This blog has only been up for about 1 month, but already we're seeing the power of search engines, and how heavily they favor blogs. The most popular search so far has been, biggest bong. Search for that on Google, and a post I wrote on January 26, titled The Biggest Bong Ever is 6th overall. The post was actually about a drug-running tunnel discovered between Mexico and the United States filled with marijuana. The second most popular search has been, biggest bong ever. Clearly, people dig their bongs. That's followed by an assortment of searches all related to Stephen Harper (the Canadian Prime Minister, for anyone outside of Canada). In particular, people want to know about the incident where he shook his kids' hands as they went off to school. So we see search terms such as: stephen harper shaking kids hands (9th on Google) stephen harper kids (2nd page on Google) steven harper's children (2nd page on Google) stephen harper children (2nd page on Google) harper hug (2nd on Google) stephen harper looks evil (3rd on Google) I did comment on this incident in the blog on January 26, in a post titled, Steven Harper Hug Your Children, Please! One of the first posts ever put into the blog was written by my father. It was about his brother humping his new dog to exert his dominance. The post is titled, Humping the Dog for Dominance. That's generated all kinds of traffic, and although a bit scary (cause some people I swear are actually looking for advice on how to hump their dog, which was not the intention of the blog post), it's definitely interesting. For example, do a search on Google for "puppy humping dominance" and we'll show up on the 1st page, around the 5th listing. There have been a host of other interesting search phrases appearing in our logs, none of which have anything to do with IGotNewsForYou and some of which barely have anything to do with the blog postings. What this tells me overall is a few things:

• People search for crazy stuff online. People search for everything online.
• Search engines consider blogs more highly than regular websites. If you post something on your blog about a topic, particularly a less popular topic (one where there isn't a ton of competition online), you're going to get highly ranked and it will generate traffic.
• The traffic is nice, but it's not necessarily going to generate business (more on this later).
• Having a blog for your business is essential. This is particularly true if you can niche that blog specific to your business; it will start generating valuable traffic.
• The Internet is a wild and whacky place.

In terms of generating business, it's hard to say if a blog like ours will have a huge impact. I think it will, but it will take time. We talk about a lot of subjects (from Holocaust poetry to humping dogs) and so we're going to get people from all over the Internet coming to the site somewhat randomly. Still, being in the consumer business, where almost anyone is a potential customer, the awareness that a blog like this can bring could be huge for us. Someone might be searching for jose theodore hair funny, find our blog, read a bit about IGotNewsForYou and get interested in what we're doing. That could be a customer for us. Once we go live, I expect the blog will start to talk more about IGotNewsForYou - more about the gift card and e-card industries - so that we can generate some more targeted traffic. And certainly, if you have a blog for your business, it should be targeted, without being just about you. Blogs aren't there so you can pound your chest, talk about yourself and how great your business is. Blogs are intended to be a place to display expertise, comment on what's going on in your industry, etc. - all the while driving traffic to the rest of your site. Anyway, enough about that. Checking your logs on what people are searching for is interesting and pretty darn funny. Searches like, "best malaysian gps roadmaps" and "here's to dirty diapers cries laughs and smiles poems" are just plain whacky. PS. Given the way Google works, the results on the searches above may vary (and certainly will over time). (Technorati Tags: google, logs, blog searches, the importance of blogs)