It Rhymes With 'Hump' Day: Harrumph, Harrumph, Harrumph!

No, it doesn't exactly rhyme, but I've had it up to my thinning eyelashes with these "hump" words, okay! Harrumph!

ahem.

So, I googled "harrumph" and what do you think popped up right at the top of the first page? The definition, maybe? Nope! Try a YouTube video of a scene from the movie Blazing Saddles!

Yes, of all the words through which Google could search on the internet, a VIDEO from Blazing Saddles. What kind of society do we live in? (Don't answer that.) Wanna know something else that I find even more disconcerting than the results of my Google search? My husband quoted word-for-word the entire scene that was in the video (without seeing the video). Yep. This is my life.

So, guess what? Jon Farleigh and Dewi are gettin' ready to quote the whole scene for you, now, too!

In case you had listed "read a ridiculous dog blog that does a parody of a scene in Blazing Saddles" on your bucket list, you can go ahead and check that one off. ;-)

Oh, and here's the actual movie footage starring Mel Brooks and Harvey Korman. (Just so you know I didn't make all this up.)

Tune in...wait a minute. I think I mentioned that I'd had it up to my eyelashes with these "hump" words. Yeah, I think I'm done. So, tune in next Wednesday when I DON'T rhyme "hump" with NOTHING! (Because, really, nothing rhymes with "nothing," anyway.)

☺☺☺

How Can I Help You Get More Eyes on Your Blog? Let Me Count the Ways

Don't worry, I haven't written a sonnet for you today.

I am, however, going to use my blog experience to try and help you get some more eyes on your blog - if you have one. If not, well, maybe one day when you start one? 

But first, here's a token picture of Dewi that I took earlier today:

He was in this position for exactly 14.2 seconds. :)

And now: the part where I spill my guts

For the last month or so, beginning with the impending one-year anniversary of this blog coupled with the start of a new calendar year and culminating, last week, with the Pet Blogger Challenge, I've been more introspective than usual, prompting a whole slew of personal questions about the future of the blog: Can I (and why should I) keep up the grueling five-day-a-week pace (of posting and keeping up with way too many other blogs)? If it's too much, how do I cut back? How do I keep it fun without becoming redundant? Who the heck really cares - other than me - anyway? 

Can you say "too much introspection can make 'Jane' a very anxious girl"? 

Wanna know what I say?

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, IF YOU'RE PRONE TO BOUTS OF OVER-THINKING, DON'T START YOUR BLOG RIGHT BEFORE THE NEW YEAR!

Okay, joking aside, I've been struggling with "my purpose" so much lately that I'm having trouble mustering the will to write anything, and that's bad. So I'm resorting to the one tried and true way I know to divert my eyes off of myself, and that's to help someone else. In this case, "someone else" would be all the new or inexperienced (relative to me) bloggers who are reading this post. 

Some Statistics

(because although I'm far from an industry "expert," I do have a little street cred) 

• I have 163 Google feed (RSS) subscribers* (to my blog posts).
• 16 people subscribe to posts by e-mail.
• I've had over 52,000 page views as of this writing.
• My daily page view count doubled from September to October, about the same time I started using Twitter.
• My Google Page Rank is 3.
• Alexa says this (as of today - updated daily) about The Chronicles of Cardigan:
  "Chroniclesofcardigan.blogspot.com is ranked #535,721 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. Its visitors view 2.7 unique pages each day on average, and almost all visitors to this site come from the US, where it has attained a traffic rank of 76,023. The time spent in a typical visit to Chroniclesofcardigan.blogspot.com is about sixteen minutes, with two minutes spent on each pageview. It is relatively popular among users in the cities of Richmond-Petersburg (where it is ranked #543) and Seattle-Tacoma (#12,504)."
• My #1 referring site and URL is Google.com.
• My #2 referring site is Facebook.com.
• My #2 referring URL is a virtual tie between thedailycorgi.blogspot.com and elyancardigans.blogspot.com.
• I have 2,699 published comments.

*RSS subscribers include, but are not limited to, Google Friend Connect "followers." I obtained my subscriber information from Google Reader and Google Webmaster.

Okay, now that you know where the blog stands statistically, I'd like to share the ways in which I intentionally tried to increase traffic (I hate that word, by the way, it's so impersonal) to this blog, starting with the very first day. (I'm going to write in the present tense, though, since I'm writing this for you, not me.)

• Make sure your blog feed is public (not private), which means search engines can crawl it.
• Post something.
• Add "searchable" labels to all your posts. This will not only help people search your archives, but can help search engines find your content, too. 
• Send someone you know your blog address and beg ask them to read it.
• Find, read and comment on other similar blogs (in my case, it was other Cardigan Corgi blogs, namely one, Life with The Horde, in which case, upon the author stumbling upon this site, I had the supreme fortune of having my blog name and address broadcast to her entire readership and added to her blogroll).
• Post quality content often (in my case, back then, it was every day).
• Encourage commenting on your posts. By encourage I mean: ask open-ended questions, write about something thought-provoking, incredibly shocking ridiculous (okay maybe not that) and reply to commenters when possible.
• Leave thoughtful comments on other blogs and add these blogs to your blogroll.
• Make blog friends. (If you're leaving thoughtful comments on blogs you enjoy reading, this should be easy. Note, however, that some of your comments on other blogs might not be reciprocated, and when this happens, it does not mean that you are a blogging loser. You have no idea what's going on with that other blogger. Just suck it up and move on.)
• Join a blog hop(s). I linked up to the Saturday Pet Blogger Hop for the first time in mid-February. I met LOTS of new people on my first few "hops." This is also when my readership grew from a mainly Cardigan Corgi niche to a more encompassing dog blog niche.
• In spite of how much you might hate it, create a Facebook fan page and install a widget on your blog. Mine was born on March 3. I wanted to make it easy for people - who might prefer Facebook to blog comments - to interact with me. I have been rewarded with 146 "people" and 20 "page" fans. I love my Facebook friends.
• Post quality content often. (In late March, after several Saturday blog hops, I decided to quit posting on weekends because my family time was suffering. I still post every weekday, unless I announce a break in advance.)
• If someone asks you to, write a guest post for her (or his) blog. I've done it four times, on three blogs.
• Share the link love and link up to some of your favorite blogs from within your blog posts, particularly if you've been inspired by another's work.
• The summer is a natural time to hit a posting rut. Push though it anyway.
• Leave thoughtful comments on other blogs and add blogs to your blogroll.
• Go to the pet blogging conference, BlogPaws, if you can. There is nothing more rewarding than to meet your blog friends (and make new blog friends) in person. 
• In spite of how much you hate the thought of it (even more than Facebook), get a Twitter handle (related to your blog), install a widget on your blog and start tweeting - even if it's only to tweet your blog posts. And if you've been posting quality content all along, you might even get invited to join Triberr, where your tribemates will even tweet your blog posts, and before you know it, you've doubled your blog's monthly page views. (I have 157 Twitter followers, belong to two Triberr tribes and since October, when I started tweeting, have seen my monthly blog page views double.)
• Post quality content often.
• Leave thoughtful comments on other blogs and add blogs to your blogroll.

Which brings me to the current state of affairs. ;)

So this - at a high level - is how I've helped people find this blog. However, aside from posting quality content often (which is far and away the most important thing of all), making people want to read more than half a post, subscribe and/or keep coming back for more is another story altogether. And lucky for us, one that I'm saving for another day.

Hope this helped...someone...even just a little bit.

I know I feel better. :)

P.S. I will gladly answer any questions!

P.P.S. I've got more parts to show you!

Crazy, Unfocused, Butt-Centric Cardigans - You'll Find All That and More Here!

According to Google Analytics. :)

Random butt shot? Hardly.

I've written before about some of the unusual ways people have found this blog through search queries. And now that the blog's a year old, based on a hunch that there might be more "unusual" where that came from, I thought it might be fun to share the top, sure-fire, tried-and-true ways to find The Chronicles of Cardigan on the Net (aside from typing in the exact address in your browser).

Ready?

(Note: Click links to see where the "unusual" queries landed.)

1. chronicles of cardigan (and all manner of variations, including misspellings)
2. ann margret (and all manner of variations)
3. aquasaurs (and all manner of queries with this word and/or the scientific name, triops, and sea monkey)
4. Dewi and Jon Farleigh cardigan welsh corgi (and all manner of variations)
5. spooky buddies (and all manner of queries with these words)
6. busch gardens dog kennel (and all manner of variations on busch gardens + dog kennel)
7. does my butt look good? and all these verbatim* variations:
   • does my butt look good
   • why does as* look good in slacks
   • my as* doesn't look good in pants
   • look at these pictures of my as*
   • i look good in these pants
   • i feel bad about my butt
   • good look buttocks
   • does my butt look okay
   • does my as* look good
   • does my arse look good
   • butt look perfect in pants
   *There were no asterisks in as* on the analytics report. This is a family-friendly blog, people.

Gratuitous booty? No way.

Now, based on this list, IF (and that's a BIG if) I was concerned about capitalizing on optimizing my blog topics/key words to draw more of certain search queries, I could probably do a few things, like:

• Start an Ann-Margret fan page and keep it regularly updated. NOT!
• Keep aquasaurs year-round so I can report on them and give them funny voices like Marcel the Shell. NOPE!
• I can't even go there for #5. [shudder]
• Take the dogs to Busch Gardens more often. Could happen, but I'm not writing about it.
• Do more dog butt stories (but conveniently not mention the word "dog" anywhere in the post)! 
  
  
  Friends, I think I'm on to something. (And if you believe that, I've got some swamp land I can sell you for cheap.)

Do Corgi butts drive me nuts? Absolutely.
(Roxi's butt)

Oh yeah, did you notice how "poop" isn't in any of those popular queries, despite the fact that I love talking about it so much? Know what that means? There's already a corner on the "poop" blog market. Darn it.

*****

So the title of this post indicates that there might be some crazy and unfocused stuff in this blog, too.
YEAH RIGHT! Google IS WRONG!  I wish. (You know, I can hear those thoughts you're thinking.)

But come on, how in Sam Hill did these (down below) queries spit out my blog?! Synonyms or no. And why would someone page forward that far?!

• crazy blog (This actually converted into four page views. Figures.)
• people says i'm unfocused (And they're correct.)
• coconut cake bahamas (Huh???)
• my tongue pokes out when i laugh (I dare you to try this.)
• ten reasons my dog is better than my ex (Which one of you searched for this? ;)
• how to clean house (Bwahahahaha!)
• discreet happy hump day (Discreet?)
• toilet keeps overflowing when son poops (It's called a courtesy flush, my friends. Divide and conquer.)
  
  And my FAVORITE!...
• the cutest dog in the world guinness record (Hey, I'm just reporting the facts, y'all!)

*****

May you find everything you're looking for this weekend!

Ta ta!

Wacky Blog Stats, Keyword Searches and a Note for the Reader Who Certainly Didn't Find the Right Answer

My blog stats have been peculiar over the last 36 hours. I'll just say that there's been "oddly excessive traffic." Has anyone else noticed this with your own blog?

*****

While on the same topic of blog stats, some of you might recall the post I wrote a while back concerning strange search words readers have used to find my blog. Well, it shouldn't be surprising to anyone, who's read more than three of my posts, that readers might still (occasionally) hit my blog with some seriously out-of-context search word strings, for example:

"there's a turd in the herd"
or
"fat guy wearing a cardigan"

While it's doubtful that any of these searches amounted to more than a passing blog glimpse - and I'm totally okay with that - I just hope the people eventually found what they were looking for. (Because they certainly didn't find it here.)

*****

But on a serious note, I am a bit concerned for the reader who took a detour to my blog yesterday with the following search string:

"dog licking private areas constantly leaves puddles of liquid"

So with that, I say:

Dear Accidental Reader,

If by any chance, you are still searching for help (and note that I am not formally educated in any form of medicine whatsoever), I think that your dog might actually need to see a veterinarian (or therapist) about that. I hope it all turns out okay.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth

*****

Has anyone found your blog using "strange" search words lately?

This blog is not about sweaters, but it is a little about poop.

Not a sweater blog,
but not an anti-dude blog either.

And that title, friends, is for all the people who accidentally hit on my blog when googling (or yahooing, binging, etc.) the search term "cardigan sweaters".    :^)

Not that anyone has ever done that, since my blog stats don't indicate anyone has actually ever found me using keywords like "cardigan sweater" or "knitting". Well, except for the one person who was looking for the "cardigan chronicles blog," which is actually a blog about sweaters (but that could've been news to the person searching, since they went ahead and clicked into my obviously-not-about-sweaters blog).

Hey, do you like the photo?

Note: Any men reading this (ahem, Ron) can feel free to abstain from answering that question...or not (I repeat, not for you, Ron).

I was originally going to use a frumpy cardigan on a mannequin photo, but decided I like this photo better. It's much more colorful.

Did anyone happen to notice that yesterday was my 100th post? No?

Yeah, I waited until today to say anything because I was actually conducting an experiment to see if anyone would notice. That's okay; I didn't notice either (not true), and my feelings are not hurt (that's true). I was just waiting to use my 100th post as an excuse to write this incredibly random, long-winded, overly sarcastic post about sweaters and (soon-to-be-about) poop, and well, Sunday was not a good day for me to do that.

So the handful of people who've been following my blog since the beginning might remember (and wish they didn't) a post I did about deer poop and the safety of deer in my yard. Did you know that corgis require a mystery nutrient contained in deer poop in order to survive? (By the way, I'm looking for investors in my new venture to bottle and sell the deer poop in my yard as a corgi dietary supplement. There's enough of a supply to keep every corgi in Virginia, USA in good health.) :)

Um yeah, so that wasn't one of my better posts. (More on that later.)

Back to search keywords.

Have you ever looked at the different keywords your readers are using to find your blog? All the "experts" will tell you that if you want to help people find your blog, you need to make it easy for search engines (like Google) to find you. And so in order to do that, even though it might seem obvious, you should really know what kind of readers you want to attract.  As for me, I'd like to attract corgi owners (both breeds really), dog and cat owners, people who enjoy reading about dogs and cats...and complete nonsense. If I get a stray person who likes to read about sweaters, or ice cream, or even eating ice cream while wearing a sweater, well, that's just the cherry on top (pun intended).

So as I've obviously been known to do now and then, I looked at the search keywords in my stats a few weeks ago and amongst the expected "chronicles of cardigan," "jon farleigh and dewi cardigan" and numerous variations wherein, for some reason this one seemed a little peculiar:

"deer dung soup"

And to be clear that this was not some sort of Google stat FAIL, I went ahead and googled it myself (as if the folks at Google don't already think my search history is bizarre), and whatdaya know? There's my little blog (on like page 13). WTFudge?

Yes, I'd blogged about deer and poop in the same post (see above), but I never once used the word "dung," (but, come to think of it, I did do a post about soup - but NOT dung soup)!!!!  I repeat: WTFudge?!

So do I consider it a cherry on top that I got a reader who might have been looking for recipes for DEER DUNG SOUP?  Um, well, I dunno?! Would you??

Has anyone ever found your blog using an unconventional search keyword?


(Know what? Ironically, with this post I have just further optimized search engines to find my blog using the search keywords "sweater" and "dung." Neat.)