Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I'm starting this thread because I have a question for the more experienced writer-bloggers around these parts, but I thought it might prove useful in the longer term as a thread where anyone could post a how-to or best-practices blog question.

So anyway, here are my two questions:

Has anyone else noticed their blog getting traffic from a completely unrelated website that doesn't even appear to have a link to your page? What is that all about?

And where can I get one of those cool WIP widgets that has the bar that fills up as you rack up your word count?

Please helps. :P

I get the views from unknown sources, too. I even get them from completely random places, one is a Russian website that appears to be something to do with housing... Very strange. I'd also like to know about the word count thing. I didn't know you could do something like that.

I haven't been paying too much attention to traffic sources for the blog because I've been such a horrible blog friend of late.

As for the little progress bars, here's where I got mine.

http://www.licketyknit.com/progressbars.html

Here's a link to a handy graphic of HTML color codes so you can change the fill color of your progress bar to one that works with your blog.

http://html-color-codes.com/

You'll have to play with the width number on the status bar so that it fits in the Blogger sidebar. But the instructions are pretty straightforward on the site.


ETA: The link for the color codes. I'm smart, really.

stephmcgee wrote:As for the little progress bars, here's where I got mine.

http://www.licketyknit.com/progressbars.html

Yay, thank you! When the squirrel of doom destroys the world, you shall be spared. Er, sorry, got Foamy the Squirrel music in my head this morning.

LOL Margo. That just makes me think of this game I played on my computer back when I still had a PC. It was a fantasy RPG that had a group of militant squirrels. They were my favorite part of the first two games in the series.

This is where I got my progress bar:

http://www.writertopia.com

I get weird traffic too, but I suspect some of it are the little robots rushing around grabbing links and content for search engines. I don't pay attention to traffic unless I can trace it back to some one or some place related to the topics I cover.

Does anyone else watch the search words people use to find your blog? Mine are often hysterical. Some of them freak me out, like, WHY are you searching the internet for that?!? And...how in the world did it lead you to my blog?!?!

Sommer Leigh wrote:This is where I got my progress bar:

http://www.writertopia.com

Yay! Thank you. The squirrelies will spare you as well.

Sommer Leigh wrote:Does anyone else watch the search words people use to find your blog? Mine are often hysterical. Some of them freak me out, like, WHY are you searching the internet for that?!? And...how in the world did it lead you to my blog?!?!

Yeah, I do. Nothing very weird yet. Searches for outline tools. One search on scandinavian werewolves. I had a post for that, so it doesn't count as weird. I thought it was cool when people started finding me by specifically searching for urbanpsychopomp. I chuckled when I noticed one person found me by searching for my name on Amazon. I did change the name of one of my posts titled "Love, Sex & Violence" to make it clearer I was talking about commercial fiction, though! Preemptive strike. :)

Hey, I wanna be spared the squirrels, too! So here's another place you can get wordcount meters: http://honorless.net/progressbar.htm

As for strange keywords, somebody found me with: claudie stick I understand the first but... stick? What the hell? I have no idea. XD

Claudie wrote:Hey, I wanna be spared the squirrels, too! So here's another place you can get wordcount meters: http://honorless.net/progressbar.htm

More meters, yaaaaayyyyy! Thank you! Yes, you too shall be spared the squirrely wrath! (Gawd, I love Foamy.)

Sommer Leigh wrote:I get weird traffic too, but I suspect some of it are the little robots rushing around grabbing links and content for search engines. I don't pay attention to traffic unless I can trace it back to some one or some place related to the topics I cover.

I got my laugh for the morning. I have a blog post about my various WIPs, so I took one character from each of my three short stories and came up with this title post: So a ghost, a varg, and an agoraphobe walk into a bar... Today someone found my blog while trying to search google for avargandan... a varg and an... Yeeeeah, the internets can be soooo helpful. :)

Weirdest traffic so far just came today from pingywebedition.com. My blog was on a list of "some blogs you might want to visit while waiting". Interesting...

Okay, there is something strange going on between me and Russia. I get a lot of blog traffic from a Russian website that (from the photos on the site) appears to have nothing to do with writing or urban fantasy. I write it off as a spammy sorta thingy I will never understand. However, I also get a fair amount of traffic from google.ru. And the only foreign-language review I have ever found of any of my writing was in...Russian.

[sideways head thing dogs do when they're confused]

Not that I'm complaining that I might have Russian readers who like my stories or Russian writers who like my blog. But... Huh... Wha...?

Hmm, I wonder if this will make it easier to get a Russian publisher interested in foreign rights? [bats her lashes flirtatiously at Russia] Probably not, but I can dream. :)

Is the site remroom.ru? I get a lot of views from there. It looks like some sort of housing site. Oh, if only I spoke Russian, or they had a language button...

stephmcgee wrote:LOL Margo. That just makes me think of this game I played on my computer back when I still had a PC. It was a fantasy RPG that had a group of militant squirrels. They were my favorite part of the first two games in the series.

For you, and all the others I have promised to spare, to celebrate a Friday morning:
Foamy the Squirrel Lyrics:

And so I'm a squirrel
And you're not
How pathetic you are
So I'm a squirrel
And you're not
You're just human
How pathetic you are
You don't have a fluffy tail
You don't have Squirrelly Wrath
You just build to destroy
While I collect some nuts
And you all suck

**Notes : Some social commentary about how humans suck and blow up crap while squirrels just run
around and collect nuts. Life is easy when all you need is nuts. Unless you count the great acorn
famine of 2008. Rough times for squirrels. Rough times.


I urge everyone to check out Foamy at http://illwillpress.com/. Show the angry squirrel some love.

Moni12 wrote:Is the site remroom.ru? I get a lot of views from there. It looks like some sort of housing site. Oh, if only I spoke Russian, or they had a language button...

http://translate.google.com/#