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… and no I don’t think it sucks =P

It;s 5:01 a.m as I start this post and I’ve had a REALLY long few days .. been working from 10 a.m to 10 p.m as of yesterday on the documentary shoot and some client meetings; rushed home to get ready and head over for an Xmas party at a friends’ apartment by 11 p.m; got back around 4 a.m and I’m still awake !

So now that I’ve filled you in and you can appreciate my state of mind … I was blog hopping around the neighbourhood when I came across a tweet to 10 Reasons Why Your Blog Sucks by Edward Khoo.  The reasons come about pretty obvious when you read them but the perception described comes about in a really harsh manner.  If someone had to feel so angry or disgruntled after reading my blog – I would come away feeling pretty shyte ! I won’t put it all here but will give you a summary instead.

10 Reasons Why Some Blogs Suck =(

1. You use syndicated content. You cut & paste articles from sites across the net onto your blog.  You can, but you shouldn’t. Without unique content your blog is nothing.
2. Your blog is boring.  Write about topics that your reader, not topics that interest you.
3. Your blog revolves around your person. Stop talking about yourself already. Readers don’t know you personally, and couldn’t care less about your ramblings. Tell them Facts or stories, not boring personal stuff
4. Oh no, not your favorite music on auto-play!  Don’t add music to your site. Half the people won’t like it and the other half will find it’s a distraction.
5. You use clip art
6. No search boxes or archives.
7. Bad Grammar, typos, misspelled words, and poor punctuation.
8. Spinning Articles.  You write the same things others do that belong to your niche.
9. Irregular posting.
10. Your blog looks like 12023532989 other blogs.

Why My Blog Does NOT Suck

1. I don’t use syndicated content. I swear ! Last time I checked, I hadn’t copy-pasted anything other than my scribbles from my word docs to Live Writer once I got it downloaded.
2. My blog is NOT boring ! At least no one has said so or sent me ‘yawn’ comments.  I like to think I’ve got a variety of topics on hand ranging from Music; some Blogging Tips; Poetry new blog discoveries; and some deep & meaningful reflections as well.
3. My blog revolves around my person.  Why ? Because I am more likely to relate to things that interest me – impact me – and hence better able to convey those thoughts to my readers.
4. I don’t have any music on auto-play.  I have blogged about some of my favourite music and the Magic Of Melodies by using links and video streams but none are on auto play. 
5. I use any and all sorts of videos and images that I feel will enhance my sporadic thoughts and help you relate to whatever it is that I am writing about. And that includes clip art.  I don’t own a personal database of over a billion images representing all walks of the universe.  That’s what the Gods of Google are there for.  However I’ve been lucky enough to capture some real Mumbai Moments as well as some great shots on my camping trip with my own camera so that should count for something !
6. I have a search box on the top right corner of my blog !  I also have a really cool tool-bar (that took me forever to find) at the bottom of this page.  And even if the feature was not available – there’s always the CTRL F feature right there on your keyboard !
7. Did yuo konw taht as long as teh frist and lsat letetrs of a wrod are palced coerrclty tehn you can from the snectnece wihtuot any turolbe.  I got an A in English through my schooling years.  I am quite a stickler for good grammar so not only do I use spell-checks when writing posts – I have also added certain words such as ‘woohoo’ to the dictionary just so that I have less errors during the spell-checks =P  Being a blogger is about being able to express yourself at leisure, or even whilst on the move – and hence small errors every now and then is still acceptable. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt!
8. I don’t spin articles – at least not intentionally.  I write about anything and everything (although I probably will never be able to write about ‘everything’) and considering there are over thousands of similar articles and posts across the blogosphere – there are bound to be similarity to my posts as compared to those who write with no fixed agenda.
9. My blog has been around for about 1.5 year and 152 sporadic thoughts old.  There were 28 posts between July ‘08 – Dec ‘08; and as of today excluding this post – 124 posts between Jan ‘09 and Dec ‘09 which is about 10 posts per month and 2-3 posts per week.  I’d like to think that makes a pretty regular blogger.  Ofcourse I could always try to write more .. but I can’t because I really can’t find the time to always be able to make a note of ‘everything’ that could perhaps be the most interesting content one would ever read.  I blog when I can – about whatever it is that I can – because I just ‘can’.
10. Some people actually like my blog and that’s good enough for me. I don’t blog because I’m trying to become an expert in my niche - I don’t even have a niche !  I’ve managed to receive awards from fellow bloggers – and  it was a total dazed blur of awards for me when I got 3 in September.  A few people out there thought my blog worthy of an award in the form of a JPG image which is pretty cool =) In fact one went on to call me an Awesome Girl too :)  My newbie blogger ego got the better of me at the start of the year and I nominated myself for the Bloggers Choice Awards (just for fun) and I’m proud to announce I got 18 votes – out of how many thousands I don’t know – for Best Blog About Stuff !
11. Various Blog Communities have given me some sort of decent ranking – even though I never asked to be ranked.  Don’t most of us belong to various blog communities or have been reading blogs for a while and hence got encouraged to write ?? because that’s how I got into blogging.  Besides the ranking status or Cyber Highway Traffic (as I like to call it) sort of gives one an idea of how other bloggers perceive their blogs.  I am not an expert – I’m not trying to be one – but I’d definitely like to know how I stand in the overall realm of things in blogosphere.
12. Lastly I’m not writing this post because I think my blog is ‘the bomb’ – that’s Bombchells department =) It’s not because I think that my blog is a Bitch Fab blog – that title totally goes to the Fab Bitch herself :) But the main reason that my blog doesn’t suck is because it’s MY blog and it’s all about My Sporadic Reflections =)

alexa ranking blogger tips cyber space cyber traffic patrol how to improve google page rank nothing to hide observations traffic statistics using google page rank website demographics

I’ve been meaning to look at my traffic records for a while now … I have looked at them but never got around to actually making ground notes on what my driving skills are … and I’d like to think I’m a wicked driver … I could easily ride with the lads and put some of them to shame ;)

Without further adieu I shall share with you the fine print that the cyber patrol officers have sent my way and perhaps with all your experience you can give your neighbour a hand on the best way forward :)

Alexa Rank Report

A few months ago, I installed the Alexa Traffic Rank button on my blog page after Kaddu talked about  "Traffic"-(k)ing! Or Queen? as my curiosity (and ego I reckon) got the better of me.

When I had originally put it up – my rating was somewhere up in the 630,000 mark …. sounds good eh ? Not really – in fact the way it works on Alexa is that the ‘lower your ranking – the better your web presence’.  Then maybe last month when I checked in on it – I saw that my rank had gone down to the 350,000 zone … progress baby ! And September stats show that I’m down at 260,000 ! Awesome ! 

I also managed to find out how popular my blog is ranked in other countries … My Sporadic Reflections seem to be going down well in India … and when you think about the overall big picture – out of millions of blogs around in Bloggerville – my blog ranking is  28,120 in India and 186,541 in the US

As you can see from the below pie-chart; the majority of my readers are from India and the US – and a tiny 1% readership from Malaysia too … Thanks guys !  Although I’m wondering where are my UK peeps !!!!

If you don’t already have an Alexa Traffic Widget – then you might want to consider trying it.  It’s free and gives you some statistical data about the usage and traffic on your blog.

Google PageRank

I have been reading about PageRanks for a while now but never quite figured out what my own Google PageRank was until I came across some statistics from IndiBlogger – which is a blog community that I am a part of.

Apparently in May I had a page rank of 2 and in June & August a rank of 3 … but September is showing a big fat Zero :(  I still don’t quite understand HOW I can attain a rank or WHAT I can do to maintain a rank … but hell I’m just excited that I even GOT RANKED !   By the way PageRank is measured on a scale of ONE to TEN and assigned to individual pages within a website, not the entire website.

Of course, I’m the kind of girl with ants in my pants and I set about trying to figure out how the hell the Google PageRank system works and came across a few helpful posts.  I’m still trying to figure out How To Improve A Websites Google Ranking – so if this makes sense to you – help me out !

IndiRank by IndiBlogger

IndiRank is a system that allows IndiBlogger to create a ranking amongst Indian Blogs.  Each blog is manually verified before being allowed into the system – however the final ranking process is automated.  Blogs are ranked on a scale of 1 to 100 – and the higher the score – the better the ranking.

Last month I’d received notification from IndiBlogger that I had a ranking of 82/100 … I’ve been a part of the community for a few months – and it was a nice feeling to know that I got ranked :)

Unknown to me was that in May my rank was of 79, and through June – Aug it was at 82 … but September has seen it dip down to 75.   However – I’m not so worried about that … IndiRank gets refreshed every month, so a blog's previous rank will have no bearing on it's present rank.

So there you have it … my cyber records right here in black & white (with some hints of colour) … I did find that I have some funny 'key words’ that seemed to drive traffic to my blog but I’ll go into that in more detail once I’ve mastered the art of the correct use of key words to increase blog traffic !

If you have your own cyber records – why not share them with your neighbours so that we can perhaps gain some tips and tricks :)