Two years ago today I started Thailand, Land of Smiles without a real clue as to what I was doing or how I would do it, the early posts really bring that point home well. I started this blog because I had a real passion for Thailand that carries on to this day and I wanted to share that passion with as many people as I could.

I wanted to share my experiences and adventures along the way and I think I’ve done that pretty well . Over time I believe I’ve become a better writer and a little bit better photographer ( still breaking camera’s though). I think what I’ve been able to put into words so far has been full of helpful information and a pretty good testament to my time spent in Thailand.

The blog has really grown since those first days when the only visitor was me. Checking the stats was a daily depressing habit  and I wondered if anyone would ever show up. Well, they did but it took time.

Today Land of Smiles brings in well over 20,000 unique visitors a month who average close to 40,000 visits and account for over 150,000 page views a month. About 60% of those visitors monthly come from search engines, with Google being the clear leader. 15% of those visitors are from referrals, mostly from other blogs in the Thailand niche. And the last 25% come from direct traffic.

Now, I’m not bringing the above numbers up to brag and I didn’t add in pictures of my Google analytics and monthly stats for a reason, it doesn’t matter. It’s not about where I am now but how I got here and how I plan to move forward. It took two years to get to this point and you can bet the first year I was writing for very few people. After the first year I saw more people trickling in here and there and I continued to write. Google doesn’t trust you for a while and as much as Google doesn’t trust you, other bloggers trust you less. After the 8 month mark Google started to relent and send me much needed traffic and other bloggers started to give me some much needed back links. It takes time and patience but if you keep at it it happens.

That being said it also involves work. Aside from writing content if you want to move forward and stand out you can’t ignore search engine optimization ( SEO ). Without SEO no one will ever find you, it literally makes the difference of being on the first page of Google or on the the 300th page. Here’s a hint,  no one goes past the first few pages of search results in most cases. Using WordPress as a blogging platform takes care of 80% of the SEO you need right out of the gate. You need to keep up with the other 20% by doing the little things. Keywords, correct permalinks and the all important back links. All these things together help the search engines to find and rank you.

Don’t neglect the theme you use for your blog either. How your site looks is second only to the information it provides. People really do make decisions about you and your blog based on it’s look and navigation. Take the time to get it right. You wouldn’t believe the amount of e-mails I have gotten in 2 years about how nice the theme is here. It’s the main reason I haven’t thought of updating the theme, but when I do I will be keeping similar color schemes and layout. By the way the theme was free and luckily it was one that I haven’t seen used much.

Keywords are easy with a Thailand related blog because it’s hard to write an article without bringing up the main keywords in this niche: Thailand, Bangkok, Thai food, Thai women, Thai girls, Thai language, Pattaya, and or ladyboys…big breasted young teen Asian ladyboy’s, naked. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist

Those words are relatively easy but I have taken ranking for certain keywords to a new level. For instance, I rank #1 in Google for Brown Nipple…go ahead, check. I’m proud of that one although I really don’t know why and I’m quite certain that many a young man has been disappointed when they got to my blog and there were no brown nipples to be found. I don’t think I even rank in the top 100 pages for black nipple, talk about a tough keyword to rank for. I plan on being around for a while so who knows maybe in 2 more years I can be #1 for black nipple too…a boy can dream.

All of that is fine and well but it really doesn’t mean all that much over time unless you have people engaging with your content and in that regard I have been fortunate to make friends with a lot of great Thailand bloggers and bloggers in general that have become part of this community and a larger Thailand community overall. That’s what keeps me going, the fact that people are reading my content and they are responding to it. Not only that but they are expanding on it and bringing more to the conversation through comments here and blog posts on their blogs. That is really cool and and a major motivation to keep me blogging.

Page Rank,  Alexa, SEO, and all the social networking tools are great for distracting you from the most important part of blogging, writing original content. They are all meaningless if you don’t keep writing and reaching out to others in your niche and becoming involved. Don’t write for search engines, write for people because when you write for people the funny thing is they usually show up and read. If you engage those people and give them what they are looking for they will most likely come back. All the various metrics used to measure success only tell you part of the story.

Like many bloggers I have read all the A-list bloggers on blogging and have researched all of their works and have sometimes let myself be drawn into it all . What I’ve learned in the last 2 years is that most of what they tell you is all incidental to the important equation:

Passion+Content+Time=Results

Passion. If you aren’t passionate about your subject matter your readers will know it and eventually you will get tired of writing it or you’ll get tired of no one reading it.

Content is key. If you write on a regular basis  they will come. It doesn’t have to be daily but if you post on a regular basis you will see regular readers. More to the point it’s not just content but original content. Original content is written through your eyes or through your experiences. You can write about anything but unless you put your spin on it, your point of view or your thoughts then you are just rewriting news that someone else has already written…Make it yours.

Time is the hardest part of the equation. Time isn’t something you can force or bend to your will. You may write daily and have the passion,  but everything takes time. It takes time for Google to trust you and to build up content in the search engines. It takes time to get to know others in your niche and have them trust you. It takes time to figure out your direction. Give it time.

If you put in the time to write original content about a subject you are passionate about then you might be as fortunate as I have been and realize you have become part of something bigger, a community.  Big or small that community means so much more than statistics.

This post has run a lot longer than I wanted it too but hopefully it made it’s point, love what you do and do what you love. I’ve learned a lot in the past two years about Thailand, blogging and community. Where Thailand, Land of Smiles will be in the next two years, I don’t know,  but I do know that I’ll still be learning, exploring and writing about the place I love and hopefully you’ll continue to  be a part of that journey.