A Letter For You

Dear Readers,
I have been thinking about what I should blog about all day.  I even kept the write-post window open for hours just in case an idea popped into my head.  It seems that when you just expect the words to come, they won't.  Nothing seemed to stand out in terms of topic choices.  Another character dissection? A new short story, just for fun?   Or just pontificate about celebrities like Megan Fox, Angelia Jolie or Kim Kardashian?  (Yeah, um, no.  I love me some celeb gossip - but I don't think the world needs one more person talking about those ladies).
If I were going to critic anyone about anything, it would likely be someone like Stephanie Meyer (The Twilight series, as though I even need to reference) and how she was able to turn a G-rated love story about vampires into a zillion dollar industry.   Oh, that would be a great blog post, wouldn't it?
But here we are, half way into a blog post that tells you nothing but "I don't know what to write about, so I'm  rambling."
Allow me to pick a subject and go with it:
Web traffic.
Yep, that's our subject today.  Surprised, right?
I have been maximizing my self-publishing knowledge lately.  I have spent much time studying all kinds of technologically savvy options out there.  Google has been a real treasure.  I feel like, even though I have been using my computer for years, I am only now starting to understand it's full potential.  I have found a new toy which I will share for those of you who might like to play with it:
The Alexa Ranking system shows you all kinds of cool info about a website when you install this toolbar:
http://www.alexa.com/toolbar
It allows you to better understand web traffic.  You can tell how popular a site is based on its rank.  You can also see how many other sites link to the site you're on.  This toolbar is an excellent marketing tool for my fellow writers, but also for anyone who wants to know more about the sites they visit.
I was recommended this toolbar by Where Writer's Win, a blog that I subscribe to, which is about, you guessed it, writing.  Their site is www.writerswin.com   Writer friends, please check it out.  You won't be sorry.
Another thing about web traffic that I would like to note is SEO, or search engine optimization.  This little prize is how search engines find and rank your page's relevance to a given search.  The more often your page is found, the higher its likelihood to be found the next time (i.e. the higher on the list you get, trying to get to that first page of options).  So, I'm giving it a try.  I included some references in this post that I think might pop up  in search tools on yahoo! or bing as well as google.  My experiment here is to see if including those keywords in my post will allow people to find it easier.  I wasn't random in my choices either - I picked references that my target readership would be interested in (and hey, if they like my blog, then fabulous!).  I hope that it works, and more people stumble upon my blog, enjoy reading it, and maybe come back again.
I think it's worth a shot.  I will let you know how it goes!
Much Love,
JoAnna