A Day in the Life of a Blogger

Woke up, get out of bed, dragged a comb across my head……Oh wait, that’s a song. A Day in the Life, by the Beatles. In fact, since I was asked to write here and was deciding how to start my first post I have had that damn song in my head. Think yourself lucky it’s no longer the 1990’s and I don’t have access to one of those awful midi players that annoyed the life out of everyone when they opened a web page, because I would be sharing.

I decided I would start with a day in the life of a blogger – at least part of a day; I don’t want to bore you with an entire one.

So how does my day start? Pretty much the same as the song, although it has been a long time since I had enough hair to be worth dragging a comb over. Wake up, get out of bed, make a cup of coffee and sit down in front of the computer. Open up my coffee-stained, dust-covered, scratched-to-bits, ridiculously expensive, brand new MacBook Pro and see what the day has to offer. Or more appropriately - what yesterday produced.

First stop, the WordPress Dashboard, check the stats. Oh look, blog no 1 has had a new link from the International Herald Tribune, and it’s sending traffic, and woah! One of my posts got picked up by a sphere plugin over at XYZ and that’s sending traffic. Which post are they coming to and what did they write that caused it? Hmmm…. Blog no 2 has less visitors than usual, what’s up with that? Which posts are they looking at? Guess nobody was interested in that subject. Blog no 3…. And so on and so forth.

Next stop, google analytics. Where did my traffic come from? Oh, would you look at that, some kind soul must have submitted one of my posts to mixx. Who on earth are they? Oh, never heard of them, but I appreciate the traffic. What keywords are people using? Hmmm, that’s a new one, why would anyone find me with that term? Oh yes, I remember, I wrote a post about having my content stolen by pornforwomenanddykesandthepeoplwholoveit.com. Never expected any traffic from that…..

Next stop, the big one – google adsense. How much money did I make yesterday? Woooo, a good day. Lets have a look in more detail, check the URL channels. Hmm, that sux – nobody clicked on that one, that was really good the day before. But, hey, my eCPM is better than average…and on to the other affiliate sites, see what happened there. Woohoo! Somebody bought a 200 foot sailboat through Amazon - I can retire. As if.

By the time I take the trouble to look at the clock, I realize it is now 11.30 and I reflect on what I have achieved. I finally come to the conclusion that despite the fact I have been “working,” for two hours, I have achieved precisely nothing. Just like I did the day before.

Actually, that’s not strictly true – I have learned finally to curb my enthusiasm for statistics. Google Analytics, the WordPress stats plugin and all the other statistical analysis tools you can buy, steal, download, install or sign up for provide valuable information, but it’s really easy to lose yourself in them. I have finally decided to use them what they were designed for and for me, that means answering the following questions:

Where did my traffic come from and more importantly, why? Was it something I did intentionally, or did it just happen? If it just happened, how do I make it happen again?

What keywords or phrases are people finding me with and are they the ones I want them to find me with? There is nothing more annoying than to be searching for “designer purses,” to find yourself directed to the Louis Vuitton Plumbing Supply Warehouse. ( And yes, that’s a new one - I will be reporting on it as time goes by.) I don’t like it when it happens to me and I certainly don’t want to do it to someone else. Not entirely my fault when it happens, that’s supposed to be google’s job – nonetheless I prefer to avoid it if possible.

Conversely, and perhaps more important - what terms are they NOT finding me with that I want to be found by?

There are, of course, more questions to be answered, but I think I have rambled enough for one post. I will be introducing myself properly over the next few weeks, but if you agree, disagree or just generally want to be a pain, feel free to leave me a comment – there’s a link at the bottom. And let me know if you can get that song out of your head.

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…..