Even though I haven’t updated this website for a long time it’s still nice to see that people are finding the articles I’ve written over the years useful and that’s got me thinking that perhaps I should jump back in the saddle and add more helpful content.
I’ve made a few changes already to the housekeeping of gardengeek.net and implemented a new theme, improved the site speed, and started working my way through the archive content to ensure links are correct, images display properly, and that it all functions well. That’s going to take a little time, but I’ve started with my more popular pages.
People still like the website
I last wrote a blog for this site on 11 May 2020, so that’s fully a year back and in that time the most viewed pages have been:
- Pallet Wheelie Bin Shelter – 16,433 views
- Pizza Oven Build Part 3 – 12,922 views
- Pizza Oven Build Part 9 – 6,746 views
- Repairing a Rusty Lawnmower – 4,677 views
- Triple Yolked Eggs – 3,736 views
In that same period there were over 90,000 page views from 45,000 unique visitors, all on a website that was neglected, broken in places, and took a long time to load. I wasn’t that proud of the website, and yet people still visit.
Why now?
As with many people, over the past year I’ve spent far too long working in front of a computer screen and then my escape in the evenings has been staring at an even bigger television screen on my wall.
To be honest I’ve not been mentally in the best place, but I finally feel like doing something a little more productive in my spare time. That’s not to say I’ve not been productive, I ran my first marathon in March 2021, and training to run that 26.2 miles took a lot of commitment.
But now that is out of the way and covid restrictions are easing in the UK I have more time to get back to being a garden geek. I’m still running but the literal marathon effort definitely took it out of me and gave me a few niggles that took a while to get over.
The other thing is that I want somewhere to be able to practice my writing, get to express myself around topics that aren’t work or running related, and have a website that I’m proud of and can show off.
It might also give me the opportunity to do more with my other hobby of photography as the outdoors is certainly a lot more photographic. In April I was able to stay overnight at the Big Cat Sanctuary and got a lot of photos too but my favourite is definitely this pair of affectionate panthers.
What next?
I still need to do some more work on the site, but will aim to get new content on at a more regular basis than once a year!
The pizza oven is still in action 5 years after the build and people are still asking about it, so I think I’ve got a lot more to add on that topic, as well as a lot more pizza to eat.
I’m also going to be doing a lot more work in the garden too and know that some of that will be of interest especially now that people have realised how important their garden are to their personal wellbeing.
Aims for the site?
Now that I’m taking more of an interest in the site again it would be good to work towards increasing visitors, not just to the older content, but to new content too. It’s great to get emails from people telling me they’ve built their own pizza oven using my design, so hopefully I can keep being helpful and people can find even more useful content here.
Thanks for reading and hopefully it won’t be so long next time.