Reality Bites - Hard

Picture a little kid jumping up and down in a corner yelling 'Hey!'.

Now picture same kid surrounded by 27,424,387,256 other kids, all shouting 'Hey!'

... got that picture firmly in your mind?

Considering what this mental image conjures, it is an absolute bloody miracle that you are reading this page now. I find it fascinating, and almost unbelievable, that you found this cul de sac of the neighborhood of the city of the state of the country of the realm of the universe of the Internet.

Now, much as I would like to think that you found this on purpose, I have a sinking feeling that a lot of the traffic we get to the game, to the webstore, to this universe's small corner, even to this journal, is sheer luck. A tiny little combination of the right electrons at the right time blinking in the right color caught some synaptic attention and, like the trail of a firefly, it nearly vanished before being focused upon.

Now, with all those kids jumping up and down, surrounded by all those other kids jumping up and down, how in the world can you expect to find the kid you're looking for? That, gentle reader, is the big question of the day. It seems to me that a great deal of it is accidental. Take my humble shop, for instance.

I have a set of keywords which categorize my shop. I've changed those keywords to keep in sync with what I add into it, checking them with certain services for sanity. Then I let folks like Google know that I have a place that has things in it that relate to that keyword. Let's look at one: medieval. That's just one of the small set of keywords I get to use to wave a flag in the air, jumping up and down, saying 'Hey!' ... along with (get this) about 19,400,000 other kids jumping up and down - and that's on Google alone. I doubt seriously that someone is going to notice the 19,399,998th one, which is probably me.

So let's narrow down the playground - and look for: medieval t-shirt. Wow, I only hear 438,000 other kids shouting at Google about that one. A smaller crowd, but I'd wager our little shop is either 437,999th on that list or not on it at all, given the vagaries of SEO. (That's shorthand for Search Engine Optimization, for those new to this - I was new to this myself a couple of weeks ago, and SEO probably stood for Spam Everyone Online.)

Let's go over by the sandbox and narrow things even further - and look for: blademaster medieval t-shirt - woooo! Only 46 kids jumping! Sadly, we're not one of them. Even though our shop has medieval as a keyword, and sells t-shirts, and has one called Virtual Blademaster - we're nowhere to be found. Why??

'Ah, patience, grasshopper,' to paraphrase my SEO-savvy friend who has been guiding me through this nighmarish dungeon. So, being more of a Queen fan ("I want it all, I want it -all-, I want it ALL, and I want it NOW...") than not, I tried to curb my natural Type A++ personality and wait.. patiently. Turns out the way to overnight success is paved with hundreds of days of tuning and tweaking and modifying and waiting and waiting and waiting. All the kids are in two rows - one set has been noticed, and the others are waiting.

We're in the waiting line.

So, the reality of the situation is... If you're here, you're here because you want to be, probably not because Google told you to go here. You're here by choice, probably not by a push from behind by Yahoo.

If you have read this far, then you're on the list of folks blessed by St Jude, patron saint of impossible causes. I didn't find a patron saint for patience and persistence... yet. But here's what I will do. I will give the FIRST FIVE FOLKS who respond to this journal entry before July 4th noon PST a free short-sleeve t-shirt of their design choice from the store. Go look around the store and decide what you'd like, then enter your response. I will receive an email notice of your response, and the first five I receive who include -valid- email addresses to respond to will be the winners. We'll conduct the where-to-ship stuff etc via email, but winners will be posted here as well.

Just one kid shouting 'Hey!' - and happy, safe 4th of July to all US Folk, and happy Canada Day to the northern neighbors.