I’ve been reading guides on blogs, blogging, and how to get more traffic to your blog.   After all, no one wants to write and write and write if no one is reading it.  Right?

Here are some helpful hints for my bitter fans:

What They Won’t Tell You In Guides For Bloggers

1.  Most Guides About Getting Traffic Are Written To Get More Traffic For The Author.  While in general it’s understandable, you have to keep in mind that they don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about.

2.  Most Guides Are On Sites I Wouldn’t Go Back To.  Seriously.  Before you start reorganising based on someone else’s advice, you might want to see if their site is all that. (Shut up.  I know no one uses that expression anymore.)

3.  Most of These People are Relentless Ass-kissers.  I have no idea why, but they don’t seem to tell you what doesn’t work… only how great such-and-such a service is.  My guess is that they use that service and are hoping that if they can get more people to sign up, it’ll boost their traffic.  See a trend?

I haven’t been doing this all that long, but I do watch my stats to see what works and what doesn’t, and I’ll share with you the little tidbits I’ve found:

1.  Not all blogger networks are worth your time.  If you’re going to clutter up your sidebar with tacky widgets for them (hey I do it too), don’t waste the space on ones that don’t work.  I found that Blogcatalog.com, MyBlogLog.com, and to a lesser extent TheGoodBlogs.com all are decent.  I wouldn’t bother with Blogorama.  I’ve tried about 10-15 different ones, and those were the only ones that brought me more than a couple clicks.    (Oh, and avoid “Others Online”.  I dunno if they work or not, but they make you install a toolbar in your browser.  It made my browser SO slow, and I found it difficult to turn off.   I have a word for that: spyware.)

2.  Put a widget on your posts to allow people to Digg, StumbleUpon, etc your posts.  Yesterday someone put one of my posts on SU, and I got 400 new visitors just from that.  I was so encouraged by that, that I’ve started trying to build up my Stumble Upon network.  You can find me at http://jaynemc.stumbleupon.com/  Feel free to add me as a friend.  If you do, I’ll visit your blog, and if I like it, I’ll Stumble it.  If you’re funny enough to like Bitter Women, no doubt I’ll like your blog too.   SU does require a toolbar, but it doesn’t seem to slow down my browser or cause any problems at all. 

3.  Sponsored Listings: Not worth it!  I put in a bid to be a $15/month sponsor of the ‘Humor’ category on BlogCatalog.com.  I thought that surely hundreds if not thousands of people would come rushing in.  It did NOT work.  In four days of having it up, I’ve gotten only a small handful of people that found me that way. I wish I’d saved the money and bought myself a Boston Cream Pie or five.

4.  Most people so far  have found me through me leaving comments elsewhere.  Yeah, looks like the old-fashioned way of making friends is still the best.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though.  I’ve found some awesome-funny blogs out there. 

Let me know if you have helpful hints!  We can help each other a lot better than these so-called “experts” methinks!

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Here’s additions to my list of things on blogs that make me crabby:

1.  Pop-up adverts.  I wish there was a way to perma-block myself from accidentally returning to blogs that do this.  I’m thinking of getting my firewall involved.  I don’t mind advertising, but pop-ups are just annoying.

2.  Restricted Commenting.  It cheeses me off when I find a blog I like, read an interesting post, and then go to comment (I love to comment) and then find that they only accept blogger.com comments.  I don’t mind if I have to be approved or some such, but this is too much!  And then there are a few weird blogs out there, and even a few really funny ones, that don’t accept comments at all!  WTF!  But I have things to say!

3.  Pet Blogs.  Thanks to Wendy for reminding me of this in my previous post about Blogs I Hate, but Pet Blogs are pretty hideous.  I have a cat.  She’s funny, charming, engaging, and snotty all at the same time.  But, sadly, she isn’t interesting.

I’m as yet undecided about blogs where people post for money.  I see a lot of adverts for that on sidebars, but not very many actual paid posts.  I’m not, as I said before, opposed to people making cash on their blogs.  In fact, I’m downright tickled with the $1.47 I’ve earned for my 284980924832 hours work on this blog.  And, if someone were to offer me $100 to post something about them on my blog, I really think I’d have to say ‘hell yes’, because that would pay for my hosting for a year!

So, I think my general reservation about this is unrestricted jealousy.  The best offer I got so far was the folks over at Associated Content were prepared to give me $3. 

So out of sheer jealousy, pettiness, and bitterness, I’ll add:

4.  Pay Per Post Blogs.  Cuz I’m a bitch.

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If you’ve been blogging, say, more than 10 minutes, you’ve seen countless adverts telling you how to make money doing it.  Well, I’m sure it’s possible, I’d also say it’s unlikely it will ever happen to me.  So for those of us who earn $1.97 a month on Google Adsense, here are some alternative money-making schemes:

1.  Eat Glass and Make $200,000

BOSTON - A man pleaded guilty Wednesday to his role in a multistate scheme in which prosecutors say he and his wife intentionally ate glass at restaurants and collected more than $200,000 in compensation.

Ronald Evano, 49, pleaded guilty to 20 federal counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and identity theft. Prosecutors dropped four counts of identity fraud and health care fraud in the plea agreement.

Prosecutors say Evano and his wife, Mary, filed fraudulent insurance claims worth more than $200,000, collected more than $200,000 and left a trail of unpaid medical bills totaling more than $100,000 in several states between 1997 and 2005.

From: The Daily American

Now, the downside to this is that this only averages out to about $40,000/year.  Considering there were two of them involved, that’s $20,000 per year EACH.  That’s really hardly worth eating glass for.  I mean McDonald’s managers make more than that.

2.  Expose Yourself

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — A 52-year-old man prosecutors called a “career flasher” was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison after pleading no contest to charges he exposed himself to a woman on a commuter train.

Although they call it a career, I don’t see any profit in it.  Sounds like my blog makes more money, and I’m unlikely to go to prison for it.

3.  Flip off the cops

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — The city of Mobile is appealing a judge’s decision to award $3,000 to a motorist who was arrested for making an obscene hand gesture to a police officer. City attorney Ashton Hill said Wednesday the city is seeking to have Addison DeBoi’s civil suit heard in circuit court.

On July 31, District Court Judge Michael McMaken ruled in favor of DeBoi in his wrongful arrest suit and ordered the police department to pay $3,000.

DeBoi, 56, was arrested by Officer Bristol Hines on Sept. 2, 2005, on a charge of disorderly conduct after he made a hand gesture while the two men were in their vehicles. He was acquitted last year and sued the city for $10,000 in damages, citing time lost from work, the threat of losing his engineering job - which requires a government security clearance - and the embarrassment of being put in jail.

In awarding him $3,000, the judge said police officers must have “thicker skin” than the general public.

Although at first this seems like a good plan, after all, to make a decent living, you’d just have to flip off a few dozen cops, which really doesn’t take any time at all, the whole “appeal” bit makes it tedious, and who wants to spend all that time in court?  Plus, there’s always a chance you’d get the crap beat out of you by cops who got sick of your ass.  Overall, the risks are too high here.

I guess for now I’ll have to stick to the day job, but I’m always keeping my eyes open.

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