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02/25/2008: "Go Figure ..."

One of the challenges of having a blog is that you have to ... well, blog. You create for yourself an obligation to take some time on some kind of a regular basis and add new entries. For some blogs, that's no problem - gossip blogs, for example, are adding new items every few minutes just because celebrities are such idiots. But the MB is pretty much a general interest, whatever-comes-into-my-mind sort of blog. Early on, I decided that I had to hit the blog at least once a day, five days a week, and I've been pretty good about it. I'll admit, though, there are days when I'm busy or not feeling creative or just don't have anything to say, and on those days it can really be a challenge.

Where are we heading, you ask? A valid question. We keep statistics on the MB, that show us how many visitors we get, where they came from, and how long they stayed. Most of the time it's pretty depressing - something like 50 visitors a day - and the number of comments is much lower even than that. But sometimes something comes along that picks up your spirit and you can use as that much-needed inspiration.

Over the last weekend, I attended a pair of fishing club awards banquets. Offshore fishermen being the target audience of our main site, it's not uncommon to have someone come up and say kind things about SCMO. But a funny thing happened this weekend. I had six different people come up to me and tell me how much they enjoyed the MB - not just the site in general but the MB in particular. I was floored - hell, I didn't even realize the fishermen who come to the site even made it to the blog. It was a gratifying experience, and will serve as inspiration for the next few times I'm digging deep.

On the subject of statistics, one of my favorites is the referring pages - where someone came from to find the MB. A lot of folks come from elsewhere in the site, most often the popular Marlin Club forum. But a lot come via search engines, and it's always a hoot to see the search topics that brought them here. The number one term? "Sara Evans", mostly because of this entry, followed closely by "MILF". OK, not exactly the audience I was looking for, but hey - eyeballs are eyeballs!