News from myminnesotawoods.org

It’s been a while since I checked in on site usage stats. Overall there seems to be a steady trend upward in monthly pageview and visitor counts between our launch on April 1 and the end of October. Some figures to illustrate the trends:

The first chart (above) shows monthly pageview and visitor counts between April and October, 2007. The y-axis shows the total number of pageviews (blue) and unique visitors (red) for each month. For example, in October about 3400 different people viewed about 7800 different pages.

I interpret the trend as a big initial curiosity-based jump after the launch, then a drop and steady trend upward from month to month thereafter. (The server, and our site, were down for about 10 days in August, and we got no usage data for most of the month.)

Next, a typical one-month trend in pageviews and visitors (above). This period starts on October 9, the day the email update went out. There’s a spike after the email, then normal variation or perhaps a slight decline for the rest of the month. The last day on this chart is November 11, the day before the November email update goes out.

Finally, daily visitor counts between April 1 and October 31, 2007 (except for the server outage in August). There’s a monthly spike in visitor counts on the day that the email update goes out. After the spike, we pretty quickly return to normal variation in daily visitor counts.

Median daily pageview and visitor counts for the period October 12 - November 11 are 228 and 88, respectively. These numbers are 12-15% higher than the corresponding median values over the total 7-month span.

Good evaluation goes well beyond these numbers, but for the time being this is what we’ve got. We’re saving data as we go and hope to develop a more thorough understanding of how the site is being used over time.

For now, we’re pleased to see an apparent steady upward trend in usage.

There have been some surprises in content pageviews. To some degree pageview stats are skewed because some have been featured in email updates and others have not.

Overall, three months after launch, the site averages about 70 visits and 195 pageviews daily.

But: pageview rankings as of three months after launch (excluding homepage and discussion board, and not excluding hits by Eli and Philip):

1. Maps & airphotos: 520 pageviews
2. Directory of professionals: 399 views (dummy page–directory is still in development)
3. Wildlife / overview: 303
4. Small parcels / overview: 259
5. Small parcels / family: 255
6. About the site: 219 (replaced with this blog)
7. Minnesota forest history: 213
8. Wildlife / species: 198
8. Forest / thinning: 198
10: Wildlife / landscape considerations: 191

The main surprise to me is the popularity of the maps & airphotos page. Seeing this and working with the Minnesota Logger Education Program, we added significantly to the content of that page early in June and featured it in the June email update. This page was by far the most popular feature in that email.

No surprise about the high wildlife numbers.

Seeing these stats, we really need to improve the small parcels and forest history (and other) pages. There’s a lot to do.

We’ve now sent out two monthly email updates. They go out on the second Tuesday of the month: The first May 10, the second June 12. The email updates are designed to notify site users of new content, draw attention to timely content, and remind people that the site exists.

We didn’t know what to expect (or hope for) for the open or click-through rates. But, we’re pleased so far. Some stats:

May 10: The first update. Sent to 834 recipients. 54 bounces. Opened by 46% of recipients. Of those, 46% followed at least one link.

June 12: Sent to 922, with 16 bounces. Opened by 39%, clicked through by about 47% (as of two weeks after sending).

According to Constant Contact, the “industry-wide” open rate is below 10%. The high open and click rates may reflect curiosity more than anything else. We don’t expect these rates to remain so high.

Onward and upward (?).
-eli