21 Ways To Build A Better Pop Culture Blog

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this, but Sept. 13th was the two-year anniversary of the revamped TheJay.com. While I did a big blowout spectacular last year, I wasn’t really interested this year in doing a big wank-off link post about how much I like my own writing. I know how damn kickass awesome I am, there’s no need to jam it down your throats. So instead of digitally pulling my genius pud, I thought, as a thank you to all my readers, that I’d give something back to you; some insight into the creative process that goes into writing a mildly successful pop culture blog. This way you can start your own pop culture blog and I can get me some outgoing links. Everyone wins.

So here’s my anniversary gift to you all. Twenty-One Ways to Build A Better Pop Culture Blog (but not better than mine. Sorry kids, you can’t defeat awesome. And my awesome switch has no off position):

1. Pick a cause that can be associated with your site. It’s nice to be broad, as you can cover pretty much anything you want (as I do), but truly successful blogs cater to a niche audience. The best celebrity baby blog. The blog devoted to all things Heroes. A slam blog on the relative douchiness of David Schwimmer. And so on. The idea is that your idea is so specific that if someone is interested in that topic yours is the only site they go to.

2. A good post concept, or even a catchy post title, can get you linked on a bigger site regardless of the quality of the post. A did a piece earlier this summer that was a C+ at best, called: “If Celebrities Were Transformers” and it got linked on GorillaMask.net and brought me more than 18,000 people. Now, they weren’t that thrilled to click through to a mediocre humor post, but at least I got their eyes on my site. So take some time to consider how enticing your post titles can be.

3. Put funny rollover captions on all your pictures. It’s a very small addition that very few people will see, but it’s a great way to add a bit of spice to your posts. And the readers that notice you’re doing it will spend more time on your site reading the captions. You can insert the caption in the alt = “” section of the jpg html.

4. Declare a star your mortal enemy (for no particular reason). It’s always good to have an antagonist, especially one that a lot of people like. I’ve gotten miles of coverage on my distaste for Reese Witherspoon (and at one time Scrunchy McBitchface aka Renee Zellweger), and I have no real reason for disliking her other than that she puts off an air of bitch so big even Lauren Graham is all “Damn, that what a bizznotch”. Too boost your comment count, post about your mortal enemy and then e-mail the webmaster of that person’s fansite. Instant comment flaming. It did wonders for my Orlando Bloom Is Bland piece.

5. Google ads are a joke. An unfunny, not at all lucrative joke. I know having them on your site gives the appearance of respectability (important site means having advertising) but it just gets in the way of content. Unless you are being paid actual real dollars, not imaginary Google money, keep the ads too a minimum and give more space to your actual content. Very few blogs make money. It’s time we all accept this.

6. Make bold predictions; never apologize when you’re wrong. You think Hayden Panetierre is gonna get knocked up by Dustin Diamond? Get your post on. You’re pushing I Know Who Killed Me as a dark horse Golden Globe Winner? Postalicious! You think the new Indiana Jones movie is gonna tank because the title sounds like a triple bloop episode of Stargate: SG1? Guess what, it’s posting time! People like hard-line opinions. And they respect writers who will risk looking like an idiot. I predicted Brokeback Mountain would win the Oscar for Best Picture. Didn’t happen, but I was glad I wrote that piece. My readers knew who I was pulling for and as they watched Paul Haggis hack his way onto the stage at least a few of them probably thought “Damn, I bet The Jay is fucking toasted”. And I was. And I wrote about it. And people read the piece. Predictions beget interested readers. Believe that.

7. YouTube should enrich your writing, not take the place of it. So layoff the embed code.

8. All links should be set as “target=blank”. It’s bad enough your giving your readers a pathway off your site, you don’t need them leaving all together. Target=blank means the link will open in a new window, so when they’re done reading that HIGH-larious news story you linked to about Kim Kardashian trying to hide her ridonkulous Godzilla booty in another ill-advised pink velvet Juicy jumpsuit, they can just close the window and your site will be waiting for them.

9. Keanu Reeves is a writer’s gold mine. A beautiful, dumb, poorly acted gold mine.

10. Nothing you want to write about is too obscure. This is the internet after all. Adrian Zmed has his own fan site. Adrian Zmed, who? Egg-freaking-zactly!

11. When all else fails, pictures of Jessica Alba in a bikini make for a great filler post (Goonies Action Figures achieve the same result).

12. Use concise, but suggestive jpeg file names. Google image search can be a boon for traffic, so be mindful of how you’re naming your pictures. Don’t just write britneyspears.jpg. You’ll never make it above page 56 in the search results. Write britneyspearsflashing.jpg or britneynopanties.jpg. Google will intuitively know what the name means and pull all search queries for “Britney” “panties” straight to your picture. And trust me, as truly awful as Britney’s hick junk is, a LOT of people want to see it. So do what you can to be the guy who gives it to them. Be Britney’s beaver dealer, so to speak.

13. StatCounter is a great program for giving you real time data about your traffic. It can show you the most popular pages on your site, what keywords people are using to find your site, how long people stay on your site and where they are coming from if they clicked a link. Monitoring the data and planning a posting strategy around what you’ve learned can be a great help in understanding what it is about your site that people are enjoying.

14. Copy edit. I don’t do it enough and it gives me nothing but grief. Spell-check won’t pick up your misspelling of Matthew McConaughey, so take a quick trip the imdb to make sure it’s right. And in general, minor grammatical errors, missing words, bad spelling, horrible syntax or sentence structure, basically anything that takes a reader out of what they’re reading, is a bad thing. So hire some English Major to proof your posts, and thank me later for avoiding irate readers who post comments to tell me the Reese Witherspoon teen schmaltz flick is Man IN the Moon not Man ON the Moon (like who gives a fuck, it’s a Jason London movie?).

15. Don’t be afraid to reveal embarrassing pop culture factoids about yourself. Your brave honesty will serve to let your readers like you more, despite your crappy taste in movies. For instance, I’m not ashamed to tell you that the reason I order a 7 and 7 at every I bar I go to is because I saw Ryan order one on The O.C. and thought it sounded cool. See? Now you like you like me more despite how much of a complete dork I am.

16. Post early in the day. Celebs get wrecked and do stupid shit late at night, so posting early will give you the jump on being the first blog people read on the subject. Being late on a story in the blogosphere makes you meaningless. If Nicole Ritchie gives birth to an alien at 2 am, you better have your take on this close encounter up before lunch, or you’ll be the eleventy-billionth blog listed on Google under the search “Nicole Ritchie + alien + anorexic + really, the guy from Good Charlotte? She couldn’t have done better than that? Lionel Ritchie brought that girl up wrong.”

17. Respond to ALL your hate mail. One response to an angry comment or e-mail will make that person come back to your site. The quickest way to turn a hater into a loyal reader is by taking the time to say thanks for being such a raging crazy bitch. They’ll love the attention you gave them, and take every opportunity to find something else in your next post to go balls nuts about.

18. Create and bring back inside jokes. I’ve used “Icecrotch” so many times I can’t even link to ‘em all. People respond to continuity and reoccurrence, and will feel cool that they noticed something you made reference to before. I don’t know how it came to be that I started referring to Dakota Fanning a trained assassin, but it’s always an easy joke in a post, and readers seem to dig it. Which is why you can all look forward to my upcoming post series “The Stirring Tales of Master Assassin Dakota Fanning” (TEASER: Episode One is called “Shinoku’s Revenge”.)

19. Too borrow a phrase from Ace Ventura, “Four picture posts of Paris Hilton’s nipple slips is TOO MUCH!”

20. Be merciless if someone deserves it, but don’t be mean for the sake of being mean. I like everyone I write about / make fun of. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t take the time. Bash a celeb all you want, but wait till they say something stupid, do something inane or bone someone dirty, otherwise it’s just cheap. On a related note, Amanda Peet has a horse face. OK, moving on…

21. Be passionate about what you write. It seems obvious, but I’ve read way too many blogs by writers who don’t seem to care about their topics. Passion gets people invested in things they have no interest in or relation to. I don’t care if you’re writing about Paris’s umpteenth drunk driving arrest, Teri Hatcher slowly turning into Skeletor, how lame Ghost Whisperer is or why Vanessas Hudgens would be stupid enough to risk Disney putting a hit out on her by taking naked pictures for Drake freaking Bell, just write it with some damn feeling. Care about your prose and we will too. Care about what people read on your pop culture site and you’ll never have a problem finding readers. Period.

I hope those tips help you in your journey to be the next big pop culture blogger. And I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my site this year. I know I’ve had a god time writing it.

Thank you for reading! And Bangarang!