So What The Hell Should I Call This Blog?

   Back on January 1, I posted a blog called "Sex". In less than 24 hours it eclipsed all my other blogs, in terms of "pageviews" (ie. someone actually clicked on the link and the blog came up--which is not to say that they actually read it). In less than 12 hours, 36 people viewed it.
   The day before yesterday, I posted a blog called "Macabre". In the ensuing 48 hours a grand total of 7 people viewed it.
   On the average, about 25 people view any one blog I come up with and then those numbers remain fairly static.
   So today (and mainly because I can't think of anything else to write about!) I'm sitting here musing on why "Sex" and "Macabre" elicited so totally different responses.

   I strongly suspected, right from the beginning, that "Sex" would be viewed by a lot of people because, quite frankly, sex "sells". It always tweaks our interest. When you couple the title with a picture of two naked people entwined, you've got a sure winner!
   I was much less certain that "Macabre" would receive the same response. Actually, I knew it wouldn't. When, as a title, you use a word that perhaps not a totality of your peers might be familiar with or perhaps even know how to pronounce, well....you're asking for trouble, I guess. Couple that with an obscure medieval caricature that you need to look at extremely closely just to figure out what it's all about then you're asking for trouble.
   This is kind of a shame because "Macabre" was probably more well-written, had more information, and revealed more about its author than "Sex" did.
   Unfortunately, perhaps the subject matter was to blame. It was certainly not as universally interesting as its predecessor. What bothers me the most, though, is that so many people never even took the time to click on the link. I can only assume this decision was based on the title and accompanying picture.
   All of this has almost left me with the feeling that I need to "advertise" or "market" my blogs a little better.
   I suppose I could put swear words as titles and nude people on the accompanying pics on all my blogs, regardless of the actual subject matter, and this would ensure a much larger readership.
   For a little while. Until, of course, readers caught on. At this point, I'd be screwed, I'm thinking!

   If I wrote blogs for a living, I'd be quite frustrated. Fortunately this is not the case--I write simply because I have always enjoyed the process. It has only been in the last year, however, that I've actually been taking the stuff I've been writing and "publishing" it, for an audience. This, of course, suddenly produces feedback (occasionally a terrifying thing for a writer).
   I get feedback a couple of different ways. Some people actually take the time to comment on a blog page. More often than not they will comment on Facebook, or directly to my face when they see me. So far, the responses have all been positive.
   One of the other ways of acquiring feedback is from the stats that Blogger (the tool I use to blog with) provides to me. With some deft clicks of the mouse button, I'm able to quickly find out how many times a blog has been viewed (which doesn't necessarily mean read), what search engines were used to get to it, what URLs were used, and, most interestingly, what countries the pageviews have been coming from. Occasionally, someone is directed to my blog simply because they've typed a random word or phrase into a search engine (e.g. Google) and "Neanderings" popped up as a result on their screen, with a reference to the particular blog in which I referred to whatever they were doing a search on. As an example, somebody somewhere in the world took the phrase "spanking boys" and typed it into a search engine. One of the results they got was a blog I did a while back called "Corporal Punishment", wherein I talk about spanking. In an even earlier blog, I mention a lady named Pam Tikalsky, a creative writing teacher I had many years ago. Well, someone somewhere had typed "pam tikalsky" into a search engine and been directed to "Neanderings" because of it.
   What stats tell me is that someone is paying attention. Unfortunately, they also tell me that people aren't paying attention. A double-edged sword, for sure.

   At the moment, the only way I market "Neanderings" is by publishing a link on Facebook. I have about 150 friends on Facebook and I'm assuming they pretty well all see the link. The vast majority, about 75 percent, ignore it. I'm not sure exactly why but I do know that I myself ignore a lot of the links I see posted there, so this percentage doesn't bother me, too much.
   What all of this has me doing now that I never really did before is paying much more attention to the titles of my blogs and the pictures I post to them. Not that I've ever done a marketing campaign for a mega-bucks movie or anything, but suddenly I understand a little of the stressors involved with such ventures. And it does bother me a little that "sex sells" so well. Sex is wonderful but there's a time and a place for it.
   Having said all this, though, you might have noticed there's a swear word in the title of this blog and a picture of a billboard with the words "topless bartenders"........