The post you are reading now is post # 101.  For the 100 published post there are another 100 that never did get published.  Since February of 2007 when I began tracking visitors I have had 12,400 different visitors.  737 of those visitors came to read about Free Starbucks Coffee on election day.

The top 10 Things or Keywords people came to my site looking for where:

1. Chris Estes
2. Free on Election Day
3. Free Starbucks on Election Day
4. GM Youtube
5. free Starbucks election day
6. fire tony franklin
7. tony franklin fired
8. estes.com
9. christopher estes
10. ken persel

My top 10 post where (by Traffic content):

1. Metrolink Bans Text Messages – with 2,587 page views
2. Free Starbucks Coffee on Election Day – with 1,548 page views
3. Friendships or Contacts? – Social Media – with 908 page views
4. Fire Tony Franklin – Auburn Offensive Coordinator – with 613 page views
5. Sarah Palin’s Email Cracked – with 613 page views

*Note:  I had some other mildly successful posting that did not get listed here.

The number one page that brought visitors directly to my blog was the Metrolink Bans Text Messages post being referred to by StumbledUpon.

The top three countries my blog post were referred from where:

1. USA
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom

The top 5 Cities my blog was viewed from was:

1. New York
2. Washington DC
3. Arlington
4. Chicago
5. Birmingham

Off all of my visitors:

81% use a Windows Based Computer and 2 visitors used the Nintendo Wii to view my site.  (who would have guessed any hits from the Wii?)  53% look at my site with Mozilla Firefox. 5,413 visitors used cable internet while only 225 used dial up.  People still have dial up?

It is always interesting to see the statistics about who comes to read my rantings.  I wonder if people really enjoy my post.  I have had 100 comments on all of my post combined.  Though I would like my post to be thought provoking they seldom spark back and forth banter.

Regardless of the reaction I love to write the  blog post.  Stay tuned I hope to have another hundred.

Privacy Policy of Chris-Estes.com

Your privacy is critically important to me. As Chris Estes I have a few fundamental principles:

• I don’t ask you for personal information unless I truly need it. (I can’t stand services that ask you for things like your gender or income level for no apparent reason.)
• I don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop products, or protect our rights.
• I don’t store personal information on my servers unless required for the on-going operation of one of my services.

You can read the rest on the privacy policy page if you are gluten for punishment.

WordPress touts that it is the first open source Blogging application for iPhone or iPod Touch.  It can work with either WordPress.com accounts or self-hosted WordPress blogs.  As of September 16th, WordPress says that over 100,000 users had downloaded the application.

Since development of the application is primarily done by the community input is welcomed by anyone.  For more information.

[sniplet WordPress-Iphone-Video]

From the about page of Wordcamp Birmingham

So what is WordCamp Birmingham?

WordCamp Birmingham is a conference for WordPress users and developers being held in Birmingham, Alabama on September 27 & 28, 2008. It is one of several WordCamps that have been held or being planned around the world.

The folks from Automattic provide this excellent explanation of what the conferences are all about on their WordCamp Central site.

The advertisements are going to be based on content relevant ads that bring in revenue per click and others one I select.  The ones I select will be target to things I think you are interested in.  In order for me to receive revenue it will require you to make a purchase so of course I am only going to put up advertisements you would be interested in.  The banner and content ads are the only type of advertising I plan to us.

There is the thought of sponsored post.  But that would discount the type of post I plan to make.  Speaking of post.  I plan to talk more about politics and a little less this and that.  So for the next few months my theme is going to be Chris Estes on Politics.  I might sneak in a random post or two about just random interesting things.  So get ready and prepare as I plan to bring you coverage of the the National and local races that affect everyone but more specifically the things in my area that matter.  I am going to try and bring fair and balanced information.

Bloggers postings and musings are becoming more and more powerful and I would like for my voice to be heard and addressed.  I have to yet decided on a candidate for president.  Even though I am trending towards one based on the conventions. Within the next few days you are going to witness a change in direction of my blogs change.  As the major changes are in place I will make announcements on how you can utilize the change for you.

My feed url will be changing from a Feedburner URL to a Google Feedburner URL that will need to be updated in your feed aggregator.

Stay Stuned for future updates.

Something I couldn’t come up with is a name for the website. For some reason having my name in the domain and title was all I could come up with. I know the name and title will change so I just decided to let it roll. I don’t have any current plans to do any type of marketing past just standard SEO. I am doing this for freelance and testing purposes.

My focus is going to be on small business or small organizations. I would be more than happy to help a large business but I am afraid that will take away to much time from my day job. That is my largest fear launching any type of free lance initiative as I don’t want to interfere with my regular day job.

Take a look at the new site and tell me what you think. www.seochris.com

The main point of this posting is to wish you a Merry Christmas and announce the launch of my mothers website. A couple weeks back I was trying to come up with a gift for my mom. How do you give someone a gift when they have everything they need, you make them something! I don’t have a wood shop and I am not the most crafty person so I built her a website.

Because my mom isn’t the most tech savoy person and I figure she didn’t really want to learn how to do advanced coding I setup a WordPress blog for the ease of use content management. I added a few plugins to make it search engine friendly and easier to use. I found a template that is plain and basic and easy to use. I don’t think she will become a full-time blogger… Even thought she now has a professional blog platform to express her opinion if she wants or even setup a place for students or fellow teachers to use as a resource. Blogs are not new but the platform they use has turned into a great place for novice website administrators to look professional too. Plus it is a great relevant link to my website too.

I will report back to you on her reaction. If it is a good one or if she seems remotely interested you too can setup something up for someone else. A gift of a only a few hours and very low budget can be one of the most cutting edge and thoughtful gifts of the holiday season. Plus the cost is only a matter of time and a small budget. Most everything is free except the domain and hosting fees. If you catch the $6.99 domain sales at godaddy.com or others you can by a years worth of hosting for about $20 if you go with a very low end host. A few hours of work and you have a gift that keeps on giving for as long as they want.

I set this platform up but she can do what she likes with it. Enjoy the website and feel free to contact us to share your input. See my Merry Christmas Welcome my mom to the world wide web.

1. It is easier to manage, not that I spend a lot of time on it.
2. It is a great stable platform.
3. I don’t have to code every new page.
4. It is free!!!

So what is it? I choose WordPress. Why word press? I tried several different systems – Joomla, Mambo, and a couple other open source applications. After playing around and having troubling getting a clean install onto my shared hosting service I decided that the most stable system for me was WordPress.

Why a blog content managment system? Because these days I do a lot of blog reading and I don’t really have that many photos to share so why not start my own personal blog. Most of the blogs I read have are for profit by using some type of pay banner ad system or Google Paid Results. Though I think these ideas are great I think it takes away from the overall beauty of my new website. Right now it is clean, bright, and shinny. Why would I want to mess that up? So bask in the glow that is on your screen free of flashing banner ads and sponsored results. One day people may be willing to pay me for ads but until that day enjoy my website without ads.

As far as content or usability goes if you see something that needs to be added or subtracted let me know. Use the contact link at either the right or the top to shoot me a message.