Where are YOUR priorities?
One of the things that have always been on the minds of bloggers is how to get higher viewership. The fact is that blogs had their heyday many years ago and have been replaced by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. They face the same challenge as newspapers. Few people want to read or even think. They just want entertainment. I knew this when I began but here I am. I would rather write for my own entertainment than watch the crap that is on TV or play electronic games.There are thousands of websites whose hosts claim to be able to share the secrets of making money by Blogging. It didn't take long to find that most of the more popular sites indeed made money by telling readers one thing: how to make money by Blogging. A lot of it is the technical side but generally these "bloggers" never write anything creative at all. Today this is adorned with lots of video as well.
To put this in perspective, this is like placing an ad claiming you know how to turn anybody into a professional baseball player will can make millions per year. The subscribers receive some snail mail or email telling them to place an ad just like the author. Tell people you can make them into a professional ball player and watch the cash roll in!
Seriously though, the most sound advice I found is simply to use the many tools available from Google to find out what is trending. Identify what people are searching for and write good quality material about THAT. This makes perfect sense, but the key is quality - consistent quality. My problem is that I just don't relate to what people are seeking. I just don't give a flying "F" about the Kardashians or who just cheated on whom in the Etalk world.
So just from curiosity I started typing random arguments (words) into the www.google.com page and looking at the numbers under the reply. It was entertaining to say the least.
Most of these numbers are in the billions or hundreds of millions. They really only represent places on the entire internet that might have a reference to the argument submitted. I also see that they are only estimates and that in some locations Google has dropped them.
Try it for yourselves. If these numbers tell you anything it is that in my opinion our priorities are all screwed up. This has always been the case - sitcoms over news; game shows over documentaries; smutty over intellectual. Here is what I entered, sequenced by declining number of hits:
Environment change 10,240,000,000 (10.24 billion)
God 4,580,000,000
Sex 4,400,000,000
Cancer 4,320,000,000
Stroke 4,270,000,000
The war in Ukraine 4,150,000,000
Heart disease 4,130,000,000
Global warming 3,600,000,000
Kim Kardashian 3,070,000,000
Kardashians 2,780,000,000
Botox 1,490,000,000
New York Yankees 1,140,000,000
The Garden of Eden 586,000,000
Abraham Lincoln 443,000,000
Adolf Hitler 137,000,000
Elvis Presley 122,000,000
The price of gas 68,700,000
Nuclear war 59,500,000
Toronto Blue Jays 48,900,000
Gobboldygook 1,420,000 (misspelled)
Gobbledygook 19,000
I'm sure that God is pleased to see people are concerned about the space that he/she created but maybe a bit ticked that we messed it up so badly. Being almost tied with "Sex" might put us in disfavor as well.
It appears that many people are more concerned with their own demise than that of the Ukraine. I am not sure why Heart disease lags behind. It is good to see that that global warming beat out the Kardashians, but not by much.
Botox and the Yankees made the billion mark but things fall off dramatically after that. Not sure why but the misspelled Gobboldygook got more hits than Gobbledygook by a factor of 75!
When I entered "Thebrewsterblock" it scored 4,300,000 which was an old nickname. There used to be a small hotel chain and bus line in western Canada by that name but the number amazed me. The big let down was that my actual blog name (based on this) which is www.thebrewsterblock.com mustered a mere 480.
And that is why I write for my own enjoyment!
Brewster
#thebrewsterblock.com
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