#the huge long paragraphs are addressed to the person in the pic

[annashipper]

Sojourner Anon Submission

I’m in a similar situation to the Confused Anon - I’ve known about Benedict Cumberbatch since 2007 (Atonement), and had seen him in a bunch of stuff over the years prior to Sherlock, but wasn’t impressed enough with his acting to take an interest in him until Doctor Strange and TLD (it helped that he was smoking hot in both of these - scruff really does wonders for his face). Naturally my first course of action was to go on a bender through Tumblr for a couple of months, which is how I wound up on skeptic blogs. I’d seen pictures of Benedict with his wife in the past (mostly from the 2015 awards season) and I was aware that there existed a faction of fans that didn’t like her - mostly because of something that had happened to a friend of mine about two years ago.

I don’t wanna go into too many details, since I don’t want to expose her to more hate, so I’ll keep it simple: she’s a huge Benedict fan, not a UK resident but got to stay there for a while back in 2015, during which time she saw Sophie and the baby at some kind of event she (my friend, that is) attended - something that got her torn apart by the skeptics. Now, I’ve known this woman for ages. I’ll grant you that she’s a nanny, but most of her friends are, at best, very casual fans. She’s not a BNF, nor an attention-seeker or a consummate liar, so I find it truly hard to believe she’d make up something like that. There was literally nothing for her to be gained by saying she’d seen Benedict’s wife and baby (I doubt she’s on his PR’s payroll, considering she’s not someone followed by a ton of fans or anything remotely close).

I’ve seen the uncensored pap pics where you can see the face of the child being carried. His resemblance to Benedict is almost uncanny, which is saying something because Benedict doesn’t exactly have a very common face. If they really did hire someone, they did one hell of a job finding a kid who looked like the biological son of both parents.

Furthermore, I agree with what Confused Anon had to say. It’s one thing to get your friends and family to cover for you, but this is a man who’s constantly surrounded by virtual strangers that don’t owe him shit. There’s nothing stopping them from going to the press, and yet not even CDAN will publish a blind contending Benedict’s children are a lie (when it had no problems publishing such things about other celebs).

And what happens down the line, if he did create a fake family? They’re too young right now, but in a few years Benedict’s gonna be expected to discuss funny anecdotes about his children on talk shows - like that cute gifset you recently shared, with all the Marvel actors saying how their kids were embarrassed by them. You can bet your ass someone’s gonna ask Benedict what his sons think about him being Doctor Strange, and people will wonder why he’s not bringing them on set like other Marvel actors… and later, he’ll have to start regularly showing up in public with them, or gossip rags are gonna wonder aloud how come he never brings his children to any public events, like others do with theirs.

I don’t pretend to know what spurred this relationship, although I do have a theory that he panicked as he was nearing 40 with no kids and just jumped at the first opportunity to be a father, maybe hoping he’d learn to love Sophie along the way. Sadly, I’ve met couples like that IRL… but I digress. Whatever the real reason, it can’t have involved a fake pregnancy, or he would’ve said “not mine” a long time ago and jumped ship. At this point, that kind of admission would destroy his public image and career for a very long time, possibly even for good, so unless Benedict is EXTREMELY stupid - and he doesn’t come off that way to me - there’d have to be at least one child.

And yes, I’ve seen the photo collages of her pregnancy. I too have been pregnant and given birth, but unlike the rest of your mom anons, I don’t think that makes me an authority on either pregnancies or babies. No self-respecting medical professional would opine on a stranger’s pregnancy by just looking at photos, and neither should laymen who only have anecdotal evidence at their disposal. In other words, sorry, but drawing outlines on pictures isn’t how gynecologists determine pregnancy.

I’ve seen how you react to people who disagree with you, so I just wanted to say upfront that I’m not really expecting a serious answer beyond a sarcastic gif or sending me to those archives that don’t actually answer anything. My infatuation with Benedict has already begun to subside (I mean, it’s been almost six months, there’s only so long I can fangirl). I had five minutes to burn on my daily commute and that Confused Anon was something of a catalyst, so I dropped you a line. Have a great day, Anna, I hope both you and Benedict find happiness in your lives. (Please accept my apologies if this comes out too long, incoherent or misspelled; English isn’t my first or even second language).

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Hi Sojourner Anon!

First off, since you’ve seen how I react to people who disagree with me, you probably already know enough to expect a serious answer from me when you’re being as cordial as you have been.  I reserve sarcasm and snark for the obviously baity Anons who’re just looking for trouble.

Anyway, as your submission has indeed come out a bit long, I’m going to try to keep this as short as possible and simply address the points you’re making in the order that you made them:

Regarding your friend and her being torn apart by Skeptics, I don’t expect you to be aware of this since you’ve only just recently discovered the Skeptical community for yourself, but we have a long standing rule about sightings.  They have to make sense (to at least be taken seriously) and they have to come with photographic evidence attached (to be believed and included in confirmed sightings).  As I don’t know what your friend saw and where, it is impossible for me to argue whether what she saw was legitimate or not.  The one sighting of Weirdo and Pilo at an event I can remember, is the one where Weirdo supposedly took (a very young) Pilo (at the time) to an Ian Mc Kellen reading, and that’s simply because there was a lot of back and forth about it being legit.  Skeptics who are much more social media savvy than I am and have far higher powers of Google Fu than I do were able to find multiple pictures from the inside of the venue and ... guess what:  No matter how many brunette women the Nans pointed to as being Weirdo, it turned out she wasn’t in the audience.  If this is not the sighting you’re alluding to, I would be more than happy to discuss this with you privately in case you’re inclined to provide me with more details.  

On the matter of your friend being torn apart by Skeptics, let me also add that I personally have never ventured outside of Tumblr for any reason whatsoever and have made it a point to try to deter my fellow Skeptics from doing so as well.  For the record, all real Skeptics know how to stay in our lane.  The ones who don’t are not considered real Skeptics (and yes, there are a number of trolls who have infiltrated the community since the beginning of this showmance and are posing as Skeptics just to make us look bad).

I’ve seen the unblurred pics of Rent-A-Pilo’s face too.  At first I had the same reaction as you did.  I thought Rent-A-Pilo looked remarkably similar to Ben and went on record saying so (on a post which I haven’t deleted, because I don’t delete posts).  Here is the LINK.  Notice how even immediately after seeing Rent-A-Pilo’s face for the first time and posting under shock I still didn’t believe Weirdo had gestated a real human baby?  I still don’t.  

Seeing how the pillows are only ever mentioned / trotted out when Daddy needs to sell a new project or Mommy throws a tantrum to get a new pap walk, I don’t believe they’re surrogate children either.  I just think they’re imaginary.  It goes hand in hand with the fact that Ben knows next to nothing about babies.  2 hour skyping sessions with a 5 month old, filthy props from a movie set being used as teethers by a 10 month old and babies eating sliced apples are only some of the things Ben doesn’t seem to understand are not the norm for children of Pilo’s age.  I won’t even mention the lack of bathtime.

I don’t think Ben is extremely stupid.  I think Ben is extremely desperate not to come off as a man who faked a relationship / engagement / wedding / pregnancy / fatherhood for an Oscar he didn’t even come close to winning because he simply chose an unstable famewhore to play the part of his red carpet girlfriend.

I have to say I’m disappointed you don’t see fit to counter any of the arguments we pose via the bump comparisons you mentioned seeing as you’ve obviously studied them.  I have been posting / reblogging / arguing using these bump comparisons as evidence that Weirdo faked the first pregnancy for the better part of the past two years and not a single Anon has ever offered a convincing counter-argument regarding how ridiculous Weirdo looked with a bump that kept inflating / deflating / changing shapes / inflating again / folding over / disappearing altogether / inflating again / staying the same size during the last trimester of that weird pregnancy.  I would really like to hear your thoughts on that if you feel inclined to have a mature back and forth about it.  Be forewarned:  arguments such as “I can’t accept anyone would be crazy enough to fake a pregnancy like that while being papped left and right” and anecdotal evidence such as “my sister’s friend’s mother’s cousin’s (twice removed) never developed breasts / never got swollen ankles / belly kept deflating / bellybutton kept popping out and in and out again, etc” won’t be taken seriously.  For obvious reasons.

I hope the above answers some of your questions about my take on this showmance and I apologise for getting a bit snarky regarding the pregnancy that never was on my last paragraph, but faking that pregnancy is a very sensitive subject for me personally.

I have a couple of very close friends who have been trying to conceive and I know how taxing it’s been on them.  Let’s just say a famewhore faking a pregnancy just to establish herself in the public eye rubs me the wrong way.  

It’s why I keep coming back to the first pregnancy (which we got to document through numerous pap walks unlike the second one), it’s why I’ll keep calling Weirdo ... weirdo and it’s why I intend on remaining an active Skeptic for the foreseeable future.

Apologies to everyone reading this blog as I think my answer to Sojourner Anon may actually be longer than her submission was.  What can I say?  I’m a rambler...

#sojourner anon #submission

[adenion]

7 Basic Tips & Tools to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog or Website

"How to get more traffic on my blog?", "What is the best way to grow more traffic from organic search?", "How to drive more traffic to a new blog?" are some of the most frequently asked questions from bloggers. The answer is: there is no one single best way and no magic formula for generating traffic. It’s a combination of SEO, marketing and social media strategies, that will drive more traffic to your blog or website, and help you to grow a loyal community. Major reasons for low traffic and interaction are primarily found in a lack of valuable content, an inconsistency in posting and engagement, and a lack of promotion. But even, if you’re publishing great content and you really have valuable things to tell your audience, it happens that your traffic numbers just don’t seem to be climbing as much as you wish them to do. Doing SEO is not enough to grow and boost a site. And, SEO is not just about technically optimizing your page. The search engine algorithms have evolved and become more complex. They preferably rank sites that meet peoples’ needs. They can actually show results that match each user's individual surf and search behavior. On-page SEO is still important, but today, SEO is all about content quality.  If you create quality content that matches the interests of your target audience, you will go a major step to doing great SEO. Including the right keywords and maximizing readability is the next step towards a good ranking. Promoting your content for maximizing visibility and engagement is the ultimate discipline. There are a lot of elaborate tactics that can have a huge impact on your site traffic. But there are also a couple of basic things you can do to improve your SEO as well as your marketing and social media efforts. And you don't need to be an expert for this. However, you will need passion, patience, and persistence to make your blog successful. But this will pay off in the long run.

Here are 7 basic tips & tools to grow your traffic

1. Pick the right topic to create excellent content that will drive more traffic and engagement on your site The better you know your audience, the better you can create content that will match their interests and search terms. But there are also several tools that will help you looking for top performing content. The most important thing is to ensure that the topics you choose fit with your content strategy and are focused on helping your target audience. Look out for topics that get much engagement on social media. Listen to your customer communication for frequently asked questions and business challenges your customers and prospects are faced with. Audit your social media followers, comments, but also social communities and discussions about your topics. Look for frequent questions and challenges that come up and look for gaps in coverage. Is there anything you can add to your posts, that will make your content stand out? Create help content, tips, and guidelines that your target audience will remember as a useful resource of information. Here are some tools to use for content research that will help you to analyze top performing content for your keywords and topics. For example: Easy Blog Ideas - The WordPress plugin will help you to analyze and find top performing topics directly on your WordPress dashboard. BuzzSumo – Enter a keyword and the tool will show you a list of articles which are generating the most social shares. Google Trends – The Google tool will show you a graph on how your keywords are trending over time. 2. Include keywords in your content to get more matches from organic search Even though SEO tactics have shifted a great step from looking at keywords to creating great content, including keywords is not obsolete. Keywords are still important. If your content matches the interest of your target audience and you are using the keywords and search terms they are looking for, this will help you to get a better ranking and more visibility in search engines and social media. So, keywords are key elements of optimizing your pages and posts for the search engines as well as for your audience. Do a thorough keyword research. Try to discover, how your audience refers to the topic you are covering, what search terms or hashtags they are using. Use these keywords to search for topics you can write about and include these keywords in your meta tags and descriptions as well as in your copy, headlines, lead texts, links and image descriptions. Here are some tools you can use to help you with selecting the best keywords for your content: Use keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner or Long Tail Keywords for your keyword research. 3. Maximize the readability of your posts Search engines preferably rank sites that are fast, responsive and user-friendly. Make sure your blog posts are easy and fun to read. Write short sections with less than 300 words and paragraphs with less than 150 words. Use strong headings and subheadings. Bullet points and lists to make your posts easy to skim and scan. Check your headlines and copy with the Hemmingway App. Try the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress to help you with basic SEO and check your posts for focus keywords, meta tags and descriptions, and readability for the search engines as well as for your target readers. 4. Use visuals for more attention and engagement Visual content is more likely to get clicks, shares, likes, and comments than text messages. And, visual content can drive more traffic from images search in search engines and social media. So how can you make your content more visual? Here are some ideas to get you started: Illustrate your blog posts with photos, infographics, and videos. You don't need to be a professional designer to create professional looking visuals. Use tools like Canva to create unique infographics and share pics or Moovly to create animated videos easily. 5. Engage with your readers, followers, and influencers To make the most of your visitors, encourage your readers to stay on your site and get them into action. Interlink your posts to keep readers on your site and guide them to related posts on your site. You can use tools like Related Posts to display related posts automatically on the bottom of each of your posts. Make it easy for your blog visitors to follow and share your posts on social media. Place social media follow buttons in your header, footer and on your contact page. Place social media share buttons at the top and button on each post and also on your images, or use floating bars by using tools like Super Socializer. Add strong Call-To-Actions (CTAs) like "please follow" and "please share" to encourage your readers to follow and share your posts on social media. Encourage your readers to comment on your posts and share their opinion by asking questions. Ask them for feedback and comments on your blog post as well as on your social media posts. Always follow up on feedback, and answer questions and react to comments in time. You can integrate social comments on your site by using tools like WP Discuz or Disqus to connect your site comments to social media. Look out for similar topics and discussions on other platforms and add your opinion. Link back to your post, if your post adds value to the current discussion. Mention influencers in your posts and let them know you’ve mentioned them or linked to their posts and link back to your post. 6. Leverage email- and newsletter marketing to drive more traffic from loyal subscribers In order to turn your website visitors into loyal blog readers and subscribers, grab their email address to hook them to your blog. By offering a blog subscription, all subscribers will be automatically informed whenever you publish a new post. With a newsletter, you can send news to your subscribers, whenever you have important news or stories to tell. Email subscriptions will encourage your readers to come back to your blog. Or, offer push notification for your site to let your visitors know about your blog or news updates. Tool Tips: Try the EmailSubscribers and Newsletters plugin for list building and email marketing to turn your website visitors into blog and newsletter subscribers. And try the Icegram plugin to create popups, a welcome bar and other opt-in forms for lead generation. Try OneSignal for an easy to implement push notification and email tool. 7. Promote your blog posts on social media to drive more traffic from social platforms However great your content is, you need to promote your blog consistently. Social media help your content to build authority, incoming links and reach. The better the engagement you receive for your content on social media the more this will help your ranking and visibility. Sharing your content on social media helps you drive more traffic to your site. There are multiple social sites to share your content as well as your visuals. Share your content on Twitter, Facebook, but also think of Google+, Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr, and also on LinkedIn, if your content is business-related. Also, share your content on relevant Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn Groups or Reddit Subreddits. Share your content as Google Posts on your Google My Business listing. Share your content on Social Bookmark communities such as Diigo, Delicious or Digg. Re-publish and syndicate your content on platforms like Medium, Tumblr, Bloglovin’, Quora, and LinkedIn Pulse. Share and cross-promote your content at different times and days across social networks and customize your comments with personal comments, hashtags or handles for each channel. Use social media automation for scheduling and consistency. Tip: Set up a social media cross-promotion plan to schedule and share your blog posts on social media. Click here for a free guide and checklist for your social media sharing plan .

7 Tips & Tools to Grow Your Traffic Read the full article

#BlogMarketing #BlogTraffic #Tips #Traffic #WebsiteTraffic #SocialMedia