Today is my first blogiversary! I can’t believe I’ve been blogging about food for a year already, time has flown! I’ve opted not to make a huge elaborate meal to celebrate my blogiversary. Instead, since I was a mathematician in a former life, I’ll be posting lots of blog statistics because I find those things to be fascinating.
My first recipe post was Ham and Cheese Macaroni Bake with Peas. Since then I’ve posted 415 more recipes which averages to just over one new recipe a day. That average decreases with time, not because I cook less but because in the early days of blogging every recipe needed to be posted. As time goes on and I revisit recipes, fewer need to be posted because they’re already here. My most prolific month was June 2009, my first full month of blogging. It had a whopping 71 posts.
My most used recipe category is, and will probably always be, chicken. It’s got 83 recipes.
Sadly, I only started tracking statistics with the help of Google Analytics back in February 2010. During that time my blog has seen 9,703 visits with April being the busiest month so far. Traffic keeps increasing every month which is very promising!
The majority of my readers from the United States and most of those are from California. My own state ranks 4th behind New York and Illinois.
Most of my readers use Firefox, Windows, and have a 1280x800 screen resolution. 1.7% of you view my blog from your iPhones. Hooray for iPhones! .06% of you are early iPad adopters. Sadly I don’t fall into that .06%.
The majority of readers find my blog through google searches and searches that send people to my blog most often involve some combination of the words slow, cooker, roast, and chicken.
Black-Bottom Cupcakes and Slow Cooker Roast Chicken with Crispy Skin are, by far, my most popular recipes. Bacon Swiss Quiche, Crunchy Buttermilk-Coconut Chicken Fingers, Ham and Cheese Macaroni Bake with Peas, Marinated London Broil, Slow Cooker Honey Roasted Chicken with Rosemary and Dijon, and Slow Cooker Lemon and Dill Salmon with Spinach follow close behind. Delmonico, Le Cirque, Mesa Grill, and TenPenh are my most popular restaurant reviews.
Last but not least, 927 people have read “Who are you people?” This is probably my favorite number to see increase since I tend to think of it as being in line with unique readers.
This past year has seen quite a few major changes but my favorite is the beautiful banner artwork painted by my dear friend Lierre.
The next change on the horizon is making the switch from my current content management system (Joomla 1.5) to the newest release. Joomla 1.6 is currently in beta, but it has features that I’m too impatient to wait for so I’ll be implementing it sooner rather than later. This might make my blog a little buggy in the beginning, but Art will be on top of things to ensure everything continues to run smoothly during the beta phases. The most notable improvement is that I’ll finally be able to put recipes into multiple categories. Keep your eyes peeled for new categories like “Slow Cooker” and “Almost Vegetarian.”
It’s been a great year in food here and I have the feeling that the year to come will be even better. Thank you all for your interest and support – knowing that people read makes the whole project even more enjoyable and festive!
