Since I gave this blog a bit of a spruce up I’ve been looking at ways to increase visitor numbers so that more people get a chance to see this wonderful website (ahem). I’ve looked at plug-ins, SEO, formatting of posts, keywords, social media, and many other hints and tips that are offered when you go googling for “How to get more visitors on your blog“.
The fact of the matter is that there is only one sure way of getting people to visit and read your blog:
Content is King
If you write interesting and informative articles that people actually want to read and know about then they will come. Google will do it’s job and send people your way, and if you’re lucky others may Stumpleupon it or Digg it. The truth is that a lot of what I write here is personal to me and will not interest anyone else. That is a fact and for that reason I will never have a ‘popular’ blog. I have written some interesting and useful articles before, and these do continue to get hits but these are one-off visitors and not the type who will subscribe to read the remainder of my posts.
Here are my top 3 visited posts:
The solution for me would be to stop writing about myself and only write about subjects that may be of interest to others but I won’t be doing that for two reasons:
- I don’t have many interesting things to write about
- This blog is about me, and has been my online diary since May 2004. I like to sometimes through the archives and seeing what I’ve been up to.
I think this all means that I shouldn’t really be concentrating on getting more visitors and should just continue what I’ve been doing. If it happens, it happens.
Last night I trekked to the Wheatsheaf pub for the Thursday night pool league, and due to the amount of snow and slush I decided to wear my wellies for the journey.
I did look like a farmer didn’t I?
Yesterday there were reports of snow everywhere in the UK apart from Thanet it seemed. The day was sunny, the snow and ice from the previous days were starting to thaw and it all seemed to have passed us by until around 6:30pm when it started chucking it down and laying instantly.
This was the cue to all the children to come out and play.
Today we’ve had no more snow and some of the snow is now either thawing a bit, turning into slush, or turning into ice. I had to go into Ramsgate town this morning for a dental check-up and so I took my camera along too.
If you want to see more photos then click here to go to my Flickr set.
There’s some interesting stuff you can find out on the internet and one of them I’ll share with you today is that Vegetarians used to be called Pythagoreans until 1847 when a meeting was held (30/9/1847) at the Hydropathic Institution, Northwood Villa, Ramsgate and the Vegetarian Society was formed. You can read more about the meeting here.
Ok, I need to make a slight admission that the term ‘vegetarian’ had been in use 8 years prior, but it wasn’t until this meeting happened, and the birth of the society, that the term ‘vegetarianism’ became official and entered common vocabulary.
You can read all about this in Colin Spencer’s ‘The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism’ which, thanks to the wonders of the internet, is available for you to read in it’s entirety on Google Books.
The pages relevant to Ramsgate can be found on pages 252-253. Either click the link or read below in the embedded book.
Going out isn’t always cheap but if you are heading off to any well-known restaurant chain then there are often many vouchers that you can print off from websites that will offer discounts ranging from 50% off, to buy one get one free offers. The best place I’ve found to get updates on these vouchers is on Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert website where there is a section especially for restaurant vouchers, deals, and offers.
Currently there are offers for Burger King, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, Strada, Café Rouge, ASK, Zizzi and plenty of others. Yesterday I printed off a voucher for for ASK which offers 2 for 1 on main meals, and went out to ASK in Canterbury with Emma. I had Polpette al Forno, Garlic Bread, and a coke, whilst she had the Terrina Mediterranea and a coke and this came to and a grand total of £17.45. Bargain.
If you are planning on going out for a meal then it’s worth remembering that there are plenty of offers out there, and a couple of minutes on the web can save you a fair bit of money.
Posted in Buying Stuff, Food & Drink, Going Out, Money
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Tagged ASK, bargains, deals, italian, offers, restaurant, Saving Money, vouchers
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As you can see (unless you are reading the RSS feed) I have changed the theme on my blog and I’m quite happy with it. There’s still some bits to tweak but all in all it seems to be working fine and I’m now able to adds some links to the sidebar now that I have a two-widget system going on. I still need to sort out my categories as well as adding thumbnails to my more popular posts (I’ll leave the others), and I’m sure I’ll stumble across even more things.
What do you think?
The Theme is called CrossBlock and you can find it here.
