Yesterday I had a great conversation with a fellow human who does on-line stuff like web design and knows what certain acronyms like S.E.O. mean.

I do not.

Even now (I keep having to look it up).

I was pretty sure that S.E.O. stood for Super Exciting Offer.  And I was super excited by that because Christmas is coming up (ya. I said it!) and ‘Super Exciting Offers’ will be what I am all about for the next 7 weeks (yep. Said that too. SEVEN SATURDAYS TILL CHRISTMAS PEOPLE! (The band, Kiss, is playing in my head… ‘Shout it! Shout it! Shout it out loud!’)).

But a very nice man named Chris seems to think that S.E.O. means Search Engine Optimization which is baffling to me (and completely not Christmasistic), but we all have our own little bubbles to live in.

So here is how our conversation went, according to my brain:

Chris: What are your goals?

Me: I want to create a blog that, when people visit, it feels like a hug. Well, not too serious though… pause… Kind of like a funny hug!

Chris: Uh huh. And how many people get e-mails when you post?

Me: (Frantically checking the stats section of my blog). Um. Okay, I think it’s about 570 people who get my blog on purpose now.

Chris: And they get e-mails?

Me: (looking even more feverishly around a page filled with graphs and numbers) Um. I can’t tell. How do I… Oh my Gawd, Chris. Someone got to my blog when they typed ‘dingle skittle’ into Google!

Chris: Okay, but…

Me: Oh my Gawd! Someone found it by Googling “Oh my Gawd!” – and they even spelled it right!

Chris: Okay. Let’s focus on the numbers for just sec…

Me: Okay. But it’s pretty cool that I have a kindred spirit out there somewhere!

(Wonders if that person spells it ‘Gawd’ because he or she also believes that it doesn’t count as truly taking the Lord’s name in vain if you don’t spell it right.)

Chris: You can get me those e-mail numbers later on. Just send them along. So how many views do you have right now?

Me: Um…. 72, 010.  Right now.  Hang on, I’ll refresh.. 72, 014. Hang on…

Chris: Nope. You’re good. You don’t need to keep refreshing.

Me: Okay.

Chris: So you said that you have a Facebook page too?

Me: Yep.

Chris: Okay so what are your goals for likes and views… say, in the next year?

Me:

Chris: Hello?

Me:

Chris: It’s okay if you don’t know.

Me: Um. Well, I guess 1,000 likes on Facebook. And then I don’t care until it’s 10,000 I guess.

Chris:

Me: Hello?

Chris:

Me: I can get more specific if I have a chance to think about it.

Chris: Okay. You can e-mail that to me too.

Me:  So I’m thinking a circus-y theme. Something that takes advantage of the ‘Ongoing Silly Circus’ idea.  So maybe just ‘circus’. Or, wait, Vaudville! Like Dingleville!

Chris:

Me: (Calming down) I sent you some example sites that I like.

Chris: Yes. I see them here. And now I will talk a little about stuff that makes no sense to you and will throw in terms like ‘objects’ and ‘customizable fine art as opposed to elements’ and I will talk about one being more expensive than another and say ‘responsive’ as if it is a very good thing and what do you think of that, Lisa?

Me: So, like a hug, right?

And that’s how it went and believe it or not I’m very excited.

Because it is time to take the next step with the blog because you guys have been so great in reading it! And at some point I need to branch out to things like e-books and book-books and even ‘stuff’! Oh how I look forward to the day when I can provide access to t-shirts and mugs and zombie destruction paraphernalia that say things like, “wHierd” and “Poop Day!”

But until then, it’s work work work.

And I think I have figured out a way to provide this nice man whose name is Chris the math …  er… numbers he needs.

It’s like a word problem:

Lisa Dingle speaking to Chris-The-Marketing-Guy on the telephone. If Chris-the-Marketing-Guy is 220.6 miles away, speaking in a marketing language that Lisa Dingle does not understand, how many new blog and Facebook followers will Lisa Dingle need to add in order to become a wicked professional writer one day, and earn enough money to purchase the appropriate Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software to translate what Chris is saying? 

A. Compute for Chris’ current distance of 220.6 miles.

B. What if Chris moved closer to Lisa and was only 50 miles away?

C. What if Chris ran for the hills?

Thanks for readin’.

* The conversation above is totally paraphrased based on how my brain processed the conversation after it happened. The very nice man who I spoke to, Chris, was very professional and also very patient. He also laughed at my jokes, which gave him many brownie points in my eyes. Also, I do have to add that, being a human involved in working with people to create things like blogs, I assume he knows he totally opened himself up to this particular post.

Well…. he does now :))

As always, you can come on over to Just Ponderin’s Facebook page to comment or just hang out.