Smiley faces are where its at....

Ha, look - a rainbow smiley!

When I log on to post, I usually check my stats - I used to get really excited when I got double digits, now it's in the triple digits and I check more out of curiosity.

It always interests me to see what people are reading on my blog or more importantly what they're searching for on google or other search engines.

For some reason I have 2 posts that have been getting 'massive hits' lately, I'm sure that it's not so much because of the subject matter but more because of the search words. The most popular is this post called Sounds of Silence, which is all about a new nani in the house with her grandson and enjoying the silence.

The 'Sounds of Silence' happens to be the second album released by Simon and Garfunkel, so I'm sure lots of people are disappointed by finding my post. I didn't know that I was borrowing such a famous title. What this means is that I can create posts with high SEO without even knowing how I'm doing it, because heaps of people also search for the word 'Silence'.

The second most 'hit' post is I am in awe and I am speechless, which is about my pride in my son when he became a new daddy. I have no idea what it is about this post that makes it so popular but admittedly it's one of my faves. I've noticed both of these posts have smiley face images - maybe that's it? It's not my words but the smiley faces.

My communication page is also getting lots of traffic (no smiley faces there though) - so I'm hoping that's purely because of my brilliance on the page. Do you ever find that the posts that you think are brilliant and that you think you'll get lots of feedback on - you don't.  Then the ones that you write that you don't really like or aren't too sure about, everyone has something to say about. Maybe it's just me.

You'll notice the smiley face in this post, just in case I've discovered the ultimate form of SEO which no-one has blogged about yet. I always get a little irritated when I read about search engine optimisation (that's for all of you newbies to blogging, I was once one too) I absolutely can not and will not write a post with certain words just to get it into search engines.

I clashed, no lets put it that I agreed to disagree with my boss the other day, because I can not and will not write words that aren't sincere or honest. It goes against everything I stand for. Not that he was asking me to write anything dishonest but it was words that didn't match my feelings, hence my refusal.

I was pissed to put it mildly, with a message in regard to communication that had been sent out at work. The person's email was abrupt and full of exclamation marks and was partly due to them not reading earlier communication. I couldn't pretend feelings, like wishing them a nice weekend, just to be the 'better man'. I was polite and cordial in my reply but that's it, no more, no less.

Do you write from the heart and with feeling, or do you sometimes have to write words because it's the expected thing to do. I know I can be abrupt and obnoxious if someone questions my integrity. Lets be honest, I can also be obnoxious and abrupt when someone disagrees with me, that's me -  passionate and totally behind every word I write or say.

No apologies for who I am, but it doesn't always win me friends.

Cheers, Fi