Alan<\/a> writes:<\/p>\n How does one drive traffic to a blog? I started mine to keep the folks back in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcold country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 up to date with my tomfoolery in San Diego. Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hooked on Blogging. I really enjoy the comments more than the hits. I see some blogs with loads of comments. How does it happen?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My response, over at his place:<\/p>\n Hi, Alan. You were asking (over at my place) about increasing blog traffic. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a must read article: Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Dump That Weblog!<\/a> by one of my favorite bloggers, Paperback Writer<\/a>. She wrote this article with author\/writer-bloggers in mind, but she gives good solid advice which applies to everyone.<\/p>\n I think you have to ask yourself: why are you blogging, and why do you want to increase traffic? For us author-wannabes, the answer is simple: (A) networking with other writers, published and unpublished alike; (B) developing a potential fan base of folks who will not only buy our books but hype them on their blogs*. For folks like me who live in the boonies and can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make it to conventions, blogging is indispensable.<\/p>\n If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re blogging for the same reason that folks used to write to pen-pals (i.e., to make friends with people around the world), then keep doing what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing. Offer a bit of yourself on each post and folks will respond to that. Post regularly. I enjoy your posts about the restaurant biz \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I think of this as a Kitchen Confidential kinda blog.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re solely interested in boosting traffic and you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care what kind of traffic you get, the answer is easy. Post nude photos. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another thing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d use sexual keywords. The mere act of writing \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnude photos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in close proximity to \u00e2\u20ac\u2122sexual\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 will (once the search engines find this post) generate more traffic. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a funny thing, but different words work for different people. One of my pals told me that the words tantric sex drove a lot of people to her site. I tried it, and got bupkes. Different strokes, I guess.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n *And (C) practice! If I didn’t blog, creative writing would become a weekend-only affair. Not good for discipline. Now, if only I could be even MORE disciplined, disciplined enough, say, to work on my manuscript during the week . . .<\/p>\n Naaaaah.<\/p>\n More below the cut.<\/p>\n Now that I’ve reread Alan’s question, I see that what he really wants are the comments, not the hits. Great way to pay attention, Doug.<\/p>\n The two things aren’t entirely unconnected, of course. No hits, no comments. Still, a place like YesButNoButYes<\/a> gets scads of hits, but they get few comments. Nudity alone will drive hits but may not drive comments: porn blogs seem to get few hits if it’s porn-only, but if one senses a human being at the other end (for example, a woman writing openly about her sex life), you’ll see more comments. Not that I would know anything about those kinds of sites. I just, you know, hear things.<\/p>\n That’s the key, though: if folks sense a human being on the other side of their computer, they’ll write back to you. My personal posts generate far more comments than my political posts. You have to share yourself. You have to be a blogwhore.<\/p>\n Sure, it’s scary, what with the potential for identity theft. You have to use a bit of common sense. Don’t post your mom’s maiden name. Don’t post any major identifying info. And don’t, don’t, don’t post anything that would be hurtful to your loved ones. (Yeah, I flirt with that one all the time, but I do have my limits. No, really!)<\/p>\n I think you (Alan, that is) are on the right track at your place. I especially like your posts about the restaurant biz because they remind me of Kitchen Confidential<\/em>. Bear in mind, please, that there have been some well publicized cases of folks getting sacked because they blogged about work . . . but The Man can’t fire everyone, can he?<\/p>\n Let’s open it up to comments. Think about your blogs, people: what kind of posts fuel the most comments? I’m curious, too. It feels good<\/em>, having a long comment thread. Length definitely matters.<\/p>\n D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alan writes: How does one drive traffic to a blog? I started mine to keep the folks back in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcold country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 up to date with my tomfoolery in San Diego. Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hooked on Blogging. I really enjoy the comments more than the hits. I see some blogs with loads of comments. How does… Continue Reading Q & A: how long is your<\/i> comment thread?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-econfusion","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}