Postcards from the Funny Farm

After trying to be a language niche blog I went through many ideas for the direction of my blog. I feel if you’re ever going to be successful at anything at life you have to:

1. Have a vision -and-
2. Have a plan to realize it.

I must admit that lately I haven’t had much vision for Riley Central other than a place for me to blog my life. Then it hit me: “What’s wrong with that?” Maybe that “ease” of thought is what my blog needs. Simply a place for me to be me. At any rate, I decided (again) to dump the ads that really bring in “impressions” but no clicks and hence no money, dispense will all pretentious “chicklets” and buttons that truly do nothing for me. So, I’m liberated in a sense and calling myself a purely personal blog. There are far too many people out there trying to make money, I’d rather have some fun with my blog. After all, I already have a day job.

The truth is, I am a smart guy with a lot of interesting things to say. Why am I reading half-witted blogs everyday about how to improve seo on Google, or how to improve my blog traffic? What do I care if someone Googles me by accident when they are looking to buy a digital camera? If the writing is funny, and/or thought-provoking, people will bookmark it. I do.

I’ve come to the long-time-coming realization that traffic (which is admittedly what I seek as a writer) is generated by regular quality posting of humorous and/or thought-provoking content through a platform that is easy and exciting to access. It’s about building relationships with other bloggers as well. That’s why I’ve made sure to keep a place in the sidebar linking my blogroll and recent comments.

So what does all this mean for you my reader? Well, it means you will see a lot of tests in the direction of becoming a HIGHLY READ and WELL REGARDED PERSONAL BLOGGER. I’m not doing this to entertain myself 100%, but I am getting back to that being the core motivation. As my readers increase, you will see the blog adapt to that. After having been doing this for almost 8 months now, I can say with 100% certainty that this will never be a niche market blog. I was once told that the focus of my blog was foggy, so who knows maybe down the road I will officially change the name to “DamienRileysBlog.com” That way the focus will be clear as day to visitors. For now, I’ve made a static subtitle to that effect. I’ve always liked the blog name “Riley Central,” so I see no need to change it.

I’m getting very into one gigantically read personal blogger out there called Doc Searls. Many of my recent cosmetic changes have been in response to studying his site. In the same way that his site is laid out, you will see multiple posts each day from Riley Central that are more “on the fly” powerful thoughts as opposed to the laborious, footnoted, heavily linked posts in my archive that extremely small numbers of people have ever or will ever read. Get the idea?

Anyway, this type of “telling it like it is” is the direction of my blog here at this stage in the game. I hope you’ll get on or stay on board for the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride it is surely to be.

(For those of you not familiar with Disneyland in Anaheim California, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is a ride there ;) )

I am excited.