Driving Traffic to The Blog

I've talked to my wife on and off about the website. Once in awhile I just sort of babble out whatever's on my mind, and one I commented on was that the Google Analytics seemed to show a steep drop after I had decided to spend more time working on things like my story instead of the blog site.

I've been posting things in spurious sessions, scheduling them ahead of time and trying to keep things ahead just enough that I can dedicate some other days to focusing on exercises and story time or whatever else is going on that day and not worry about trying to keep my one-post-a-day records.

At the same time I see that my audience is something like...three people. Which is fine. I hope people who do read it enjoy it.

My thinking is kind of split on this. On one hand it would be nice to have an actual audience that follows what I'm saying...it's a wonderful bit of mental stroking that keeps the ego fluffed up. What I mean to say is that this would be validation that I have some kind of talent for expressing myself and it would validate to my own screwy mind that I somehow matter; I mean, if Glenn Beck has an audience that pays for mansions and he's an arrogant blowhard, jiminy jillickers I should be able to get some of that type of following for spewing my brain droppings, yeah?

On the other hand I'm one voice among a sea of people that are whoring themselves on the Internet for...heh...attention and validation. I'm guilty as charged.

My wife said that I tend to be too verbose and wordy, so that may be a drawback in a time of twitter tweets and sound bites. She additionally suggested that I needed to separate my blog into several blogs, one for bariatric surgery, one for technology, etc...

This goes back to the original reason I started the blog. I started this as a place to chronicle my life as I adjusted to the bariatric surgery, so people considering such a procedure could see what it was like in my case. A the same time, a blog that is so one-tracked will grow boring. How long would someone keep reading about my weight routine or eating routine when I even know that it's very repetitive and I live this routine. That would have drawn the blog to a conclusion fairly quickly and simply faded out into obscurity, unless there's some sequel where I'd either cheat the surgery or need to have it reversed (or some other complication...which can happen a couple years out...)

There's another name for that; it's a book. Or really long article. Maybe a novella. But there's no need to continue chronicling the surgery after the twelfth time I mention my workout routine or need for an adjustment to my supplements.

Instead I sprinkle just parts of me into the blog. I mention things that maybe my son would want to read someday. I mention things that are of interest to me, that show facets of my personality. I don't have anything like this for my dad and there are times where I'd have been interested in seeing what he was like at my age, not to mention that someday maybe I'll be unable to function the way I do now and this is a kind of addon to my journals.

If I did keep multiple blogs I thought it would be a pain in the buttocks to keep track of everything. Plus, as a person who follows multiple blogs, I know that there are times I look forward to a blog that I can rely on being updated periodically whereas others seem to have simply faded away...are they no longer blogging? Are they just on vacation? What's the deal here?

By mixing topics I try to keep the blog somewhat interesting while at the same time keeping content flowing. You never know what I'll comment on. One day politics, the next day it's commenting on a local fair's choice of food. Maybe the description should be tweaked a bit since I don't discuss comics as much as I thought I would but that's something I'll probably evaluate with looking back near New Year's.

I suppose this sounds like justification for doing it the way I have been. It is. I thought about these things as I started the blog but I don't really have a lot of feedback from a lot of people as to what they're looking for; the people I have heard from (and I thank you!) have generally reacted with positive comments (although people who don't like it may very well just mosey away and not bother saying anything).

Most of all I do this blog for myself. I try to use it as a forum for practicing my wordsmithing and trying to improve my voice in "written" form. Most of all I have to enjoy doing this or I would simply quit altogether...in that respect, my audience is myself. And potentially my family should the inevitable happen someday.

Yes, I admit I get a bit of a creepy kick from the thought that should I be incapacitated these posts will continue to pop into the feed once a day for a couple of weeks. It's like something from a horror story plot.

This blog is a tangent to the journal I have to keep for my surgery-mandated psychologist visits. I can't get too personal here. I work under a pseudonym, I have to obscure certain details, I can't discuss things that are way too identifying (but let's be serious...if relatives stumbled into this blog and put two and two together it's not like it would take Mr. Monk to solve the mystery of who I was). It's one more facet to my personality and a reflection of who I am.

I've come to accept that I won't get validation from doing a blog. I'm not an Internet celebrity, I don't have mad l337 skillz in programming that draws an audience the way Mark Russinovich or Aaron Ballman do. I'm not cutting edge on rumors like Perez Hilton while hobnobbing with socialites. I'm just one of the faceless fat guys trying to lose weight, and that's hardly a rare finding in America today. I'm one voice in a sea of people.

My chances of finding validation doing this is one of the few aspects of me that are slim. But there is definitely a very good chance that I will find posterity through my expression here on this blog. I suppose that's what, in the end, keeps me coming back to this keyboard working on these entries. It's for my wife, my son, and my daughter. I'm giving them something that I never had from my parents.

I'm nothing special. But this is who I was. This is part of who your dad was, and hopefully I'm not as horrible a guy as they may have thought.