I'd Like To Figuratively Beat On A Woman For a Few Minutes. Please Indulge Me.

A few months ago, I was getting very little traffic to my site.   I almost never updated it, and had sort of stopped writing.   This makes no sense as writing is one of my favorite things to do.   Plus, I’m kinda funny.

So I finally decided to take this thing more seriously and write almost every day.

This is not an easy task as I work a full–time job.

I’d hustle home at 6pm and try to squeeze out 700 words before passing out.

By the way, this is still what I do today.

I also had decided to do some marketing to attract new readers.   I looked up a few Google searches for phrases I wanted to rank for.

One of these was “funny blogs.”   Seemed like a good fit.

As it stood at the time, I was not even in Google’s top 200 for that phrase.   My site was not remotely findable.

The number one spot was help by some woman who had a Squidoo list of her favorite humor blogs on the net.     Since my site wasn’t on her list, I sent her a message asking to be included.   I also provided links to some of my stories.

She wrote back within the hour and said she absolutely loved my site and writing.   She added me to her list, and I entered at the very bottom.

The way that Squidoo works with lists is that the readers vote on each site, and that determines their place on the list.

I had no votes, so I was dead last.

Then, I did what every great marketer would do in this situation – I asked my friends to vote for me.

That next day, I had enough votes to secure the top spot on her list.   Traffic to my site exploded!     I was the number one voted site on the number one search result for a popular phrase.

Two days later, traffic dropped almost back down to zero.

I checked her Squidoo page, and I was surprised to find that my site had been removed entirely from her list.

I was very angry, and didn’t understand why she had taken my site down.     I sent her an urgent email asking her what happened.     She never replied.

But since I watched a ton of Remington Steele growing up, I decided to do a little sleuthing.

I took a closer look at her and the list.

Turns out she herself was a blogger, and her website had held the top position the whole time (probably because, like me, she asked her friends to vote for her).

So she was top dog on her list until I came along and unseated her.

Now, to be fair, this was HER list and she can take anyone on and off it whenever she wants.   But all I had done was ask people to vote for me – even the best singers on American Idol do this.

By the way, her blog is a collection of blonde jokes.     I know, a hilarious idea that is both fresh and brilliant.   Who am I to try to take on those comedy chops?

So, my guess on what happened was that she saw that I was atop her own list, got mad, and deleted me.

Ever since then, I have been totally committed to beating this woman and her stupid list.

Note: I don’t mean physically beating her.   I think.

Today, I stand before you victorious.

This afternoon around 2pm CDT, I pushed my site to position two for the search term “funny blogs,” and knocked her down to position three.

The number one site is failblog.org and they deserve pole position.   Their site is amazing and their content rocks.

For those of you who have ever tried to rank a new site in the top ten of Google for a popular phrase know exactly how difficult this is.     It’s crazy hard.   To get into the top three is an extremely impressive achievement.

I’m not saying this to show off (well, maybe a little), but more to explain just how satisfying it is to best someone who, due to petty jealousy, screwed me over.

So, now it’s my turn to use my own pettiness to make fun of her on my blog.

Note:   Odds are she and I will jockey back and forth from position two to three.   That’s okay.   Just as long as I keep up with this hag, I’ll be happy.