Good Advice.

Commissar, despite being commonist bast*rd, have good advice! (Slapping side of head to get rid of Commissar's satiric voice).

Unless you are desparate to make money at this and like all those waiters in Hollywood, it ain't likely. (Hmmm. Waiters. To wait... - never mind, too much tequila) the Commissar has good advice (which is frankly all over the blogosphere today - there's a doctorate in there for someone on idea propagation) on how to build your readership.

I love Frnak and Misha. I like their over-the-top verbiage. But I can't write like that and take myself seriously. So, I have to develop my own voice. I don't have the cojones to take on the Puppy Blender, like Frnak did.

I don't have the command of invective like Misha. Or Kim. So, I go with what I know. Which is war, killing people and breaking things, soldiers and their tools. And I have fun now and again exercising a political voice I muzzled for 20-odd years as a soldier. And I don't drag work or my employer into it, either. Not fair to them - dangerous to me! My company is very very good to me. And I mean that. So I don't drag 'em into it!

I just try to share my admiration for warriors, contempt for poseurs in uniform and out, and try to share the life of a soldier via the artifacts they used. I'm acerbic and can be biting, but I'm generally polite (except to telemarketers). What does that mean? It means I don't get too many trolls. Without trolls, you don't get raging comment wars. Without raging comment wars, you get slow, steady traffic. Clio is my muse.

I had an NRO-alanche, when Jonah mentioned me, as a favor to me, being one of his original military guys. I get perioidic Mishalanches, too. But that's 'cause Misha likes guns and I got guns and that spells trouble right here in River City... oh, dang, where is that little pill? And I commented, and I made Misha's Blog Council. I have yet to break down Kim or Frnak to get on their blogrolls. But that's okay - I'm having fun, and I have lots of guns and stuff that I haven't taken pictures of or written reams of boring material about! And those of you who do blogroll me - thanks a lot! Flea, Blackfive, Sgt Hook, Boots and Sabers and Blaster just to name the ones that send the most traffic my way. After The Rottweiler Emperor!

That's about it. But almost half my hits are from people's favorites, and those guys generally come back more than once, and based on the page views, they read too.

I've got over a quarter-million hits - but face it, I post lots of pictures, and every time a picture loads from my separate pic host, I get a 'hit'. The only really meaningful stat in that regard is your unique visitors, page views, and visit length. I have an average visit length of 5 minutes, I have better than two page views per visit, and I've got a steady checker-in-'er-ship of about 200 people.

Well, hell, that's more students than I had as a small group leader. It's comparable to the student load I had teaching history - with the difference that no one who shows up here on any given day is vulnerable to a letter of reprimand for not showing up!

So, you guys and gals that like my guns 'n stuff, welcome aboard. More is coming. I'm building an answer to a question I received this week.

Oh! Yeah! I'm supposed to link to Commissar's comments to be good little blogger! 8^)