Last year (2008), I made a list of the top ten most visited posts on my blog. It was interesting to go back and see what stuff garnered the most interest over the year; Wordpress stats makes the process pretty easy, so I am doing it again.

Here is the Top Ten list for 2009:

Two years in a row, the bean soup recipe has made the Top Ten list. I think I may go make a batch

2010 Military Pay Chart
2011 Military Pay Chart

The articles in my blog generate a large number of emails inquiring about the Navy. Each person has specific questions and I take great pride in responding to each and every one. Granted some answers are not always what you may want to hear but rest assured I will work at providing a researched answer – so, keep those questions coming!

About 65,000 people visited this blog in 2008 (thank you BTW!) here are the Top 10 most viewed articles;
CPO Initiation – Transition, a Decade Later – My very basic overview of some of the differences.
Mapping Out Americas Racism – My perception of peoples view of race in different parts of the country.
MEDIC! – Walt Disney World Security.
Navy Bean Soup Recipe – One of my inputs to the culinary world.
Military Retired Pay Cola Increase for 2009 – Title says it all – traffic came hot and heavy for this post that really doesn’t say much – I’ll do better next year!
What to Bring to Navy Boot Camp – Title says it all.
Basic Requirements for Navy Enlistment – Basic enlistment requirements for the Navy, the page puts it into basic terms and also provides links to more resources and advice.
MEPS Drug and Alcohol Testing (DAT) Program – Amazing how many people interested in the content of this page…
Navy Student Loan Repayment – I get a number of emails concerning this topic, I may need to do a follow up post which answers some of the questions I have received, keeping everyone anonymous of course.
One With the Earth – One of my enlightening experiences with my Sailors of the Navajo Nation.

2008 was really the first year I wrote articles in earnest. My wife and I will be doing more traveling in 2009 and hope to bring you stories which may inspire you to take a trip yourself and of course I will continue to regale you with stories from my Navy years which may inspire you to join Hey, you never know!

2010 Military Pay Chart
2011 Military Pay Chart

So, the first change – lite grey background with black letters. I am open to suggestions! Help me, Help Me!

2010 Military Pay Chart
2011 Military Pay Chart

Links in your comments will become follow after you have participated in discussions on the blog – currently set to three. I will of course remain vigilant by checking the links destination before comments are approved.

Thank you for reading and participating in discussions!

Oh, btw, subscribe to my blog and follow me on Twitter and Mixx!

2010 Military Pay Chart
2011 Military Pay Chart

NavyCS-10 SEO theme ensures your content is prominent in the code and makes best use of title and header tags.Tested up to WP VERSION 2.0 – 2.3.1 with NO KNOWN PROBLEMS (enjoy!)

Required Plug-in

One plug-in which is required for my theme is Title Tag Plug-in by Netconcepts. This plugin is already added to the NavyCS SEO Download. Once you upload it to your own site all you have to do is activate it!

Bookmarking

I added and recommend the following plugins to my download;
1. Slashdigglicious for easy bookmarking, I took the liberty to add Yahoo, Propeller and Sphinn buttons to the original plugin.
2. Google Sitemap generator
3. Feedburner Feedsmith
4. WP23-Related Posts

Support

If you have any questions about installation or find a bug, error or just want to comment post it!

Also feel free to bookmark this page using your choice of the handy bookmarking buttons below

2010 Military Pay Chart
2011 Military Pay Chart

$sphinn = '<a href="http://www.sphinn.com/submit?url='
. urldecode($link)
. '&title='
. urldecode($title)
. '" title="Sphinn Me!">'
. '<img src="http://www.navycs.com/images/sphinn.gif"'
. ' width="16" height="16" alt="[Sphinn]" />'
. '</a>';

In the same file you would then add $sphinn, to the bottom of the array – again, right after Stumbleupon.

If you don’t have Slashdigglicious you can download it here

I have no problem hosting the image but you can always download it and host it yourself.

Additional Code for Propeller, Bloglines and My Yahoo

Same rules apply as above, you must add each to the array!

$propeller = '<a href="http://www.propeller.com/submit/?U='
. "$link&T=$title"
. '" rel="nofollow"'
. ' title="Propeller">'
. '<img src="http://www.navycs.com/images/prop.gif"'
. ' width="16" height="16" alt="[Propeller]" />'
. '</a>';

$bloglines = '<a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/'
. urldecode($link)
. '" rel="nofollow"'
. ' title="Add to Bloglines">'
. '<img src="http://www.navycs.com/images/bloglines.png"'
. ' width="16" height="16" alt="[Bloglines]" />'
. '</a>';

$yahoo = '<a href="http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u='
. urldecode($link)
. '&='
. "$title"
. '" rel="nofollow"'
. ' title="My Yahoo!">'
. '<img src="http://www.navycs.com/images/yahoomyweb.png"'
. ' width="16" height="16" alt="[Yahoo]" />'
. '</a>';

Twitter

$twitter = '<a href="http://twitthis.com/twit?'
. "url=$link"
. '" rel="nofollow"'
. ' title="Twit This">'
. '<img src="http://www.navycs.com/images/twitter.png"'
. ' width="16" height="16" alt="[Twitter]" />'
. '</a>';

Of course feel free to test any of the buttons below The RSS Feed button is a site feed, not a comment feed… I may want to clarify that somewhere *Thinks*

2010 Military Pay Chart
2011 Military Pay Chart