Category: Uncategorized

When I started this blog site I knew a bit about Google, had seen Dave Gormans Googlewack DVD and wished I’d bought some shares in them.
Well Google Analytics opens the door to a whole new world of information about the visitors to this site. Its a plugin for WordPress and and its now the reason that I continue to blog.
Back in June when I started to blog the intention was to keep in touch with others on the Lifestyle and Weight Management Course. Well that hasn’t happened to any great extent due to NHS burocracy. I’d written the earlier articles on Cycling clothing and easy rides for the overweight but was in the dark regarding the site because of a lack of feedback.

Paul said I was getting hits but it wasn’t till the Google Analytics plugin was installed that I realised how many. Below is a list of words that visitors have keyed into a google search box and ended up looking at this site.

1.

cycle sat nav

4

 Thats just for the Sat Nav page, The Weightloss diary is another one.
It’s an immensly powerfull data gathering tool. I even know that I had two visitors from the USA looking at the Quaker Oat Granola Comparison post. The World map shows the server location of everybody.There was even a visitor from Alaska last week and someone in Japan keeps spamming me. I have to use the google translate button to see what they are trying to push. 

The thing I really got a buzz from was seeing the site come up on the first page of a google search for a “spinning calories burnt” “Aldi Cycling” was another one. A chap at work who is a prolific ebayer told me your nowhere if you can’t get on to the first two pages of a google search. The more I looked the more I found. It probably helps that this is a fairly diverse site. If it was just about weight loss I’d have run out of things to write about by now. I’ve looked at a few of the dieting forums and didn’t like what I saw. Women (mainly) starving themselves and posting logs of what they ate for the day. 1 coffee 1 lettuce leaf that sort of thing and beating themselves up when they hadn’t lost anything at a Weight Watchers or Slimming World weighin.

One of the searches I did had me just below WeightWatchers and MensHealth, now these are big hitters in anyones language. I’m just a bloke that was morbidly obese and has got his life back through healthy eating (diet) and exercise. Cycling was the means of doing the exercise.

Comments also keep me going. The weightloss diary is a popular page for those looking for that sort of thing, Google Analytics tells me that they are not interested in doing any exercise as that page has far fewer hits. They are completly missing the point of how the weightloss was acheived. The weightloss was acheived by the increase in exercise I was doing. Google even logs the time you’ve spent reading the page so I can see if you’ve read it or it wasn’t what you were looking for and you’ve left. Exercise is one of those unread pages.

Now 40% of the visitors to this site keep coming back so I must be doing something right.

Everyone have a Happy Christmas and New Year.
It’s been a fantastic 2006 for me, 2007 should be more of the same.

 

I’m looking to change the layout and look of the site. The page buttons across are too cluttered and dont look right with sub pages beneath them. The picture of the wheel is going to go too with seasonal photo in its place instead. I’m open to sugestions as to what wordpress theme would look better.

Update: there have been a few minor changes that have improved things , the only problem I have now is the WordPress editor is still set to the old page width.

It was great to see Roger Hammond win the Liverpool stage of the Tour of Britain.
The speed of these guys was absolutley amazing the digital camera had trouble focussing on them and is that slow to take a picture I was sure I missed it.

Well it had to happen, I’m down at the Eureka Cafe having Frank,s Breakfast because this is part of my diet/lifestyle.
I have this breakfast EVERY time I walk through the door and have written a previous post about it.

Next thing someone who should know better is tut tutting me for eating it and then asks what I am having for pudding.

Whether this was in jest or not it has touch a raw nerve here. I’m not altering the plan to fall in line with the CTC Cycling Diet Police. I’ve said before that I was consious of the fact that I was the only one eating a breakfast and it looks as if the thought was well founded.

It should be an interesting ride Sunday, I’d rather miss the ride than the breakfast.

[survey_fly]