Milestones

My blog has passed a few milestones this March. I published my 500th post on Wednesday 7th March, passed 500,000 lifetime pageviews on Monday 12th March, and Tuesday 13th March was the second anniversary of my first post on my blog, though I'd obviously written quite a few header posts around the blogosphere before then.

Blog traffic has been increasing steadily in what is almost a perfect rising channel over the last two years, with the last retracement after I smashed my lower leg (top and bottom) at the end of May last year. Interestingly I'm now hitting channel resistance again, so I'll be watching for either a breakout or a retracement into channel support here, and taking care to avoid slippery surfaces.

I started writing header posts to indulge my liking for writing and charting mainly, and didn't really give any thought to whether that might ever become more than an enjoyable hobby but, with a real prospect of passing a million pageviews by the end of this year, I've been giving a little thought to where this blog is going in recent months, and while my thoughts there are still evolving, I have started to make some changes to the blog to put it on a more professional footing.

What I have done so far this year is to take the www.channelsandpatterns.com domain name and to experiment with advertising. After an initial unsuccessful attempt to build a working relationship with the software at Google Adwords, I have gone with a different advertising company using humans to interact with customers, and their decent quality financial ads should be starting to appear on my blog over the next few weeks. I've also set up an Amazon link for people to buy from Amazon via that link, and will be setting up an Amazon shopping site as and when I have time.

Obviously I've changed the format of the blog extensively over the couple of weeks, and that's gone pretty well, and is much more flexible than the old format I was using. I'll probably get a logo done too, though I like the modified title I did a few days ago, and might yet just adapt that into a logo and banner. I hope everyone likes the changes and the feedback has been almost all positive so far. I've also changed my twitter handle from shjack666 to shjackcharts tonight, as my wife suggested that many non-chartists might miss that 666 was the SPX low in March 2009.

Anyway, I just wanted to give an update on why I've been making changes to the blog, and what changes can be expected in the future. Everyone have a great weekend, and I'll leave you with a classic clip from Red Dwarf, a cult BBC comedy that is one of my favorites: