Traffic Control

Sam Shem’chlaki didn’t really like his job. Not really. More like not at all, even. If you think about it, you could pretty much say he hated it. Big time.

Being rooted on a side of the road, looking at all this traffic moving past… Happy people, not very much so, all going somewhere, smiling, frowning, talking, arguing… Moving. Bastards! Arghhh!

Sam was a traffic policeman, meaning he was stuck to one place for the duration of his contract – placed on top of a tree trunk, rooted to one place day and night, summer or winter. A pair of binoculars and a whistle. A smart phone. Not an iPhone or anything but still.

Actually, it was quite OK at the beginning, first five years or so. After ten, he had enough. Getting close to fifteen he started to feel he’s getting a bit mad. All this traffic… Day and night… Moving. Moving. Moving!

Good thing, Sam didn’t have a gun.

Sad monster © Igor Bissikalo

It’s dark in here… and so quiet… I am not quite sure where I am but it doesn’t feel good. Not that I am afraid of dark, har-har-har! Har-har-har. Har…

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeh, why I am here? What have I done? OK, you could point that I am a monster, but so what? Am I scary? Am I ugly? Do I smell? Not really!

Still, this darkness is making me nervous… Not good. Not good at all. What was that? Did you hear it? You think, there are people here, in the  dark? I think so too!

Damn, this is not good at all… I want to get out of here!!!!!

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a technique employed to drive organic or non-paid traffic to your website. Being on top of the first Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for your target keywords and getting majority of web traffic this way is the ultimate goal and desire of every website owner.

Depending on your target keywords, this can be relatively easy or extremely hard to achieve. Easy or not, this will require quite a bit of time, 6 months or more, and some major effort. The spider is a slow creature.

That’s why it is recommended to employ – in combination with SEO – another technique known as Search Engine Marketing or SEM, which is all about driving paid traffic to your website. The result is instant although not necessarily cheap.

Artifact

At first, we couldn’t see what it was. I mean, with all this damn fog you couldn’t see much at all…

But, as we got closer, what was just a dark blurry form started to take shape. Still, it took us forever to get close enough to appreciate the thing for real.

God, was it old! There was some extensive natural damage, whole parts of the structure missing here and there. One side looked like it had been chewed on by some huge mechanical creature, tooth marks still clearly visible after all these years. And yet… it was unmistakably impressive.

It was what we were looking for all along. It was The Relic.

Babe © Igor Bissikalo

It’s just not fair!

I always bring her flowers yet she never notice me. Why is that, I don’t know. I mean there is nothing wrong with me, really, don’t you agree?

So the whole situation is a mystery for me and, I fear, I cannot go on like this for much longer.

Should I move on?

I do not know yet, but this relationship is not progressing the way I hoped it would. What I am to do?

Fantasy fog

When darkness falls, we hardly ever notice – we just carry on going in circles. That’s all we do, nothing else…

There is nothing else we can possibly do, you see. Everything is always covered by fog, so we never know where we are, where we are going or if we have been here before.

It’s all because of this damn fog…

They say there are places with clear sky and they say that the sky is actually blue and there is no fog or anything like that but… we have never been able to find any of these places. It is not like we are not looking, we just seem to keep going in circles!

Damn this fog!!!

Sty © Igor Bissikalo

When, back in 1904, this sculpture had been accidentally excavated in some forgotten region of Sahara, it has immediately been affectionately called the Ugly Booch of Sty or simply Sty.

What this artyfact depicts is anyone’s guess although some may say it looks like a pig alien or perhaps an alien pig.

Whatever it was, we might never know for sure – this precious object has been stolen during the Great Pumpkin robbery of 1931 and has never been seen again.

It is a fact – websites thrive with healthy traffic. Traffic stimulates activity, brings visitors and generates revenue. If you have something to say or sell, you will need to have visitors or customers and in some reasonable numbers. Your own promotional activities aside, the vast majority of new users will find you via search engines (Google or not) so, unless you are in a market without competition, you have to make yourself visible and easy to find.

There two major ways to drive traffic via search engines:

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) will help with driving organic or non-paid traffic to your website.  To see any serious results will take some time and effort although basic optimisation is quite straight-forward.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will take care of paid traffic. The result is pretty instant and highly customisable. When set up correctly, you may find that it is not that expensive. Great way to test your chosen keywords before any serious investment into SEO.