Honk If Your Blog Sucks!

I love Google Analytics. How else would I know that "Joannafesto" has received hits from over thirty-six different countries? This blog has even received a hit from Krygyzstan, a country which is so poor they can barely afford real vowels! Wow! Through Google Analytics I have determined that this blog has a steady stream of regular visitors, and for some odd reason, is really big in Austin, Texas. Go figure. (I looked up Austin and it is a city where the small business organization has chosen the phrase "Keep Austin Weird" as its motto. I may have to more there.) So upon the anniversary of writing this, my 101st blog, I decided to figure-out how I stack-up against the rest of the blogosphere. Yes, I Googled "blog improvement".

Bloody hell if that wasn't depressing. According to the blog expert I read that the average time spent on my blog is only 47 seconds is a complete disaster. I thought it was just because "Joannafesto" was not what they were looking for when they ran their search. We have all Googled something like "tassels" when we were looking for drapery items and pulled up something totally different. I figured people just landed on my blog through some misguided search attempt. However, according to this article, my blog is so bad because people cannot even stand to look at it for more than 47 seconds. How can somebody spend 47 seconds on my blog and even have a clue as to whether or not it is any good? It takes me longer than that to sneeze. The average reader also only reads 1.25 pages per visit, which given the 47 second average time spent rate, pretty much makes them speed readers, too. According to my stats and the article I read: My blog sucks, I suck, my cats suck, my writing sucks, it all SUCKS. It's SUCKTACULAR!

"Why, why, why???" I cried out to no one in particular.

The article answered it was because I was doing something wrong. I needed to run contests, participate more on other blogger's blogs and write about more topical issues. For instance: What was my most popular article? Most popular search term? I looked it up: "Toddlers and Tiaras". The more I thought about this, the more disturbing it became. Maybe that my blog is being read by a pack of pedophiles would explain why they're disappointed and lose interest within 47 seconds! (But isn't that really a good thing?) According to the article, I needed to write on more topical issues, pop culture, things people are actually interested in besides the unpopular crap I am currently addressing. I will admit it, when I write about pop culture stuff I do get more traffic, but does the blogosphere really need more commentary on Lindsay Lohan? Don't get me wrong, I could write all day about HRH ("Her Royal Huffiness"), but hasn't that been done to death? Won't it just get lost in the piles of blogs already written about HRH?

Then the article went on to tell me how to optimize search terms by using labels for my posts. Even though I had been using these from the beginning, I was starting to get tired of seeing the string of words at the bottom of my blog generally cluttering-up the whole look and feel of my blog. "Hey," I thought. "Maybe THAT is the whole problem!" So I deleted ALL them, which is counter productive according to this build a better blog guy, but frankly I found that his use of highlighting key words in the body of his blog freaking irritating. Okay, I can see how highlighting key words and linking them so your reader can click on them and go deeper into your blog will boosts you stats, but isn't the point to get them to read the blog? This whole article was about how to boost Google statistics, but said NOTHING about how to actually improve my blog.

I read the rest of the article and if I wanted any more information I could pay a fee to learn how to improve my blog. Curiously, this is how many blog improvement articles read. They tear you down then offer you the sales pitch. No thanks. This guy could boost my stats, but I doubt he could improve my blog.