Over the past few months, I’ve been diving deep into updating and improving both of my websites: peterwhyte.com (my personal blog) and peter-whyte.com (my SQL DBA blog). It’s been a rewarding project, and I’m excited to share some of the major updates and what you can expect going forward.
Here’s an update on the work I’ve been doing across my two blogs:
Key Updates
✅ Theme Overhaul and Customization
I’ve completely replaced the theme on both sites and customised every aspect of what you see. Both sites now have a fresh, updated look that reflects my personal style and my professional focus. It’s been a major overhaul, and I’m really happy with how they’ve turned out so far.
✅ Enhanced Homepage and CV For peterwhyte.com
I’ve significantly improved the design of the homepage and my CV page, making them more user-friendly and visually appealing. Additionally, I’ve created a custom homepage for the SQL DBA blog, so visitors can get more of an idea of the technical content and resources available on the site.
✅ Personal Photo Area
One of my favorite new areas is the Personal Photo Area on this site. This section is a template I created for organizing my photos the way I want, and while it’s a lot of work to populate each area, I’m determined to make it an enjoyable, ongoing project. It’s a winter task to fill it up with high-quality images, but once complete, it will be an excellent addition to the site.
✅ Reviving the SQL DBA Blog on peter-whyte.com
I’ve been busy writing new posts while also going through my older content on my SQL DBA Blog. There’s more than 150 posts dating back to 2018. The blog had been static for a while like this one was, but I’m working to revive it, make it a great place for a fellow Database Admin to visit. The blog used to see some good traffic:
You can see how it’s declined here. Things went from 10-20k unique visitors per month to under 10 impressions per day. It’s a long way from where it used to be, but I’m committed to reviving the blog, providing fresh content, and restoring its visibility.
This here for another good checkpoint to reflect back on, is my Google Search Traffic for the last 28 days between November and December 2024:
I think it’s crazy how low this traffic is considering how much good content is available to users on there. With that said though, I do have so many issues that is causing this. To resolve it, I might need to wait a few months. A few months of consistency that is.
✅ Improving Site Health
I’ve been focusing heavily on improving the overall health of both websites. This includes fixing issues identified by Ahrefs, such as broken links and 401 errors, as well as optimizing page load speeds. I’m aiming to achieve health scores of 99/100% on both sites. Additionally, I’m ensuring that both sites are following SEO best practices using Yoast to optimize the meta data and make them more discoverable.
Update of fixes on Ahrefs:
Going Forward into 2025
Looking ahead, the following tasks are top of mind:
1. Continue Building the Personal Blog:
I’ll keep working on expanding the content here which you’re reading now, making my place for both personal and professional updates.
2. Publish Fresh Content on the SQL DBA Blog:
My goal is to publish fresh, new content regularly on peter-whyte.com while also updating older posts to ensure everything is current. This is part of the effort to bring it back to life and get good traffic again.
3. Update the Personal Photo Area:
The photo section is a long-term project, and I plan to keep adding to it throughout the winter.
Those are the key updates and plans for now! I’m excited about the direction both sites are heading and look forward to seeing where they go from here. Stay tuned for more updates, and feel free to check out both blogs for fresh content and improvements along the way.
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