I'll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours

Back in August, I conducted a little experiment in this space. Realizing I had become stuck in the early twenty-first century and was woefully unversed in the language of social media, I embarked on a somewhat unscientific analysis of the secrets to "search engine optimization," or, as they say in the biz, S.E.O.

Even though technology and social media have made it fairly easy for any average Judy to sit in her pj's and transmit her innermost irrelevant thoughts to the world at large, vigorous self promotion is still the name of the game if you have any hope of being successful -- and by successful I mean achieving fame and earning money. Since my very first foray into the blogosphere, I have been told time and again that you can't achieve fame or earn money from a blog unless your readership is well into the thousands, and the way to get your readership into the thousands is to sign on to other folks' blogs and offer up a bit of high praise and hope that they will return the favor. You don't have to actually read what they write, and you certainly don't expect them to do anything more than log on and possibly share your work with their fans. I'll show you mine if you show me yours. It's a concept that's been around since the beginning of time, self-promotion under the guise of mutual masturbation.

I have never been very good at self promotion of any kind, and, frankly, I am just plain lazy. So I have blogged away in relative obscurity, oblivious to the ramblings of others and somehow managing to attract a small and random band of loyal readers both at home and abroad. And I mean really small; my readership numbers rarely hit triple digits for any particular post. There must be an easier way to improve my own stats than helping to stroke someone else's ego, a shortcut to fame, fortune, and even an occasional "atta girl" from a hapless blog surfer who finds himself on my site. Which is why I embarked on my S.E.O. experiment back in August, composing a blog post peppered with varying degrees of, shall we say suggestive words and phrases. I hypothesized that my numbers would improve. I am happy to report the results are in, and I was right.

Every time I check my readership stats, that post -- SEO is Not an Airport in Southeast Asia (So What Else is New, Pussy Cat?) -- rises to the top of the list. The views for that post number in the thousands, way more than the views for an average entry. Whether it was because of the subliminal sexual reference in the title or some of the more blatant terms popping up in the body of the post -- I may have mentioned girl on girl sex for absolutely no reason at all -- the results, to me, seem astounding. As I see it, I have two choices. Play the traditional mutual ego stroking game, or get down and dirty (with very little effort) and titillate potential readers with thoughts of, well, a different kind of stroking. Neither option is pretty, but it's the price we pay for greatness. Or for the illusion of greatness, which is really what it's all about, isn't it?

Genitals. Boobs. Vagina. Dick. Beef jerky. An examination of my previous somewhat popular posts had turned up key words such as these. Not surprising; let's face it, it's a lot easier to toss in a few dirty words here and there than search for other like-minded blogs and feign interest. I will, on principle, try my best to keep it tasteful and subtle, but I can't make any promises. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes it just isn't.