Friday, November 20, 2009

Hoboken Journal Stats


I figured this would be a good checkpoint to assess where my site is in terms of traffic and let the readers know where we are at. Projecting out to the end of November my site is averaging about 9,600 visits and about 20,000 page views per month. Certainly modest in size but also the moniker "hardly read" doesn't apply anymore either.

More importantly, over the last three weeks comments have averaged about 150 per week. On my best day of over 100 comments that  would project out to 52,000 comments per year which is on par with another well trafficked blog that has not been much of a news site lately.

Considering my status as a part time and politically oriented blog (i.e.niche) those numbers are not too bad. However, there is always room for improvement.

Here are some ideas that I would like to eventually get to do to improve this site:

1) Go to WordPress for publishing. It is simply more robust than Blogger.
2) Go to three columns. One for main news and two columns for useful links and RSS feeds from other sites.
3) Go to tabbed columns. In addition to the main news there could be some with other topics.
4) Improved Commenting Signup Process. That would help drive traffic.
5) Most Recent Posts. Find or develop a widget to display those in a better way than the current archival method.
6) Most Recent Comments. I have that now but need a better widget.
7) Improved design elements. I want to stay with a similar green theme but make the site look flashier.
8) Add a Hoboken Journal logo. Ideas welcome on a volunteer basis.
9) More robust analytics. More for me but will allow me to better see traffic trends.
10) Better linkage to other social media.

Those are the aggregation of the possible improvements I have heard so far. Please email me at kurt.gardiner@gmail.com for any other constructive comments or comment below this thread. ◦
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