I’m getting ready to kick start We Heart Pets. It already gets some decent amount of traffic from all the hard work Aeryn has put into it and with both of us writing and adding features I can see it being a very solid site for us. In it’s prime it was doing about 1000 unique visitors a day according to webalizer (which is a bit inflated, but just as a baseline) and it’s about half that now. I suspect in 3 months it’ll be double that. I need to get Google Analytics up on it as it’s much more accurate.

The template is based off the one I did for this site and for Twitter Hacks. And speaking of stats, Twitter Hacks is doing about 1000 page views a day on average and around 120 rss subscribers. It’s doing really well in terms of natural growth.

While I want to rush into getting as many sites going and profitable as possible I just want to take it slow and get each one going full steam before I decide if we can handle another project. My wife and I both love books, but the margin is so low on them that it’s hard to justify putting in a ton of work for such a small product. Still, we may build our book site just as a fun project once we get a little further along. We do have one unique product in mind for that niche that we haven’t seen anywhere yet and it’s hard enough to create that it’ll be useful to anyone who loves books, I think!

If I haven’t mentioned it before I really like the new design I did for Chrispian.com. It’s not fancy, it’s not going to win any design awards but it I like it. It’s wider, cleaner and has more room for me to do the kinds of things I want to do. It’s not Bulletproof yet and I still need to streamline the CSS / Wordpress theme but it’s a big step in the right direction. I designed it with the idea that I could use it for my other sites as well and it lends itself to different colors and other bits that’ll make it look different despite being pretty much the same. So I decided to give Twitter Hacks a shot using the new design and overall I’m pretty pleased with it. Now to figure out what to do next!

Technorati Tags: Twitter Hacks, Wordpress, Redesign

I’ve been blogging in one form or another since before it was called blogging, even though I might not have known it at the time. I’ve been building web sites since 1997 and bough my fist domain (Lit.Org) back in 97. I bought this site (chrispian.com) in 2001 and have been blogging on and off here ever since on a wide range of topics. The last few years have been trying for me on a personal level (see my about page for details) and as a result my dreams of working on my own projects have been delayed. Things are getting back to normal and so its time to get back to business, starting with this site and working through all my ideas one site at a time.

The Past

I backed up all my old posts and removed them from the site. It’s time to focus. I also ditched the old design opting for something that felt a little more like me. It needs some more tweaking but think it’s a great start and once it’s cleaned up will become my “blank slate” for future theme development. The sidebar still needs some work so I’ll be tweaking it a bit here and there. Mostly just minor style tweaks and I’ll be adding some other little bits too like what I’m currently reading, recommended reading, popular posts here, other places to read my rantings, er, writings., that sort of thing. Most of the “personal” parts will be found in the lower parts of the side bar. I’ll also be offering a few spots for sponsors once things really get going again but that’s probably a ways off.

The Present

It’s time to focus. I won’t be giving much, if any space to my personal life on this blog anymore. Instead I plan on focusing on the things that interest me, like web development, programming, Wordpress, LAMP, making money, affiliate marketing and everything that’s part of working in web publishing for a living. I’m completely self taught and I’ve been doing it almost 14 years now and I love helping people. So that’s why I’ve decided to focus on that here. I’ll also touch on some related interests, like writing, blogging, photography, productivity, time management, tools of the trade and things of interest to people trying to make a living at this. Don’t get me started on taxes! ;)

The Future

Part of the change is to focus on my own projects. I’m self employed now. I work as a freelance consultant doing programming, design, project management, server stuff, etc. for a small group of clients. As much as I love that work my dream has always been doing what I do for them for myself. So I’m putting plans into motion to make that dream a reality. I’ll chronicle every step of the way and let everyone follow along and share in my success and failures along the way and maybe learn from my journey. At the very least this should be more interesting than hearing about the minutia of someones every day life, the details of which even I find boring and it’s my life.

Wrapping it up

Most of all I plan on having fun and sharing my passion for this internet thing with anyone who’ll listen. I don’t care what your skill level is because I’m sure there’s plenty we can learn from each other. To that end I’ll even open the floor to guest writers and have a specific column here where I’ll try to answer any web dev related question someone sends me and I get a bunch of them. I’ll get back to the guest posting in a few weeks once I’ve set the tone around here so people know what to expect but if you have questions, feel free to ask those now.

So, lets dispense with the formalities and get into it! I hope you decide to stick around.

Thanks,

-Chrispian