Coffee Share 180804

Photo by Muhammad Haikal Sjukri on Unsplash

This is a Weekly Coffee Share update.
Our get-together is hosted by: Eclectic Alli.

Here’s the link for last week.

Here’s the link for this week.

Greetings caffeine seekers.  Despite the daily heat pressing us a bit hard this year and the fires burning far from under control, today my tree in the front yard has putting us on notice that fall is fast approaching.  Its leaves are beginning to yellow and drop which is unwelcome except that they foretell the soon arrival of the rains and cooler weather when any remaining fires will be crushed and our neighbors north and south will be able to rest and repair.  They are a welcome harbinger.

Writing this week has been a challenge.  I use the WordPress view & visitor stats as a tool to keep my attention to writing and promoting essays that someone actually reads.  Otherwise, the temptation is to just write and not worry about either quality of thought or presentation.  I do want to write, but I want to write well and interesting things.

As we enjoy the remains of the cooler morning before the expected heat, would you care to share how do you maintain your focus on such things?  Do you watch your stats or do you have some better motivator? Do you attend to this at all, trusting your gift for word-crafting to take care of itself?

July 2018 stats chartWhen July 2018 finally passed the international date line, I was left with my best month of both views and visitors since starting this project.  That much feels pretty good, but it is so easy to pick out other factors that don’t suggest as healthy a readership situation.  I’d love to know if you have thoughts on any of the following questions:

  • I’m using a free WordPress site, which as I understand things means that I can’t really influence SEO by using either categories or tags to help my posts be seen by search engines.  Does this align with your understanding?
  • I’ve not really pursued Followers, but have a few.  Since I don’t try to post daily or even weekly, I’m not sure that mine is a blog that merits following.
  • I have had readers from 19 different countries, which I love and especially when any sort of conversation arises from the contact.  I can’t account for how these folks are finding my stories (recall limited SEO for my site) so i suspect that my posts to a few Facebook groups are going wider than I expected.
  • You might recall from last week that I posted my first short fiction (am keeping the 2000 word or less rule for now) but have not found the best way to promote it.  I’ve had only a few (very good) comments outside of WordPress, so I think the quality is okay, but only a few data points does not tell me enough.  If you’d be willing to give it a quick read – please click here to spend 10 minutes with Pastor Randy.  Readers are invaluable.  International ones, even more so, but peer readers remain the best.

Most of you have so much more experience than I have in this area.  I’d love to pay attention as you share your experiences and thoughts.

Well, domestic chores are calling. My normal work life resumes this coming Monday which means the discipline of my time also resumes.  The break from that has been wonderful.

Thanks also for stopping by.  I hope you all have a wonderful next week.  Let’s do this again next weekend.  Warmest regards all.

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Gary photo n bio

8 thoughts on “Coffee Share 180804”

  1. I sometimes pay too much attention to stats… I’m getting far fewer view this year than last, but then, I am posting less, so… For the most part it is about getting posts out there that you are happy with and enjoying the posts from fellow bloggers that count.

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  2. I’m not very good at understanding or paying attention to the data details. I should but keeping up with blog reading, writing Nd trying to write well is time consuming enough.

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  3. Hi Gary, I hope your new week is starting out in the best possible way. I apologize for the late response to last week’s coffee share. I’m on my 5th blog right now, my 3rd using WordPress. My blog is not so big, so I don’t have any professional advice to give. I’ve had one relatively big blog, when I had a photography business. I paid to promote it. That was all business for me, and the more money I paid for marketing, the more people found my blog. Many of the bigger blogs do. I don’t do photography for a living now, and there would be no point in paying for advertisement. It did absolutely work when I did. Just keep those blog posts coming, and keep giving meaningful comments, just like you do. There’s a lot of thoughts behind your comments, and people do appreciate that. I don’t always have the time to reply in such a thoughtful way that you deserve. I think it’s the same for a lot of people, but in the back of my head I do appreciate that a lot, I’m sure that goes for others as well. I’ve noticed that the more I comment on other peoples blogs, the more new readers I get. Try searching after WordPress posts that covers the same subject that you are currently writing about. For example, if I post something about container gardening, I go up to the left top corner on the WordPress site, go down the “reader” menu, go to “search” in that menu, and write “Container Gardening” (if that’s my most recent post.) Usually hundreds of posts that contains the word container gardening pops up. I choose maybe ten, I read them thoroughly, and try to give a meaningful comment. Potentially one meaningful comment that is left towards the audience I am looking for, generates several new readers to my blog. I find that much more effectual than leaving random comments on blogs that I don’t feel for. I wish you the best of luck!

    Maria

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  4. Gary,
    Probably my favorite writing quote comes from Cyril Connelly. He said, “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”

    That being said, I do want people to read my writing, which is why I post it instead of putting it in a drawer. My philosophy is to stay true to myself, write as good as I can to hone my craft, and if I do that the readers will come.

    And if they don’t, I’m still who i am, and I’ve still grown from the process.

    Good luck!

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