Obstacle no. 1 to a successful blog is removed. I’m finally searchable in Google. Great. This blog is basically turning into a diary about setting up a blog. And that’s fine for now.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a learning experience. In a future entry I will sum up all my experiences, hopefully creating a good and descriptive manual for anyone setting up a blog. There are so many aspects to setting up a blog. Here’s some things I’ve picked up:

Content. First and foremost is the content. No content=no traffic. Personally, I have no clear idea as to what the content for this blog may be, I guess it’s a kind of “life blog” or “diary blog” with no specific theme. Thoughts, rants and opinions.

But even so I do want to reach an audience, and a large one at that. And how does one go about to achieve such lofty goals with such scant material? I’m not an authority on any particular field, I’m not a brilliant writer, I’m not even sure I’ve got that many interesting things to say. But when I do have something to say I wanna make sure that I’m being heard.

Headlines. You need to know something about what attracts people to your blog. The title is important, that much I’ve figured. And it must hold some universal relevance, something that people can relate to. My “essential” and “ultimate” entries seem to be the most attractive. On the other hand, the essential entry is about Firefox and the ultimate one about PIMs - so it could be the fact they’re so topical and on-target that makes them more popular than the other entries.

Quality. Even though my resources are limited, I try to write in a manner that doesn’t bore people, and doesn’t make them feel like they’ve wasted their time completely (even though I sometimes write about minor and completely superfluous issues.)

Availability. You need to make your blog as visible as possible. Ping services such as Pingoat and Ping-O-Matic! automatically notifies a whole bunch of services that will subsequently include your blog in their searches. I’ve been trying to use the services of Technorati extensively, so far without any luck. But it seems like a good idea. Tagging, to me, is a great way of organizing information. And of course, getting hits on Google’s web search is without doubt the single most important way of becoming visible.

In addition, I will also give you this advice: It definitely helps your cause to add comments to other people’s blogs, make friends, and get other people to link to you. Networking. Apart from Google, that may be the most effective way of building an audience. On this blog, I will try to build an audience without using this strategy. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Consistence. I should probably add this aspect as well, even though I haven’t taken up on my own advice on this one at all. But it’s probably a good idea - to choose a particular subject and stick with it - so that people know what to expect when they’re visiting your blog. Unfortunately, I can’t promise such consistency on this blog just yet.

I’ve posted a lot of entries during the two weeks that I’ve kept this blog. I’ve been writing about a lot of different subjects - as the five people who’ve visited the site might have figured out. It’s been a rather obvious attempt to try and learn something about what attracts people to a blog.

I’ve been trying to write catchy, cryptic and informative titles, and I’ve utilized anything from perfectly sober to shamelessly sensationalist approaches. The sad fact is that I’ve learned absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that it takes more than a fortnight to establish an audience. I knew that already, of course, but it’s a little sad that during these fourteen days I’ve had only six exclusive page views - especially considering the fact that I’ve tried really hard to write in a manner that would attract people to the site. Oh, well.

One plausible explanation is that the blog isn’t included in ordinary web searches on Google yet. When that happens, it’s bound to attract some traffic, I’m sure. But it’s still disconcerting to see that neither Google Blog Search or Technorati is helping out at all here. Considering the amount of people using those services, it seems obvious that I’m doing something wrong.

On the other hand, I have another blog where I write about music. I get a lot more traffic there (it’s also been up for quite a while) but I still notice that there’s almost no traffic coming in from Technorati or Google Blog Search - it’s usually Google web search or links from other blogs that direct traffic to my blog.

Now, I’m not expecting thousands of viewers here instantly, far from it. But maybe 10-20 views a day - or something. 5?

Language could be an issue, I’m not sure. English is not my native language, and it may be more obvious to a lot of you guys than it is to me. I think my writing’s fairly decent, but it may seem a little simplistic, accentuated and child-like to an English reader? And thus not very reader-friendly? I don’t know.

I’ve been trying to use tags extensively. I’ve basically tried two different approaches:

1. Specific, detailed tags that refer directly to the content. Like the ones I used in my PIM entry: PIM, PIMs, Personal Information Manager, using both singular and plural form.

2. Using popular tags: Hillary Clinton instead of Politics, Anna Nicole Smith instead of Entertainment, and so forth.

Choosing titles, I’ve tried to use attractive words, “eyecatchers.” I made a couple of music lists with a lot of familiar artist names to get some easy hits. I created a completely lame list of things to do when you’re bored…. not very successful, I’m afraid. My most successful entry so far is in fact the PIM entry (probably the only one with any real content, you may infer…you’re right on the mark…)

But it will be interesting to keep all these entries for a while and find out what’s most attractive to a reader. I hope that in time the traffic will give me some idea as to what works best to gain viewers. It’s certainly a learning experience.

You could argue, and with good reason, that the eclectic nature (and general lack of content) on the site will turn readers away. That may well be the case, but should I hit the bulls-eye with a single entry, I would still get a lot of hits on that entry. People would probably not return to the blog, as none of the other entries would be of much interest - but that’s a challenge I will have to address on a later stage.

Another aspect is the fact that I’m not networking from this blog. I’m not leaving any comments on other blogs to help me gain friends and links. I don’t plan on using that strategy, either, as I’m mainly interested in finding a way to make this blog work based purely on contents (or clever titles, if you will), at least at this point.

Well, that’s a status report from the blogmaster. Stay with me and find out what happens.

(BTW, I’m happy the mp3/download entry wasn’t a hit. I honestly don’t have the time or energy to compose a musical suite. It was just another shameless attempt to gain viewers. As was my last celeb entry. I don’t know crap about Anna Nicole Smith. I know, I know. I’m well aware of my deficiencies (some of them, anyway))

Writing in your blog can be a scary thing sometimes. You see, I’m just basically a nice guy who likes to please people. And after launching this blog I get more and more concerned that I may disappoint my audience. Oh dear, what if you googled your way to one of my entries and it’s not what you’re after! Maybe you feel that I fooled you into visiting my blog?

It’s peculiar, it’s a completely anonymous enterprise - you don’t know anything about me and I don’t know the first thing about you - still I’m concerned that I’ll offend you or waste your time.

Which in turn brings to mind the countless haters participating in the web 2.0 experience - the aggressive teenagers on YouTube, even putting their greasy faces in front of the camera exhibiting their unattractive hate for all the world to see - I guess there’s a lot of repressed anger out there. I wonder how these particularly hateful kids behave in real life. My guess is that they’re simply a slightly less animated version of their web 2.0-selves.

Many people have a lot of anger today. I currently work with people who are in a difficult situation, and I often sense the same kind of hatred and anger that I spot on YouTube. Kids are angry with their parents , parents hopelessly tired of their kids - both kids and parents blame society, the government, the social services, the employers, you name it - for their misfortunes. It’s actually quite rare that I run across people who are willing to take responsibility for their actions. A lot of people more or less demand that someone else bring them out of their misery. Naturally that kind of attitude doesn’t cut it in the real world, and so an important part of my job is to help people understand that in order to change their situation, they need to start with themselves.

It scary that there’s so much aggression out there - it’s far more scary than writing in this blog. I always try to keep a positive attitude in my work, and a lot of good things do happen. But it seems to be an unavoidable pattern in modern society that psychiatric problems, antisocial behavior and violence grows dramatically as we move forward. I guess Emile Durkheim was on to something.

Need a new name for your blog? Or maybe your band is in desperate search for a name? Band Name Maker can probably help you. I’ve even used it to get ideas for some punchy titles. Type a word or a phrase into their generator and you get a plethora of choices. Bear in mind that it doesn’t split the words you type, but treats them as a complete phrase.

Simple and easy, cool and free - there’s also no signup or anything.

How long have blogs been around now? Quite a few years, I believe? It’s a wonderful thing of course, ordinary people expressing their political views uncensored, musical oracles from all over the world spreading the good word on ancient soul music, easy listening or classical accordion playing. Film buffs finally able to be their own favorite film critic. The point is, partly, that blogs really started to shape the world years ago.

But where are the people who are supposed to shape the world, our elected politicians, in the blogosphere? As far as I can see, they’re nowhere to be found.

It could be that US politicians have seen the light here. I haven’t really looked into that, but, judging from the effort and the money put into their campaigns, which probably far exceed that of entire European party election budgets, not to mention the competent expert panels they’re surrounded by, I would be very surprised if they hadn’t discovered blogs yet.

But in large parts of the world politicians still write in long-hand. And what a strategic blunder that is! Just look at how many people drop by your own more or less insignificant blog every day. Think of the numbers a controversial politician would reach, speaking directly to the people, opening up for comments. His Adsense revenues would be astronomical. That’s not to say I think it’s a very good idea for a politician to put up Adsense on his blog, though…

But how could this kind of openness ever be a mistake? It should be absolutely obvious to anyone with half a brain that this would actually gain them votes. Right?

In 1800-Europe you had political salons where people from the bourgeois gathered to discuss current issues, often with a critical bent towards the ruling authorities. It’s the same thing happening with blogs - the internet is growing into an infinite political salon where everybody has a chance to be heard.

And all this time politicians try to get their views across the old-fashioned way, they participate in panel debates on national television, travel to party meetings, chop a billion trees to print flyers with their photoshopped grins that disgust most of us, and fight endlessly against the traditional media’s standard procedures - the “build ‘em up, tear ‘em down”-strategy, for instance - while the people ever more often turn to their computers to avoid the polemics and get the relevant information they want without any clutter instead.

Not only would it gain politicians to have blogs. I’m also kind of offended by the fact that the people we’ve chosen to represent our views allow themselves not to participate in the debate through channels that most of us know and use by now. It’s arrogant, isn’t it?

It’s partly due to technological ignorance, I’m sure. Many of today’s politicians grew up in times when computers were either totally absent or considered to be mainly for bespectacled tech nerds. And most of them are professional politicians who haven’t actually worked with computers in daily life like most of us. So there’s a distance to the matter - many of them are utterly incompetent on computers. And sometimes you mock what you cannot understand.

I also believe that some politicians consider their intellect too valuable to be spending time in front of a monitor. They consider their time too precious to be spent playing around with a computer. “It’s fun,” they say, “but it’s not real life, is it?” They’re extroverts, they want people to hear their voice - they want to deliver suave speeches and win arguments.

Or maybe it’s just the fact that they’re afraid of being held accountable for the things they write? After all, what is party-political literature? Well-prepared slogans? One-liner promises? Clichés that really doesn’t make any sense? Mushy statements aimed to please the majority? Maybe it just wouldn’t look so good on a blog?

Blogs could be a good way for politicians to actually reflect a little on political issues and to explain where they stand on these issues in public, and not just spend their time simplistically defending or explaining their actions on television. I think it could be a good exercise for them.

Update 8 Feb -07: US politicans do blog! Only not in person, and not very well, it seems.

I should probably start writing about sex, violence, rock’n'roll, lies and videotape to attract an audience to my blog. But it’s really not my style, and I wouldn’t be getting the audience I wanted either.

It’s interesting to see what kind of information people seek when they search for blogs, though. I’m in the process of working out how to get readers to visit my blog, and I’ve been investigating a little into what’s popular stuff on search engines. It seems Politics is quite popular. And the Life tag seems to be huge on most search engines. But is that because there are so many bloggers writing about life, or is it because it’s what people search for? I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’m guessing the first…

I haven’t seen many extreme tags, not on the surface anyhow, but I guess there are moderators who filter out the trash, especially on places like Technorati. I must add that I haven’t actually been looking for those kind of tags (not yet anyway), it’s just an observation based on a first impression.

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote rather incoherently about my frustration over having to switch from Wordpress to Blogger, and the fact that I liked the templates better on Wordpress. Guess what, I’m not that frustrated anymore! I dug into the matter, and it dawned on me that there are literally hundreds of templates out there to grab for free. I tweaked a little bit on one I found over at Gecko and Fly, and now the design is perfect to me. Thanks, Gecko and Fly.