rmlumley.com

One year ago yesterday, the first post for this blog was posted.  Since I’m a pretty big fan of statistics, here are some relevant numbers for this first year.

• 81 posts
• 169 comments
• 18,241 page views
• 13,988 visits
• 7,700 visits from Search Engines
• 4,153 visits from Referrals
• 2,135 visits from Direct Traffic
• 11,104 visitors

The top 5 posts.

1. Wedding Playlist
2. Brett Favre vs Aaron Rodgers thru 20 Career Starts
3. Review: Sony HTCT100 Sound Bar
4. Sliding Door Buttons
5. Did Andrew WK twitter to me?

It appears that most of my content is being accessed via search engine and referrals.  Also, writing about a variety of topics has actually worked out well for me.  I have a list of blog topics that I plan on writing about in the upcoming months.  I also plan on increasing the frequency of posting (I’d like to average two posts a week) and I’ll probably redesign the blog in the next few months.

So, thanks for all of you who have visited my site in the past year.  I hope you continue to find value here and feel free to leave any comments/suggestions below.

Also, don’t forget to fan rmlumley.com on facebook.

In the past couple of days, I’ve made a few changes to the website. The first thing you might notice is that there is now a small main navigation on the right side of the header image. Following with the rest of the site’s aesthetic, it’s a pretty minimal navigation.

The Blog link obviously links to the page that everyone is familiar with. I added a Portfolio link which I created using the method found on Cagintranet Web Design. It is a pretty clever method to create a portfolio using WordPress.

The final link is CSS. It simply links to a list of my CSS related posts. I realized I needed more than two links in my navigation, and the posts on Rounded Corners, Sliding Door Buttons and Outlook 2007 have been receiving decent traffic.

Outside of that, I tweaked the Twitter updates from 5 to 3, lowercased the header text and added a Copyright notice in my footer. Finally, I did create an online Facebook group for rmlumley.com, so feel free to become a fan.

Is there anything any of you would like to see me change/update?

This site officially launched on January 4, so I now have one month of data to look back on.  I bought the domain name from GoDaddy at the annual rate of $10.19.  My friend, Dan, gave me free hosting.  So, financially, this has been a pretty cheap project.

I decided to use WordPress to create the blog.  I took the default template (Kubrick) and striped out all of the styles.  Using the structure as the baseline, I created this theme.  It’s simple and minimal, but I like it.  I find it refreshing to see so much whitespace.  In the past month, I’ve found myself spending hours on small tweaks that no one will notice (typography, block quote styles, header, etc.).  Overall, it’s been a lot of fun.  It’s kind of like having a character in a RPG.  You spend a lot of time making small changes and adjustments to fit your personality, the only difference is other people (friends, family & strangers alike) will see it as well.

I’ve become quite familiar with WordPress and I’m very impressed with it.  It’s simple to set up and has tons of customizations.  I’ve also downloaded quite a few plug-ins to enhance the site.  Some of these plug-ins are obvious (Digg button, Twitter, Add to Subscribe Button & Picassa plug-in).  Others are invisible (tweaking RSS feeds, Google Sitemap, Google Analytics & Akismet).  All of them have been easy to install and quite helpful.

I’ve set up my Twitter account to feed to this site and Facebook.  I’ve also set up my RSS feed to automatically create new Notes in Facebook whenever I have a new post.  This seems to have been beneficial since most of my Referral traffic is from Facebook.  I’ve also imbedded my wedding pictures from Picassa as a blog post.  Finally, I signed up for Amazon Affiliates, so I’ll receive a % of any purchases that someone makes from a product linked from this site.

I feel I’ve kept the site fresh with 21 posts and 30 comments.  I’ll do my best to keep up this pace.  I’ll continue to keep the topics varied, because I’ve found that even a mundane post will receive quite a bit of traffic thru google.  My HTCT100 Soundbar review has been visited the most from Google search results.

Here is a look at the first month’s numbers:

• 519 Visits (58% Direct Traffic / 25.24% Referring / 16.76% Search Engines)
• 282 Returning Visitors / 237 New Visitors
• 1,517 Pageviews
• Top 3 Blog Posts (HTCT100 Review / Wedding Pictures / Re: Hope We Believe In)
• The majority of my Google traffic is a result of either HTCT100 or Call of Duty.

So, readers, what are your thoughts?  Any suggestions?

I think I’m finished with the initial styling of this blog.  I’m going for a clean look, so it should be simple to navigate.  I decided to use a picture of me from The Rob’s wedding.  From that, I decided to use the colors in that image to create the rest of the site.  The problem is that once I change the header image, I’ll need to redo the rest of the colors.  It will have to do for now, since I don’t have the skill or the software to create my own header.

For awhile I’ve thought about having a real blog, but I’ve either created one offs (mrrofl and my favorite part) or I’ve just decided against it because I couldn’t think of one topic I would want to devote the time and effort.

Lately, I’ve realized that I don’t really need to have one topic.  I’ll just write whatever I want, and tag it accordingly.  This is what my friend and coworker, James, does at StrivingLife.  I figured I’ll do the same as well.  So, as for what to expect..I have no idea.  My number one goal is to just keep this active, regardless of the audience.

The activity is important to me for two reasons.  One, I’d just like to do more writing. This is a venue for me to do it with, and I have enough opinions that I share via conversation, I might as well write them down.  Two, it gives me an area where I can work and try different things in regards to web design.  Just setting this blog up, I’ve learned about WordPress and php.

So, enjoy.  Eventually I’ll probably add more than just a blog to rmlumley.com.  My next project is to collect Wedding pictures and put them up on Picassa or Flickr.  From there, who knows.

I’m currently trying to build my own theme.  So, if you find this site, it will be a mess for awhile.