Blazing Minds

Welcome to another interview in my new series, as mentioned previously each week I will be interviewing a fellow blogger who has kindly answered my blogging questions, so let’s get on with it…

Q: Please tell my readers a little something about yourself?

A: I’m Quirky Jessi, of course. When profiles ask where I’m from, I always say “The Quirky World” or “A little hole online,” or something silly like that because I’ve moved around a lot. I’ve never lived in a place for more than 3 years, but unfortunately, the places weren’t very exciting either…Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri. I thrive online, though, and have kept in touch with people from everywhere I’ve been, so it’s really cool.

I love making people laugh and I’m easily entertained myself, so you’ll rarely find me complaining. “Bored” was considered a bad word in my house growing up and as an adult, I continued with that same principle. There are always things I could be doing or ways to have fun, so that’s one of my core philosophies. Who has time to be bored?

Q: Hi Quirky Jessi, so tell me about your blog, when and why you started it and how you came up with the name for it?

A: I started Quirky Jessi a little over 3 years ago. Technically it’s “The Quirky World of Jessi.” A couple years ago when I decided to move to my own domain, I couldn’t decide between using “quirkyjessi” or “quirkyworld,” so I let my readers decide. An overwhelming amount said I should go with Quirky Jessi because it was more personal, but really, the site isn’t about me at all. Ha!

I ‘am’ the writer behind it and I do have my fair share of quirks, though. The focus of QJ is really all the quirky, silly, odd things I find across the web or in day-to-day life. Over 3 years’ time, the content has shifted some so it’s less about stories from my actual life or retold humour bits, and more about the strangest sites or products I find online.

In that last month alone, the variety has ranged from maternity dresses that grow with your baby, to air freshener shaped trees to cover up your pet’s butt, to shapeable vases and origami tea bags. I posted about giant purple rocking hotdogs, Mr. E.T. (a composite image of Mr. T and E.T.), cats eating with chopsticks, funky bindis, and tree scarves. The month of November I dedicated entirely to crazy gaming stuff for NaBloPoMo. Really, you never know what’s going to show up next there, but it’ll always be something quirky, and that’s what makes it so fun.

Q: Do you find blogging takes up a lot of your time?

A: Yes and no. The actual writing portion doesn’t. I spend a huge amount of time reading feeds, hanging out on forums, keeping in touch with other bloggers, etc, though, which is all somehow connected to my blog. I love what I do and all the people I’m surrounded by, but as a whole package, I do spend way more time than I should admit doing it all, hehe.

Q: Where would you say most of your traffic comes from for your blog?

A: Search engines, hands down. Although I’ve been at this for 3 years, I really only have about 700 posts (I cut back to posting every other day, and early on, I didn’t know what I even wanted out of it, so there were some breaks). Even so, that’s a lot of content. People are always looking for the wackiest stuff, and somehow end up on my site because of it.

Many times the post they land on is exactly what they’re looking for. For several months, I ranked #1 on Google for Snuggies and lots of Snuggies-related questions, so thousands of people showed up for that, and I still get a fair bit of traffic from it. Questions about Smooth Away and requests for knuckle tattoos are strangely high, too. Others show up on QJ because they worded their search requests wrong, and oops, got something quirky instead!

Q: Do you use social networks to promote your blog and if so which ones would you recommend to other bloggers?

A: This is another yes and no question. I do use several social networks, but I don’t go out of my way to promote my blog. I go with the more natural approach of making real connections, talking with real people, reading those real people’s blogs and commenting, and hey, if I get some traffic kicked back my way in the end, then all the better. Of course I could get a lot more traffic if I actively promoted, but I always have liked doing things backwards. :p

Recommendations depend on the people who want to use them. Twitter can be awesome, but it’s definitely not for everyone and can be a huge waste of time. Forums like Blog Engage and Bloggeries rock, but if you aren’t very social, don’t like posting, or are selfish, then enthusiasm at one won’t last long. I don’t use Facebook to its fullest potential, but I know it can be really good for traffic and networking if used regularly. I hear a lot of people say that they don’t want their family and friends knowing about their sites, but that’s when people should create a separate account just for their site or at the very least, create a fan page instead. StumbleUpon can bring a lot of traffic, but it comes in spikes and most times, those people don’t stay for more than a couple seconds and never come back, so think about if that’s what you really want.

Q: If you could give some useful advice to new bloggers, what would it be?

A: If you’re writing about content you don’t enjoy, you’re going to burn out or constantly struggle. If you’re focused on making money, you may eventually make some, but it’s going to be a dull, lonely road, and you’ll probably be frustrated more often than happy, at least in the very beginning. Even if your focus is on keeping your readers happy and not on your site numbers, be sure to keep your offline life in check, too. If posting twice a day means sacrificing time with your family, nip that in the bud early on or it’s just not going to be worth it in the end.

Thanks Quirky Jessi.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 7:04 am and is filed under Blogger Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.