10 years of blogging

This is my 10 year blog anniversary. Yes folks, that inaugural post was on August 11 back in 2006. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it was about David Bowie. I've had 158,000 page views which, let's face it, isn't going to make The Huffington Post lose any sleep.

When I started, blogging was quite new in the UK.  I was forever trying to reach out to other bloggers, because the name of the game was having other bloggers visiting you and leaving comments. There were quite a few blog challenges and "link ups" where you left a comment on someone's blog and they linked to yours via a widget called Mr Linky. Most of the people who linked to me were young moms from New Orleans, so I wasn't really getting to the right demographic.

Blogging was quite naive and pure then.  Nowadays blogs from young wannabes writing about clean eating, fashion and makeup, with immaculate companion pages at Pinterest, Instagram and so on are ten a penny. I take my hat off to the successful ones, where they're fortunate enough to be deluged with "product", ads and trillions of followers. Some, like Zoella, have reinvented the nature of celebrity. We can all be famous, and not just for 15 minutes.  Sadly the only product offer I had from a big brand was for Impulse, and I sniffily disdained it.

Blog Litter 

When I started, there were a few blog aggregators --- I suspect these were nerds in their bedroom --- who would include your blog on their list. 

Technorati was one of the biggest and best known. There were others like MyBlogLog and BlogFlux.

Meanwhile I was swotting up on spiders  (not from Mars but from Google) and learning about meta tags. Now I don't do much to promote my blog except for a mention on Facebook and Twitter when there's a new post. 

Blogger got bought by Google and they don't do much to develop it, although the search and translate functions are nice to have.

A lot of the blogs I genuinely liked have not been updated for years. They litter the web like shipwrecks on the sea floor.

My topics have been many. I went through a period where I reviewed TV programmes including Big Brother (how mortifying), The Apprentice and Celebrity Big Brother. I've also done a few restaurant and theatre reviews. I bore for Britain on the subject of my garden.  I occasionally use to snipe at celebrities I didn't like. I also like a bit of nostalgia, so there are plenty of reminiscences about childhood and teen frolics and my former life as a journalist and radio reporter.

I used to opine about newsworthy topics until a former colleague asked if I was still writing "that right wing rant blog." To be called right wing, in those days, was completely intolerable. I considered myself a leftie! After that comment, I reverted hastily to the safer waters of gardening and nostalgia.

The way I look at my blog now is that it's a useful archive of my life, for when I'm in my dotage.

My Most Popular Blog Posts 

1. Posts describing traditions do well with the search engines.  My Christmas traditions, parts 1 and 2, the history of bank holidays and applebobbing at Halloween traditions are good stalwarts.
2. Some posts have done mystifyingly well and I can only assume it's because there's very little web dross available on the subject.  My post, "Does John Torode wear a wig and More About Stenchpipes" still does well when Masterchef is on. I think it's Torode rather than the stench pipes who are the big draw. You must admit that the headline sums up the sheer randomness of my blog pretty well.
3. I attempted to scam the spiders and get massive hits with a cheeky post called "Carol McGiffin's bare bottom."
4. Certain nostalgic posts strike a chord - particularly the lure of the bottle stall.

Thrilling discoveries

It's been a while since I had a good old nose round the blogosphere. Lately it's been enough just to read the updates of a handful of my blogging friends (some of whom I've never met, but they seem like friends). A year or so ago though, I was an avid surfer, forever scanning Technorati and other sites to try to find intelligent and humorous UK blogs.

Well, yesterday I stumbled across all kinds of riches, simply by visiting one of my blogging pals, checking out her blogging pals and so on. It's like peeling an onion.

So let me introduce you to:
1) Private Secret Diary or, Norfolk village life exposed (a rival for Maddie Grigg). Latest posting: "I go to the village shop".
2) Menopausal Old Bag, who writes beautifully but is, darn it, far too well known in the blogosphere with dozens of followers and awards;
3) Non-working monkey, who lives in French Canada but is English. I love his "genuine plaudits" which include "Daddy wants to spank the monkey", Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, and "I would," Nigella Lawson;
4) The Gossamer Woman, whose posting about how she visited her grandparents, made an effort to look nice but was told that short hair on a woman was manly, made me smile because it's exactly what my grandma used to say to me. "I don't know why you don't have a perm" she would say, and now I cringe to think that it's the type of thing I long to say to teenagers who have spent hours straightening their hair.

I also tapped into a rich seam of granny bloggers: Nuts in May and Granny on the Web.

These blogs are so well written and in many cases amusing. It's a privilege to get these insights into the lives of other people.

Sell your blog

Now folks, if you want to get lots of hits for your blog, write about Elizabeth Hurley or Carole McGiffin.

I know the ladies may not appear to have much in common, but Google searches for "Elizabeth Hurley Indian wedding" and "Carole McGiffin - naked" frequently drive people to my humble site, although I hasten to add Carole McGiffin was fully clad when I wrote that she'd make a good dinner party guest a few months ago.

Since I started blogging, I've tried most of the tips and tricks to try to build traffic. There are always new blog communities, catalogues and portals being started, and on the whole they're a waste of time. Mybloglog and Britblog are honourable exceptions. Mybloglog is great. It's a bit of a schmooze-fest where you visit other people's blogs, leave positive feedback and join their community. But it's the biggest traffic generator. Britblog is the only directory in the UK that I've found where you can find blogs by their location and subject matter. I've been able to find quite a few local to me.

A few weeks ago I plugged a few sites I've found and enjoy reading. Interestingly, I didn't tell their creators, but they all got back to me saying thanks, so your visits must have shown on their tracking data. Mybloglog has very good visitor data for a modest fee.

One thing I've decided not to subscribe to is the manipulation of Technorati rankings. Bloggers are forever trying to find ways to improve their Technorati ratings. Basically, you need other blogs to link to you. So there are several sites where you can add a whole list of unknown people to your favourites, and lo and behold, their rankings shoot up. I did try it once but nobody seemed to reciprocate. Technorati will lose credibility if this goes on. Surely it's better to attract readers organically through your subject matter?

So here are a few more blogs of note that I've found:
1) Moon's David Bowie Webdream Not surprisingly, a blog about David Bowie - but loosely. There's other musical content too: a recent piece about Freddie Mercury for example.
2) There are a lot of blogs about finding serendipity, enriching your life and so on. Sumangali is a UK writer with a well written, good looking and thought provoking site.
3) One of the few techy sites I read is yack yack. Some good tips and info here.
4) If you like vintage and retro, check out Retro Romance
5) Finally two blogs from former colleagues: Lucy's and Marc's. Happy reading!