Comments on: The Long-Nosed or Longnosed or Longnose Hawkfish

By: Colourful Fish and a Weird Sea Monster | Madang - Ples Bilong Mi

Colourful Fish and a Weird Sea Monster | Madang - Ples Bilong Mi — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:32:43 +0000

[...] showed you an image of a Coral Grouper (Cephalopholis miniata) yesterday the tail of which I had accidentally amputated in my rush to get the shot. I thought that you might [...]

By: Steve Goodheart

Steve Goodheart — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:44:27 +0000

Good points. Thanks for the tips, and as always, for your support.

By: MadDog

MadDog — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:59:13 +0000

Yeah, there’s noting wrong with a narrow-focus site. It depends on what you want to do with it. I try to make mine as broad as possible, because many of my readers have me bookmarked and look at the site every day. They don’t want sameness – they want something fresh (well, as fresh as I can get) every day.

I think that your nature site could be a biggie. It all depends on content and how much you can persuade your friends to get the link out. In the beginning, you need a lot of people endorsing your link to get numbers. That’s why I’ve hounded my friends and regular readers to pass my URL along and suggest it. Only a very small percentage have, but It’s helped. It also helps to put a link on your Facebook page for each post.

By: Steve Goodheart

Steve Goodheart — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:07:45 +0000

Yeah, I’m going to take care of my tags. As for 500-600 posts, whoa, pardner, that’s be just a little while!

I’m glad so many people are finding their way to your unique and beautiful site. And yes, my first blog has a narrow focus, and yet, there may well be lots of similar blogs. I’m of the mindset, “Build it, and they will come,” except it’s “Have good content that helps people in their lives and dharma practice, and they will come.” But I don’t expect there will ever be big numbers on my dharma site.

Now, my future science/nature blog, I hope that does have some numbers, because that kind of site *should* have traffic, if it’s good. Of course, since WP dot com is non-commercial and ad-free, the numbers wouldn’t be for money, as it seems to be for so many blogs (and I’m not criticizing those blogs…it can be a honest way to put food on the table for you family) it would be a way to tell if your site was any good…as the numbers show yours is.

By: MadDog

MadDog — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:13:33 +0000

I get a lot of hits on tags. All of the SEO BS can be safely ignored if you have enough content. When you get about 500-600 posts with good content you’ll start seeing hundreds of hits a day. I’m getting about 1.200 unique visitors a day now. (that was October’s average). It’s a long slog and I don’t think that there’s any shortcut. What you are up against is your narrow focus and probably a lot of competition.

By: Steve Goodheart

Steve Goodheart — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:09:54 +0000

“…I’ve trounced him soundly now.”

While I’m nowhere near having that kind of content, I wish they had that function with WP dot Com. Don’t think they do, and I can see how helpful it is. I’m going to try to be really diligent and strict with my tags, because I can see how they could help me in the future if I really take the time to make them meaningful and use them consistently.

By: MadDog

MadDog — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:16:00 +0000

I wish I hadn’t chopped off that tail. I gotta say, however, that I’m very happy about the Longnose Hawkfish. I’ve been in competition with a friend for a couple of years on that on. I’ve trounced him soundly now.

I’m finding the related-post thing handy myself. It helps me to know what terms in a post that I should link back to other posts. This is a big key to keep people from drifting off somewhere else. Once you get enough content on a blog you want to link back to it as often as you can.

By: Steve Goodheart

Steve Goodheart — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:39:30 +0000

The big images of Mr. Long-nosed-Longnosed-Longnose Hawkfish are really quite lovely. As I said on FB, as pretty as it is elusive. As for your coral grouper, he’s too stunningly colored, even minus tail, not to show up at some point. (There, I’ve totally blown any creds as far as my image appreciation skills go!)

As for the “Thriller” font….that would be a good one-night stand for Halloween or April 1st. Was fun to see it.

Also, hadn’t run across “Oh my. The sky!” before….some jaw-dropping images there for this sky lover. Thanks! (I’m really loving your new Related Posts feature.)