How do people find you?

Google is a powerful tool in the 21st century.  Hell, it's even a verb (have you goog'd lately??). 

 So naturally, when you manage a blog, you want to make sure your site shows up when people search for relevant topics.

What I would like to consider relevant to my blog:

• Humor
• Cultural Obervations
• Idaho (mostly making fun of it)
• Internet pop-culture (from time to time)

But how do people find my blog?  Let's look at some search results, shall we?

If you think god is a pimp, you'll get me.  If you're racist because you're white, you'll get me.

Um, what?

Some things make sense, like the '7th day Idaho' search, because of my post on Sundays in this town.  But other results just baffle me...

I don't ever remember doing a blog post on trying to lick my own junk, let alone providing pictures about it.

So, denizens of the blogosphere... what crazy search results pop up on your statistics?  Let me know.  I'd love to hear some of the best...

SEO

So I google'd myself yesterday.  I do this from time to time, because I know a little about Search Engine Optimization, and want to see if my blog is gaining any popularity on the search engine charts.

It doesn't help that I have a common name.  My Own Private Idaho is a song from the B-52's, the name of a movie, and a lot of people use it.  I have dabbled with more unique names (Spuds and Meth came to mind) but haven't found anything I really liked yet.

Yesterday was the first day I actually found positive results from google.  I typed in "Mormon Discrimination in Idaho" and I was on the first page, like 5 results down.  I typed in "Idaho Coffee Culture" and I was #1.   Granted, these aren't major searches, but it's nice to see your name in a list of search results, especially on the #1 slot.

That's when I noticed that my Valentine's blog helped get me google results as well.  People were searching for the Steve Irwin val:  "Crickey, you got me in the heart" and 2 people were referred to my blog because of it.  Woo!

I'm close to 275 followers now.  I was averaging 250-300 views a day last week, and now I'm down to 175-225.  I want to inject some life into this blog, and keep it climbing....

I ask you, my audience... What do you think of a name change?  I like MOPI, but something more original would help me climb the google ladder...  And do you work on improving your blog's search engine results?  I'd love to hear from you.