andreasviklund.com

This site has now been online for one month and it is time to do a short summary of its current status. When I launched the site I didn't have any special plan for its development, but there were some details that I have worked with. One of those things is search engine optimization. Below is a list of some of the relevant search keywords and the current position of my site in the Google search results for each search:

• "andreas viklund" - #1
• "viklund" - #1
• "andreas" - #16
• "open source templates" - #4
• "free website templates" - #14
• "commercial templates" - #2
• "website templates" - #18
• "oswd" - #4
• "andreas01" to "andreas07" - #1-#2
• "jantix" - #1
• "lagoona" - #18
• "lagoona music" - #4
• "the solid energy crew" - #1

I'm happy with the result since I am really not any specialist in the art of search engine optimization. I use a few simple tricks and some common sense, and it works for me. However, in the long term there is still lots of work left to do…

Traffic

The Google hits adds up to about 3.000 visitors, which is about 15% of the 20.000 unique hits that the site has in the last 30 days. The most common searches are "oswd", "andreas viklund" and "free website templates". The total number of viewed pages is just over 90.000, and the three most popular pages are the free templates page, the main frontpage and the While OSWD.org is down blog entry.

The most active day was November 7th, when this site was linked by Slashdot.org. A few days later the link to my templates page showed up on the del.icio.us popular page, which created a second rush. For a few days my site was one of the top blogs in the Blogs Of The Day charts (where it is today ranked as #59 of 1126 registered blogs). Despite the hard pressure from Slashdot and del.icio.us, the site survived the first month and it has got a good base of returning visitors already. The site currently has about 500 unique visitors per day, which are coming in from about 230 different sites. Even though I don't care very much about numbers (honestly, I don't!) this is still a great inspiration for me and a good motivation to keep the website running.

Interesting (or not) statistic details

According to my statistics script, less than 0.1% of the site visitors use the screen resolution 640×480 or smaller on their computers. 4% use 800×600. The rest use a higher resolution with 1024×768 and 1280×1024 adding up to 70% of the hits. However, mobile phones and handheld computer browsers are not included in these numbers.

The average visitor views four different pages and stays for 3 minutes and 31 seconds on this site. The 1-page visit rate is 41%. The most common browser used to view this page is Firefox with 60% (of which 9% comes from v1.5 beta), followed by IE 6 with 27% and Safari with 5%.

Content

My original idea was to release all the free music in the complete Lagoona MP3 collection, along with all TSEC songs and of course also my own music as the main website content. Website templates would be a little bonus along with stock photos, digital art and a little diary. But over the last month, this site didn't really turn out to be what I planned. The website templates are the main content along with the blog. The music isn't even online yet. I have decided to wait with the art page and to not add stock photos at all. When it comes to the content, I feel that I still miss a lot of material and that I really need to get the music online now since it is not available anywhere else.

I have also decided to add WordPress themes which is a new idea, and on request from several Lagoona fans I have also added the lyrics archive from the Lagoona website (which is terribly outdated and in extreme need of maintenance). I had an idea about adding a "Song of the day" but I will not do that. I also have several blog categories created which I will probably not use at all. Details like the webdesign portfolio, testimonals, professional services and music studio info are also needed. The content is still weak - but it is getting better every day.

Commercial templates is one of the things that I would never have added if I wouldn't have got a direct request about it, and those templates are a great success. A number of people have bought templates directly through the page and I have got only positive comments from the buyers. While it is a good service to people who search for templates, it is also a great help to keep this site online since I get a percentage of the purchase amount from the template provider.

Design

I have made a very simple design on purpose since I don't want the design to take up too much attention away from the content. I started one month ago with the Blix theme and customized it into a a simple standard layout with a simple standard colorscheme. While it was simple and clean, the first version of my site design became one of the 40 highest rated designs in the November 1st CSS reboot during the first days (which was a big surprise). Since then, I have done lots of changes and removed some images to reduce the load time a bit, and the reboot rating has gone down close to the average rating. I have a plan to do a refreshment of the design soon, but since the current design works well, a refreshment is a low priority for now.

Conclusion

I think that this site has got a good start and I hope that you site visitors agree. Lots of content are still missing and I will probably not add everything that I'm planning to add since I appearently come up with changes and new ideas all the time. But it is getting better! I have got a huge amount of feedback which has helped me to find a good balance in the content so far. But as with all good websites, the work will never be finished… I will keep on updating the blog every now and then, typically with an entry each day or every second day depending on mood and inspiration. Feedback is still welcome of course, and if anyone of you who visit this site want to contribute with your own content in some way (news, themes, files or mods for the templates or maybe even a feature article about webdesign!), I'm always open for suggestions.

Thanks everyone for helping me get this site going, I hope that you will find it worth to return to in the future too!