I’ve said elsewhere that one of the reasons I am doing this blog is to experiment with the efficacy and sustainability of serving news and views to a niche audience online – the niche audience in this case being journalists, media workers and those who are interested in them. Meta-journalism, if you like.
Well, its been just under a month since the first post on this blog, and you can read my Google Analytics report here.
Given that this is a start-up publication, I think I’m doing okay.
Traffic has slowed over the holiday period, but is by not miserable. Some people never rest! (although you can see the hollow spots on the weekends).
The peaks in traffic through December are notable, coinciding with NEWS – about Sue Howard’s departure from the ABC, and Peter Fray’s succession at Fairfax. Even the posts in which I said that Peter Fray was saying nothing got a lot of traffic. (Thanks Peter. Imagine what we could do if you actually said something!)
Google Analytics also tells me a bit about where the traffic is coming from. My biggest single source is, as you would expect, the Crikey.com.au site which drove almost 65 per cent of the traffic. Next comes Google searches, with search terms like”,mark scott christmas message” “sue howard”, “peter fray”, “alan oakley” and “bruce guthrie” driving significant amounts of traffic.
I am glad to say that over ten per cent of my traffic comes direct to me – meaning that people must deliberately bookmark or visit the site.This seems to be growing fast, which is pleasing.
Mentions on Larvatus Prodeo and my Twitter feeds (user name MargaretSimons) each drove about two per cent of traffic.
But these monthly figures don’t tell the whole story, because the pattern was changing quite fast as people got to know about the site, and there was a lot of variation depending on what news I had on the day.
There were days when visitors from inside the ABC made up to 80 per cent of my traffic. Likewise visitors from inside News Limited and Fairfax were in the majority on certain days. (Just to reassure you all – Google tells me the location of the network you are using – not the identity of your computer!)
And the peaks in traffic tell their own story. Breaking news, albeit news that is of interest only to certain journalists, drove my traffic figures above 1000 visits. On one day, almost all of these were from inside the ABC!
Let me know if this is boring, but if there is some interest, I’ll keep you tabbed.
9 Comments
Not boring at all. Really enjoying the blog and check in most days to see what’s happening in the wonderful world of media. Just started reading ‘The Content Makers’ book due to this blog. I blog at http://www.mediamook.com and get approx 100 hits per day, on average. Some of the feedback received is interesting though. It’s amazing how many people Google themselves. Happy New Year.
Hi Margaret,
We started within days of each other, and the experience has been very similar for me with mumbrella.
One thing I’ve noticed (which is obvious once one says it), is that the posts that are most visited and most linked to are the oncs where you break or take on a story, offer new info or simply have a strong point fo view.
I tend to find where I simply link to another interesting piece, the links and traffic (quite rightly) go there. It may take longer, but I suspect one of the traffic lessons is that the more analysis and insight one offers on the topic, the better the traffic.
Cheers,
Tim
Going great I would say well done!
Your stats don’t appear to include subscribers to your RSS feed, and thus probably don’t include people like me. I imagine your readership would be more likely to use a feedreader. You (or the Crikey tech-heads) might want to investigate Feedburner or a similar service, which can provide stats on your feed readership — it’s very simple to integrate with WordPress.
It’s been an awesome month. Congrats!
This is a fantastic resource. Please keep it up.
I agree with Lyn. You’re doing a great job. I am reading and enjoying your book.
Enjoy checking into your site, Meg and interested in your Twitter flutter. You are way ahead of the hundreds of Monash students I quizzed this week about Twitter use. Most don’t know about it, or prefer Facebook. Perhaps it is just the old journos and academics who think we should be up to date with new technology that is actually driving Twitter!
Cheers
Louise
Very interesting, Margaret. Pop in here from time to time. Any chance of an update for the month of January and February? Would be fascinating to see what happened around THAT Hoax incident etc.
As for the the traffic from the MSM, what about where you roam? Do you ever check out Oz’s Mark Day’s blog? Matthew Ricketson at the Age (but he’s leaving unfortunately; maybe he has already)?
BTW I read Content Makers last year, and quoted from it for several uni assignments.