Blog Theory

 

I'm new to blogging. A lot of people are advising me as to what content will result in the right metrics which will propel my blog into the stratosphere. Everyone but me seems to know exactly what's funny. To expand my experience, I've been reading a lot of popular blogs lately. Some include so many ads you can't find the actual text. Others consist of a lot of original poetry written in "free verse." I was hoping that someone could explain something to me.


Why are all the blogs on the internet so boring?

Medical Blogs

If you Google the most popular blogs, one that shows up is a woman who writes about her digestive disorders. She wrote a compelling post about constipation, topped only by her recent one on hemorrhoids. Her blog has an army of dedicated followers because she's the only one in the world chronicling her digestive malady. Intestinal issues have a universal appeal. Every culture, every civilization in history has had problems taking a dump.

I, for one, don't really believe in constipation. What is really going on is that your stomach is messed up, causing you not to eat. If you don't eat, you don't crap, and you erroneously think you're constipated. Whenever my stomach bothers me, I eat more. Sure that sounds counterintuitive, but I think of the body like a Play-Doh fun factory. Stuff goes in, stuff comes out. I find that this practice may not always work. Sometimes stuff comes out the same way it went in. Now, I'm not a doctor, but technically I do write on the internet so that qualifies me to dispense medical advice. So instead of a comedy blog, of which there are thousands, I should write about a common ailment plaguing the human race. Best I can come up with is a blog about gingivitis.

Mommy Blogs

There are many mommy blogs to choose from, all chronicling every milestone achieved by someone's firstborn. In my day, we tolerated a few pictures of some bald kid with a ball, bald kid sitting up, bald kid with a stuffed animal, bald kid with a bowl of spaghetti on his head. You get the picture. Back in the day when photos were processed, the largest roll of film was no more than 36 pictures. When a new parent handed you a stack of photos, you always knew that at most this would take a few minutes to feign interest in the Adventures of Bald Kid.

Today, digital photography and social media stretches this activity into a two hour evolution which involves a good amount of reading. The woman who cuts my hair once told me that her friend constantly asks her if she read her mommy blog which she's often compelled to "pity like." If you're writing a mommy blog now, here's some advice for you. You should try to entertain your readers. They're not here to entertain you. The only thing worse than a mommy blog is a pet blog.

Pet Blogs

 

At least I understand mommy blogs. When you have a kid, you naturally want to share the experience with the world. However boring mommy blogs are, pet blogs are downright insane. The pictures alone of animals in different outfits are enough to give you a cavity. I read a pet blog the other day with over two hundred thousand page views that went on about a Yorkshire terrier named, "Tootsie," who his owners claimed could understand more words than a four year old. Comparisons of animals to children always strikes me as bit mental, like the bumper stickers that say,

I bet bumper stickers like this are not big sellers in countries that academically outshine the United States, especially those that eat dogs. When it comes to intelligence, my money is on the human. When I see a bumper sticker comparing the intellect of pets to children, I think of putting one next to it that reads,

A lot of pet blogs are endless drivel about the exploits of Dinkles the Dog, how he chewed the arm of your favorite chair, how he pulled the toilet paper roll all over the house, the Tootsie roll he left on the rug. Makes the blog about the woman who can't shit seem fascinating.

Cooking Blogs

 

Cooking blogs are at least useful because they typically explain a technique to prepare some kind of food. I read an article the other day on how to make French toast and another on how to prepare a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Sadly, both of these items are available pre-made in the supermarket. My wife feels that if you can't make either of these then "you don't deserve to eat them." She can be tough that way. There's a whole generation out there that can't cook. If you ever bought frozen French toast or "Lunchables," then cooking blogs are for you.

There is actually no secret to making a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You pretty much just put jam on one slice and peanut butter on the other. The only thing easier to prepare than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is water.

Subscriptions, Likes and Comments

 

Anyone who writes a blog wants positive feedback, placation over honesty. I never thought I would become a person shamelessly begging for subscriptions, but this too has come true. I understand your reluctance to subscribe if you are reading my blog at work while on the clock when you should be doing the thing that someone pays you to do, but think of it this way. If your company pays people while they stand outside and smoke cigarettes, then you can take your mental smoke break from the hustle and bustle of your busy day to read my blog. You deserve it.

I understand why people don't want to subscribe to a blog with their work email. I do write a lot about puking and flatulence and drop an occasional f-bomb, but I promise I will never announce affiliation with the Neo-nazi party. Even so it's not a good idea to subscribe to blogs with a work email no matter how many people tempt cancer outside the front door of your office.

My generation also doesn't like to subscribe because they think if they do they'll get emails indicating their best friend was injured in Tunisia, and needs them to wire money so they can get home. First, off, the subscription service for my blog, Feedburner, is affiliated with Google, God's search engine. They will never spam you. Second, if you ever get an email asking for money, don't give them any. Your friend is not injured in a foreign land. They're home watching Naked and Afraid.

If you subscribe, the blog posts are sent directly to your email. Each email indicates at the bottom how to unsubscribe, just in case your boss catches on and is a smoker himself. The good news is that he'll likely check out in a few short years from the big C, and you'll be in line for his job. In the meantime, just hold off until that day comes.

Metrics

Google sets up all sorts of metrics concerning one's blog that I regularly peruse like session duration and bounce rate which indicate how long readers stay on your blog and where they go next. A short session time of, say, twenty seconds mean readers took a quick look then navigated to something more interesting. Bouncing rate is also a measure of how many readers left your blog. My favorite is the "Page views by Countries." In 2016, mine looked like this,

 

I was on fire in Slovakia. I know some of this was probably bots, software surfing the internet for some targeted data, but I preferred to believe that I had an international audience both entertained and enthralled by literature dealing with American celebrity bashing, family and vomit.

 

The other interesting metric is a pie chart of the devices being used to read my blog. I noticed that "Desktop" goes up to nearly 40% on Friday afternoons and as low as 5% at night. This is because readers who use desktops are screwing off at work and reading my blog before the weekend, but at night they curl up with their smart phones. There's something very satisfying in knowing I'm helping people usher in their weekend. It's also nice to know that, together, we are sticking it to the man.

Me, Myself and Me Again

There are many blogs to choose from out in Internet land, all unedited journals largely written by narcissistic want to be writers who feel that any day now they'll be discovered for their Mark Twain wit, and offered piles of cash for their "unscripted musing." I'm more realistic than that. I check my mailbox everyday, but I never find any money in there. But enough about me. What do you think about me? As a blogger, you can't help but think you have a bigger audience just hanging on every word you pen than you actually do. Most bloggers inflate their readership by 100%, even though that info is oaten publically available. Truth is blogs are mostly ramblings about nothing.

Back when I first posted this piece I was a third the way through my Year of the Blog when I wrote every Tuesday and Thursday. My plan was to forge ahead, stopping only if I ran out of ideas. I've picked up a lot over the years I wrote this blog. I learned that people laugh at a lot of different things, certain food allergies can trigger hemorrhoids, great deals can be had for kid's clothing, and adults sometimes dress dogs in costumes for no apparent reason.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are best when grilled.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on December 6, 2016.