Google Trends you will see that most web searches on Google are about celebrities.  It’s getting to be a chore to find interesting subjects for me to write about by looking at that site.  Perhaps I should bite the bullet and just write articles about famous people.  While this might draw more traffic, I doubt it would be much because I really don’t have much new information on what famous people do.

Some of the articles here that have been getting steady, if low, traffic are articles I wrote on various subjects that interested me personally.  The posts about art, stone carving, and some other topics seem to get two or three views a day.  If I had a thousand posts like that this site would be getting ten times as much traffic.  Still, it’s satisfying to know that at least a few people are getting some use out of what I post here, even if it is just entertainment value.

As I have said before, in other articles that have gotten minimal traffic, if you want to draw readers, write about stuff they are interested in.  An innovator in information would be able to write things that become interesting and go viral.  Suppose you have a hobby you enjoy and know a lot about.  There are bound to be other people who are interested in rock collecting or knitting.  Just write what you know and eventually people may find what you have written.  It may take some time, but the robots that serve up the net will eventually find your page and send you some viewers.

Some of the posts I wrote for Helium.com that got the most attention were about car repair.  My most active post on Some Knowledge here was about a game the Topps candy company ran to promote its products.  After months of writing something almost every day I’m almost ready to give up and start over with another blog idea.  Apparently, the concept for this blog is too general and non-descript for it to find a following on the net, though I do have some kind readers who leave good comments almost every day.

I’ve been thinking of starting a people category where I post news on famous people who do stuff that generates interest.  Of course, it would be nothing but a derivative of what other people have already posted on the net.  Still, I could condense the news down to quick bites that would not take people long to read.  Perhaps this is where I will go with my blog this week.  I have also thought about starting a new blog to post the poetry I write, but that would involve a lot of self-promotion and could possibly do nothing.  There is already so much bad poetry on the net that it would take an army of people forever to even look at it all.  Still, it might be interesting, if I ever find out how to write popular poetry, which is kind of an oxymoron when you think about it.

This post is getting a bit long and I have strayed from my subject.  If you want to attract readers, you will have to write things that people want to read.  Your choices are either entertainment or information.  Entertainment is pretty much any useless information that lets people pass the time enjoyably.  Information is useful stuff that helps people solve some kind of problem.  If you really want to attract readers, become famous for something and then write any kind of nonsense in your blog.  People will read just about anything a famous person writes if only because they are famous.  We live in a strange world.