Sarah Palin Pictures - And a Cow With a Weird Birthmark

I’ve often written about how the media drives online search patterns, and how bloggers can capitalize on this in order to increase their traffic levels. Here’s a prime example of that, wrapped up in a weird story about a Sarah Palin birthmark on a cow in Texas.

Today, I was doing some research to track the Internet popularity of Sarah Palin topics. If you don’t know who Sarah Palin is by now, go back under your rock … this doesn’t concern you.

I actually started tracking the Internet search patterns of the Governor on the day that Senator McCain announced her as his running mate. The results were pretty predictable at first. Internet searches for “Sarah Palin” started to climb, as people began looking her up in Google, Yahoo, etc. One of the most popular phrases seems to be Sarah Palin pictures — not surprising, considering she is a former beauty queen.

But I was not expecting the degree to which her Internet popularity skyrocketed! I use tools like WordTracker and Google’s keyword tool to track this kind of thing (I’m a search engine marketing geek … what can I say). And I’ve never seen search numbers like those pertaining to Sarah Palin pictures and the like.

Many of the entertainment, media, political and pop culture bloggers and well aware of Palin’s rising popularity, and the smart ones are publishing plenty of blog posts, articles and fact sheets about Sarah Palin topics. This is the key to getting maximum traffic to your blog.

Of course, not everyone can blog about Sarah Palin pictures and get away with it. But this is just an example of the media driving Internet search patterns. Your job, as a business blogger who wants to increase traffic levels, is to know what topics are being covered in your industry and to find a way to capitalize on that.

Oh, and I promised you a picture of a Sarah Palin birthmark on a cow. I am a man of my word!