Where is everyone?

In recent posts we have been discussing how effective different forms of media are regarding democracy. What seems to be objective, bias, effective, accurate, etc... Yet this blog was created to discuss (objectively as much as possible) the issue of the rainforest. It seems that, instead of discussing other forms of media, I should instead be focusing on our form--our weblog. In the 2 weeks that this site has been running, how effective has it been?

When this website first began, the only comments made on posts were those of automated advertisers, leaving fake posts to advertise their internet commerce sites. One of the main premises of the internet was that it bypasses the corporate reliance on advertising and marketing; however, this seems hardly the case. Instead, I have gotten numerous emails asking if I wish to advertise on our weblog. When creating this website, one of the questions asked was whether I wanted to place AdSense in my blog. AdSense "provides a simple way for you to make money with your blog. AdSense is Google's content-targeted advertising program. This means that you do not select keywords or categories for your ads. Instead, Google's servers determine what your posts are about and display the most relevant ads to your readers. So, if you blog about baseball, there might be ads for Major League Baseball memorabilia next to your post. If you blog about painting, there might be ads for art supplies." Taken from blogger.com It is sad that, as I surf through the web, I entail: pop-up after pop-up; ads located on sidebars that refuse to go away; etc...

Unfortunately, it seems that as of right now our website is not engaging visitors. So then is it time to resort to advertising? It seems that there are ways around advertising for the time being, which include participating in blog search sites such as Technorati, Daypop, or Blogdex.
There are also important techniques to follow, most importantly writing a great blog to gain repeat visitors and word of mouth blog.

• Write quality content and do it well. Using proper punctuation and capitalizing letters when appropriate can get a big crowd.
• Publish regular updates. The more you blog the more traffic you will get. Fortunately for us, we post everday and therefore are fulfilling this requirement already.
• Think of your audience. Develope a strong voice and keep your audience in mind when writing. Our audience consists of those interested in this issue as well as those that have stake in this issue, mainly the local community.
• Keep search engines in mind.
• Keep your posts and paragraphs short. This is a good way for visitors to pop in, read up, and click on. However, some long form writing is encouraged as well. Read more...

While it is obvious that we are not following all of these quidelines thorougly, we are still engaging in most of them to the best of our ability. Hopefully, by participating in blog searches as well as linking our blog to other ones, we will see an increase in activity within our site. The goal is to be able to engage an audience without having to resort to advertising to create a voice, the simple creation of keywords and word of blog should carry our voice.