The lows get higher

While checking the stats on SiteMeter (currently averaging 1,400+ visitors daily), I noticed that I've only had four days with less than 500 visitors in the past month.

Peak traffic is always dependent on getting linked by the biggies, the real trick to increasing the average is to build "residual" traffic -- people visiting posts from weeks or months ago that they've found via Google searches or older links on other sites. So even on days when traffic's slow and nobody's linking, you still get a relatively steady stream of visitors -- the lows get higher.

One key to residual traffic? Celebrities. I do the occasional "celebrity update" just to keep from boring people to death with all-politics, all-the-time, and these posts -- about Natalie Portman, Britney Spears, Lindsday Lohan, Keira Knightley, Ann Hathaway -- bring visitors to the site day after day.

BTW, did you hear that Hollywood starlet and former Vogue covergirl Sienna Miller, 26, is having an affair with Balthazar Getty, who is 33, married and has four kids? Shameful. Almost as shameful as Sienna being photographed topless, kissing Getty on his boat near the Italian coast. Despite all the wealth and fame of my fabulous blogging career, never once have I been tempted to kiss a starlet on my boat near the Italian coast.