Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Secret of My Blogging Success



Welcome  to Perry's Blog!  
And tell 'em Groucho sent ya!

You've read all the recommendations all across the Internet and elsewhere as to how to drive traffic to your blog like they drove cattle across the Old West in the TV show Rawhide, and you feel you know it all.

Content is king, write about what you know, blog regularly but not too often, write about boobs (not that I would ever stoop to that!), and schmooze regularly on social media. But this is one  sure-fire secret that only I  and I alone know!

It's written right above:   tell 'em Groucho sent ya!

Back in June during the midst of the presidential campaign, I wrote a luke-warm political post called Whatever It Is, I'm Against It. the premise of which was that Mitt Romney --- whom some of you might remember ---  managed to criticize all of President Obama's  policies without offering any of his own. In the post, Mitt sings the famous Groucho Marx song from the movie Horse Feathers to interviewer Bob Schiefer in response to any question he's asked about anything remotely substantive.

I thought the post was mildly mirthful but apparently others did not.  It garnered little interest and no comments,  although that is certainly not unusual for a blog so comment deprived that even derogatory comments with personal and ethnic slurs are highly prized. So I gave it no mind and pressed on to further blogging disasters.

Then a curious thing happened.  While checking stats on Blogger, I noticed that Whatever It Is, I'm Against It was garnering more clicks than a tap dancing troupe in a hurricane. Clocking in at as many as 100 or more a day, it was getting more daily hits than most of my posts get in their entire meager and pathetic lifetimes.

How'd all those folks get there?  To paraphrase the catchphrase of Groucho's 1950's TV show You Bet Your Life ... 


All those making apparent pilgrimage to Perry were coming via Google in a search for the song and mustachioed comedian who warbled it. I had hit upon a niche area in the career of the fabled Marx Brother in which many people were interested but which had such sufficiently few search entries that mine prominently showed up.

Here's your Takeaway, Class:   Write about something  or someone that's popular but zero in on a relatively limited aspect of your subject.  For example:

Don't just write about  "Nicholas Cage."  Write about "Great Performances by Nicholas Cage." 

Don't just write about "ABBA." Write about  "Songs that don't suck by ABBA."

      Don't just write about the "NRA." Write about the "NRA and ideas that are not batshit!"

There's only one problem.  None of those people clicking onto Whatever it is, I'm Against It has the slightest interest in my post. No one has yet to leave a  comment or is likely to even read far enough to get the premise, much less like it. They want Groucho, not Blocko!

That's 16,437 people to date clicking into a site they had no intention of going to, yelling "shit, who is this asshole?!!" and promptly clicking out.  

Ooops, make that 16,632!  Anyway, give the secret of my blogging success a try.

And tell 'em Perry sent ya! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let's see how today's post fares in the faux Groucho clicks category.  Pretty soon, Blocko may be the fifth Marx Brother!




3 comments:

Marian Allen said...

I think Gummo was the fifth Marx brother. So you'll have to be the sixth, because he took the fifth. I asked him what he did with my whiskey, but you KNOW what he said: "How that elephant got in my pajamas, I'll never know."

But we know, don't we? One leg at a time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I cannot stay; I came to say I must be going.

And two hard-boiled eggs.

Marian Allen
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes

Perry Block said...

Wow, that covered just about everything! Anything further, father?

Anything further, father? That can't be right! Isn't it anything father, further?

Now hello, I must be going ... too.

Perry Block said...

What do you know? Turns out the secret to the success of the "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" post was strictly in its name. This current post is doing lousy despite being loaded with 'Grouchoisms."

So for blogging success, you should name your posts "Gone With The Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," or even "Plan 9 From Outer Space." Forget "Godzilla Meets Inception" though, tried something like that once with ill effect.

Maybe I should change the name of "Whatever It Is" so as to stop sending people to my blog and then pissing them off? NAHHH!