If it’s written, it’s meant to be read – 4.5th installment

July 24, 2013 – 4.5th installment

How the blog looked like yesterday:

What it looks like from today: 

Sorry for any disorientation caused! :P

For previous installments,

July 22, 2013 – 4th installment

Today’s daily prompt says to check out the top 3-5 posts of the blog and discuss if they have been successful. And since it’s been quite some time the last I said anything about blogging, Daily Prompt, this is my answer to you. :D

When looking at the top 3-5 posts on weliveinaflat blog, it is meaningful to look at it in the short term (last 7 days) and the longer term (all time) stats. We are a young blog so all time would mean the last 5-6 months for us.

The difference between the two?

Well, the top 5 posts for the last 7 days (aside from the homepage) are all dog-related posts, which is a good thing since this is a dog blog although sometimes I like to blog about phoneography and other random topics. :P

Of the four dog-related posts, three of them are recent posts published just this week.

The all time view shows a different story. The top posts, besides the home page and the about page, now show dog posts that are published at an earlier date.

What made them successful? Well, for two of them it is clearly due to SEO, they get a good amount of search engine traffic daily. The other one, I think, is because the post has appeared consistently on the left column of this blog in the Top Posts and Pages section. People click on these and generated more views to them across the months.

What are the takeaways from this?

1. Our dog-related posts do better than the other posts. Having a consistent theme can help you find regular readers.
2. Regular blog posting will help to drive the short term 7 day traffic.
3. If you don’t have an About page, make one now because people do want to know more about the author! And if you already have one, it might be a good idea to make sure it’s updated. (Rarasaur has a great article on describing yourself in 80 characters or less for web optimisation)
4. Posts on specific/unique topics may help SEO, we get a lot of search traffic for the post on the white patch on Donna’s paw.
5. Adding a Top Posts and Pages widget can help drive some readership to older pages which are harder to find. (the wordpress.com blog has post on Getting the most out of widgets that you can refer to)

Did you find the same observations for your blog? Or do you have a different opinion on what is shared above? Will love to hear your comments/observations ;)

May 7, 2013 – 3rd installment

I didn’t want to start a new post, since this blog is not about blogging. So, yes I am updating an old post to keep all the blogging related thoughts on the same page.

Now, I don’t have a huge following so I can hardly presume to give advice. But I thought I’ll write about my influences when it comes to content on this blog and what makes me return to other people’s blogs. (Not that I am representative or anything~)

1) “What good is a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?” – Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll
Good pictures work for me. I am proud of my posts when I have good pictures to share. But if you don’t have pictures, funny conversations work for me too. I find myself returning often to Run a Muck Ranch and Angloswiss because they always made me laugh or smile. Besides the fact that they post fairly often which takes me to point 2.

2) Post often
So that I get my daily dose of entertainment, heh! More content = more traffic, it’s a very simple equation. The Daily Prompt is a good tool for keeping that posting often engine going (if you find yourself stuck for something to blog about), and it sends back some traffic to your site. Win-win!

3) Plan your posts
A few years back when I was actively running a silly blog inspired by an online game as a hobby, on top of my busy day job, I planned posts 1-2 weeks in advance so that I can still have a life on weekends and even if I fall sick, the weekly post would have already been scheduled to be published. Planning can also be an effective procrastination tool :P

A fifth procrastination method relies on contemplating future blog posts. The female individual in the case study, invested time in thinking of new stories and material to write, rather than write for required course assignments. One such idea, according to Woman (personal communication, May 3, 2013) was to write a research paper on effective procrastination methods (Woman, 2013). – Effective Procrastination: Methods and Future Study, Tasteslikeonion

But seriously, plan for on-time, quality posts and you will get there, which leads me to point 4.

4) Original and/or accurate and factual content
I respect original creation and good content from the source. Blogs who summarise and reproduce content from other blogs, nah… not so much. I’ll just go directly to the source from there. Much more informative and credible. That said, I do respect blogs that take the effort to reference various sources and curate the information to publish a comprehensive edited article with useful and verified content. I try to do that when blogging about topics that I am not an expert in and I know how time consuming that can be. It has its rewards of course, re-quoting:

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand. – Cecil Dey-Lewis

5) Share your personal experience, be sincere.
I am a dog idiot. I like to hear about other dog owner’s experiences and hopefully learn from them. I also blog my own experiences in case other dog idiots may accidentally find them useful. Haha~ at least I hope so! Oh yes, if anyone can give me any helpful insight to safely get two dogs in a car without altercation I will be grateful. :P

6) Be generous with comments and likes for blogs/posts that you enjoyed and admire
If it makes your day when someone likes your post or leaves you a comment, it must be the same for other bloggers right? But don’t be down if people don’t comment or like, there are blogs that I enjoyed and stalked for years but never left a comment. Sometimes, there just isn’t a need to. Different readers have different habits, that they keep coming says something. Treasure these phantom viewers! :P

7) Don’t sweat it
All the above are only applicable if you happen to be like me. That is, a person that kind of have OCD tendencies, like to be prepared for eventualities and like to think you have high standards (sorry if this sounds snobby :P). It’s ok to only blog when you feel like it and blog what you feel like blogging because its your blog. You are the blog. Like I said, I’m the person that generates the most traffic to my own blog most probably. So as long as you are happy with your own blog, its fine. A blog that makes you unhappy is not worth running.

8) Back up your content
Did I say I like to be prepared for all eventualities?

9) And the MOST IMPORTANT POINT
Don’t publish content that can come back to bite you later. Heard of people who got fired because they updated their Facebook status to say the meeting they were in was boring? It happened in a company I was working for. And when I was job searching years ago, I found the blog of an employee of the company I was going to interview with. Needless to say the content was not very complimentary of that blogger or that company. Pictures can be pinned, repinned and rehosted, screenshots can be taken, pages can be saved. Don’t do online, what you would not do in real life. Don’t give out personal information. Pictures of dogs are fine. I don’t know about children and whether they ever grow up and demand their parents to take down that embarrassing picture of them, whatever it was they were wearing or doing.  Perhaps someone can enlighten me? :P

May 1, 2013 – 2nd installment

If it’s written, it’s meant to be read.
If it’s not being read, that’s kind of sad.

Hey it rhymes! :P

Anyway, this blog is about 3 months old at this point, with a total of 668 views from 32 blog followers and other random hit-and-miss visitors I reckon. About 4% of these views are from lovely people who left me a comment, yay! Another portion of people generously liked the posts. So yes, this blog is fulfilling its purpose in life of erm, being read and understood by a modest number of people. :P

But visitors don’t appear by themselves, so how was a new blog 3 months ago to announce to the world that I exist now, this is me and please come visit so it’s not so lonely here?

Taking part in the Daily Prompts and Weekly Photo things helped. So when the topic interests me or when I have material that is relevant to the topic of the day, sure why not participate? Of course, the posts still largely revolve around our very ordinary mongrel and I write about all the minutiae in her life. The posts probably bore all the hit-and-miss people who happened on the blog to death. But the minutiae is fascinating to me because hey it’s my first dog and I am a dog idiot! So I don’t really think the blog content is compromised to drive traffic, although I have to admit I try to be careful with the words I use in order not to offend in any way.

Other then that, no, I’m not really doing anything to drive traffic. I’m having more fun blogging actually. The way I write is perhaps somewhat like a stream of consciousness. It is not deliberately funny, I don’t think I have talent in that area unlike some blogs that unite humour and sarcasm rather well and made me truly LOL. If anything I ramble on, when maybe people just want to read something short and to the point with nice pictures. But this is the way this blog is going to be, unless I have suddenly perfected the fine art of writing as to change the direction of the content altogether.

Meanwhile this line that mellifluousvoice has quoted suits me well enough for this blog.

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand. – Cecil Dey-Lewis

Actually scratch that. I’d rather write in order to understand and at the same time be understood! :P

Have you enjoyed the blog so far? What did you like or not like about it?

Apr 17, 2013 – 1st installment

Before we had Facebook, we had blogs. And before that we had personal diaries. I’ve kept diaries when I was a schoolgirl. It was not uncommon for schoolgirls I believe.

Picture: The set of diaries from my youth that sits on the shelf behind my head today.

And through the years, I’ve lost count of the number of blogs I’ve made and abandoned or migrated or kept private, etc. And then new things came along – Friendster, Multiply, Facebook.

I don’t believe in putting up with being locked up by a  single platform or social network. Multiply kept things nice and private and then it changed its business model. Platforms are transcient and we all know Facebook security levels change all the time.

Besides, I don’t believe in stalking friends on a virtual network. I believe in showing my care and concern in the flesh (as long as I can get my lazy arse out there).

But I do like to write and share pictures and innocuous happenings or things that pique my interest with whoever found it interesting and worth their time. So instead of asking “why do you blog?”, perhaps it’s more a matter of “why not blog?”

This blog is personal. You can read more about why the subject matter on the About page.

I bet you I am its most loyal reader. I probably chalk up I dunno, 10ox more pageviews on my own blog than you reading this post right now. And why not. I have the worse memory I know. Writing it down helps me recall. Next time when I come back to this post, it reinforces my memory again. Having any form of audiences helps keep me engaged and motivated to continue blogging.

And at the end of the day, I can always go back to it again and again and recall the good times and bad times and the random comments that visitors kindly shared once upon a day.

Thank you for reading :)