| Issue #11-S | October 3rd, 2015 | Volume 1 |
Edition
Issue #11-S - Special Site Stats Edition
"Traffic Report"
October 3rd, 2015
Hello fellow Baconeers! I know the last few issues of Greased have been somewhat irregular, and because of this, the usual rundown of site traffic has been absent for the last few months. (July, August, and now September, if I'm not mistaken.) After last year's survey where nearly everyone expressed interest in receiving updates about our traffic, I'd like to stick to our word as best as I can. So, let's go ahead and get started, shall we?
I have to be honest: our traffic could definitely use a boost. We seem to have slipped into a lull that is nowhere near where we saw ourselves last year this time. Around the end of 2014 we were steadily on our way to a solid 10,000 visits per month. Back in January of 2015, we enjoyed just over 9,000 hits, of which over 8,500 were unique visitors. As of September, we have a long way to go to get there. The last time we looked at the numbers was back in June, so here's a quick graph of both total visits and unique visists from June through September.
As you can see, our total visits have been in steady decline since June. We actually did pretty good back in June with just over 7,000 hits, but you'll see that just last month we didn't even clear the 5,000 mark. If there's any good news to take away from this, it looks like our percentage of unique visitors has dropped slightly, meaning that we are pulling in more repeat visitors than we have in the past. Hopefully this means we're building up something of a returning fanbase!
| JULY | AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOTAL | UNIQUE | TOTAL | UNIQUE | TOTAL | UNIQUE | |
| Hits | 6,011 | 5,227 | 5,530 | 4,476 | 4,549 | 3,839 |
| % Increase over Prev. Mon. | -16% | -12% | -8% | -14% | -18% | -14% |
| Average Per Day | 194 | 169 | 178 | 144 | 152 | 128 |
It isn't hard to see that the traffic has been dwindling. Some of this could probably be attributed to a lack of focus on recruitment lately. Recruitment entices lots of people to visit the site and check it out while they determine if Nerd Bacon is a place they want to be. Still, this is a far cry from the highs we were hitting last year, and we're going to need the help of all you guys and gals out there to put these numbers back up where they belong!
Next up is the Page Views stat, which more or less correlates with raw visits and visitors. Check it out.
Not much surprise here. We dropped from about 38,000 in June to 28,000 in July, a loss of nearly 27%. In August we managed to make up about half of that difference, pulling ourselves back up to 33,000, but in September, we sunk down another 8,000 page views for a loss of almost 25%.
I think this speaks volumes for the good that our 2-Year Anniversary celebration helped the site. Even if the majority of published articles were only sequels, you guys did an amazing job of cranking out review after review. There was a lot of new stuff to look at on the site during August and it paid off. I don't know exactly what else you folks might've done individually during August that you didn't do in September, but it's clear that August was the bright spot here and that we're going to have to work for these visits.
Now prepare for a morsel of good news - Pages Per Session!
Compared to the raw traffic data, this actually doesn't look so bad. If anything, it suggests that although the quantity of our visits may have gone down, the quality is somewhat increasing, or at the very least not decreasing.
| July | August | September | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. Pages per Session | 4.72 | 6.00 | 5.50 |
| % Increase Since Prev. Mon. | -13.11% | 26.12% | -7.64% |
The sharp decrease in July was more than made up for by August (again, a great month!) and even with the slight dip in September, five and a half pages per session is pretty respectable. The standard deviation (SD) for September was almost an even 1 (1.01) which means that about 66% of visitors checked out between 4.5 and 6.5 pages, and 95% saw between 3.5 and 7.5 pages. We've had average pages per session at around 5 to 6 plenty of times before, but rarely do we have such a small SD, indicating a much smaller spread of daily averages, which ultimately points to more visitor consistency. That is, overall, a good thing.
Next up we'll be looking at Session Duration. In the past I have repeatedly explained my lack of understanding of this statistic and how it is measured. For instance, I may have anywhere from 2 to 4 windows open to a Nerd Bacon address at any given time during the day. Over the course of a month, this would dramatically skew these session duration times. So obviously there is something at work here that I don't fully understand when it comes to measuring the length of a user's session. In short, I try to pay less attention to the times themselves and prefer to instead focus on the percentage increase/decrease from the past month.
This chart includes both the Average Session Duration plus the standard deviation (SD) for each month. I think the SD is important to include here because it gives us an idea of just how close to the average the data lies. For example, an average session duration of 3 minutes could be derived from 30 days of 3 minutes each...or it could come from 15 days of 1 minute and 15 days of 5 minutes. The SD can help us figure out how wide the spread is.
Looking at this chart, you'll see that June had a pretty high average session duration, somewhere around 3 minutes and 35 seconds. But we also see that the SD was fairly high; something along the lines of 1 minute and 25 seconds. July fell steeply in both regards. Our highest session duration shown is from August, though September wasn't too shabby. Looking at the exact numbers, the average session duration in September was 2 minutes 51 seconds and the SD was 55 seconds. So during September, about 66% of our visitors were on the site between 1 minute 56 seconds and 3 minutes 46 seconds. Again, I don't want to put too very much stock into these exact numbers, but it does reflect a small albeit somewhat regular trend of an overall rise in session duration and a drop in the SD (again, a rough indicator of consistency between the behavior of individual users).
Finally we'll be looking at the site's Bounce Rate. It's hard to know what changed here; for the first several months of our existence our Bounce Rate was almost nonexistent, yet now it "bounces" around all over the place. The Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of users that landed on one page of the site and then didn't interact any further with the site. Now this could be a little misleading; for instance, if someone sees one of our articles on Facebook, visits the site, reads the article, and then closes the window, this will contribute to the Bounce Rate despite the fact that our content "reached" someone. The reality is we only get an idea of what percentage only saw a single page of the site, but we don't necessarily know what they did while they were on that page.
In terms of percentage increase/decrease (remember, Bounce Rate is the one stat that we want to watch decrease from month to month), we saw an 18% drop from June to July, a whopping 31% drop from July to August, and appreciable decrease of 9% from August to September.
Now here is a stat that we actually want to see decrease! As you can see, June and July had some really disheartening Bounce Rates. Fortunately we saw a substantial drop in August (yet again, one of our better months as of late) and a bit more of a drop this past September. Here's a reasonably strong indicator that the quality of our visits has perhaps improved even if the sheer quantity has dropped. While the users contributing to the Bounce Rate may not be completely ignoring our content, it is a sure sign that they at least don't feel compelled to dig into it any further. Seeing less of that behavior is great.
Well, that about wraps up Nerd Bacon's traffic stats for the last 3 months. Obviously August was the most all-around impressive, and I can only assume it was due to the fervor with which most of you were working during our anniversary celebration. It'd be wonderful if we could see that kind of production all of the time! But realistically we know that you guys already have full lives on your plates and we're thankful for all that you do for The Bacon already. However, there are some ways you can continue to help us meet both our production and traffic goals, perhaps by the end of the year if the team works hard enough! I know I've said this before, but it deserves repeating every so often: more traffic = more ad clicks = more money = your ticket to getting paid! As the year winds down, keep some of the following suggestions in mind when it comes to upping our productivity and visibility. We'd also be glad to hear any suggestions that any of you might have as well!
Increased Social Media Diversity
Currently we've got ZB and Steroid Gamer managing our presence on Facebook and Twitter respectively, and they're doing a great job. However, the more warm bodies proliferating content on our behalf, the better! Managing Nerd Bacon on social media sites is about more than just pumping out links, though. It's about making connections, gaining followers, and tapping into online fan communities. If you think you could augment what our existing members on Facebook and/or Twitter are doing, let us know! There are also several other sites out there to consider as well. We could be reaching followers on platforms like Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and more! We could really use the help, so if you'd like to manage our presence on one of these fronts, let us know!
Consider Stepping Up as a Reporter
I know we've been positively begging for another reporter or two to step up to the plate in recent issues of Greased, and there's a reason for that: news generates hits! Not all of these hits will be quality, but one piece of well-timed news can generates literally hundreds of hits as we've seen before. If even a small fraction of these click on some ads or check out some more of our content it can make a significant difference. The Watchman does a great job of keeping us informed, but there is far too much gaming news out there for one man (or woman) to cover. We would be thrilled if 1 or 2 dedicated Baconeers would strap on the mantle of reporter and help to keep us up-to-date! There is huge stuff out there that is flying right past us, ready for the taking.
Sell Our Adspace
It's a little bit indirect, but you'd be doing us a great service if you sold adspace on our behalf...and you'd be making yourself a comission to boot! The concept is simple: use your official NB email address to go out there and sell our site's adspace for us. Like-minded sites would be best, but you can get out there and appeal to anyone you want: small developers, sites that sell specialty/custom gaming equipment, well-maintained blogs, YouTube and/or Twitch channels, and any other ideas you may have. The sky's the limit here; we only draw the line at content that might impinge upon our generally "PG-13" rating, specifically pornography, warez, and grey-area drug and chemical suppliers. We also will not compromise our integrity by speaking highly of sponsors simply because of their sponsorship. Otherwise though, it's a big world out there, and with a little bit of work, it shouldn't be too hard to put a little extra money in our pocket and yours. How does this help traffic? Well, the easiest answer is that it allows us to pay for those hits directly and buy our exposure. Helping us earn money and enough of it will open lots and lots of doors for Nerd Bacon, so if you've got any salesmen genes in you, put 'em to good use! Rest assured we will not pocket your money for personal gain. You'd be doing us a huge favor, so let us know if you're interested so that we can talk about rates, durations, etc. that you'll be able to discuss with the client on our behalf.
Donate!
For the record, we will never insist that you hand over your hard earned dollars to The Bacon, but for those of you who might have a little bit extra lying around, donating to our cause never hurts! If you're interested, talk to us about a variety of options. You'll also earn yourself this lovely Coin Badge as a financial contributor to NB!
Get Advance Copies of Games
We may not have enough clout to get a first look at what Nintendo or Bungie or Activision is putting out, but hey, we've all got to start somewhere. Several of our members have been successful in gaining early access to games from smaller developers. These kinds of relationships are what will help up put us on the edge of what's new and eventually move us higher up the food chain. And it all starts with an email. Those of you who have official NB email addresses (which is quite a few of you nowadays!) are perfectly welcome to go knocking on the door of whatever publisher/developer you wish on our behalf. You're free to keep whatever material gains you reap in this manner, just so long as the site gets something out of it as well! Just be sure to follow any rules laid out by the publisher/developer, let us know what those rules are, and be ready to pump out an article on the game as soon as possible or allowed. Having advance access to games isn't so much about the games themselves but rather the timing of the review. All we ask is that you're timely about your article(s) should you be so lucky. Feel free to go out at any point and hunt down advance/promo copies of games - just let us know when you're successful! Don't get discouraged. It can take several tries. Don't be shy about trying the same company more than once. It's always best to search for some kind of marketting or promotional division if you're going after a big fish, but don't be scared to reach out to a few different email addresses if you're not sure which is correct. This is a great way to get a little something for yourself and to help out The Bacon at the same time!
Recruit Recruit Recruit
We've maintained some seriously low levels of new membership throughout the past few month. We know as well as anyone that recruiting is tedious and thankless process, but it really helps push the site forward and injects The Bacon with some much-needed enthusiasm from time to time. New members also bring new ideas, fresh perspectives, and more skills to the table. Who knows, the next piece of Fresh Meat may have all the answers to fix our mobile incompatibility! As proud as we are of this solid and relatively stable team that we've built up, we really do need that fresh current of users running in to keep us on our toes and spread the word themselves. Whether or not you blanket an entire community for new recruits or just get a couple of close friends involved, any and all help is appreciated. Don't forget to do things like send out Facebook messages or Tweets with the application URL to get people interested. If you want to really help on a large scale, contact us with a pre-written form letter that you can spruce up to your liking and distribute it wherever it may be welcome: online communities you may be a member of, your extended friends of friends on social networks, other sites you may run, or even some good ol' fashioned legwork on Craigslist. We really need your help in this regard - as many of you as possible - and the more of you that are out there recruiting, the better chance we have at scoring yet another valuable member. More active members ultimately increases our production and gives everyone room to crank out articles at a more leisurely pace. Don't forget that if someone enters your name or alias in the "Referred By" field of the Contributor Application you'll earn yourself a Metal Box Badge!
Write Up an Interesting or Useful DIY Project
Believe it or not, some of our most successful individual articles have been some of those in the Do It Yourself (DIY) section of the site. Why? There's a number of great reasons. First of all, these articles aren't as time-dependent as others. News articles, while of high value initially, depreciate very quickly. An individual review may sit and sit forever until that one right person stumbles across the site. But DIY articles can be put to use immediately by anyone interested. Have a Wii? Turn it into a QuadForce emulator! Need Dreamcast games? Burn them! Want to learn more about emulation? Start here! These articles have an immediate and potential universal appeal. Second, DIY articles are chock full of 100% unique content that may not be found anywhere else on the web. Personally, when I've tackled DIY projects, I've often had to source information from several different sites, but beyond that, I'm also able to interject my own personal experiences into the article: what worked, what didn't, what little idiosyncracies did I discover along the way. Third, there's a wide enough range of topics to appeal to gamers of almost any persuasion or skill level. DIY projects can encompass anything from advanced soldering projects to simple software manipulations. And finally, DIY articles provide an excellent platform to get the reader engaged and interested in the site. It gives the writer a great chance to interact with the reader and entices the reader to come back to Nerd Bacon the next time they get the itch for experimentation.
It may be a surprise, but 2 of our most consistently viewed pages are Top 10 Emulators (and man, this article isn't even that good - anyone want to take a shot at a rewrite?) and How to Play QuadForce Games on the Wii. The first isn't strictly a DIY piece, but it does tackle emulation, which would typically be discussed under the DIY banner. Other top pages may surprise you - there is definitely a slant towards hardware reviews once newer reviews are taken out of the equation. NerdBerry's review of the Konami Justifier (light gun) and our departed PC guru's (Malefico) assessment of the Biosar TA 970 Motherboard. The trend towards DIY articles points towards a trend in specialty articles as a whole. If there's something out there video game related that you can completely nerd-out on, do it! And if you're having trouble figuring out how, please let us know!
Alright, so these recent traffic trends may not have made for the best news ever, but personally, I'm thoroughly pleased that even with the dip it number of visits it appears that the visits we are getting may be of more substance. But hey, we were knocking on 10,000's door just a few short months ago, and I know we get back up there again! We just need your help to get there - everyone's help! Increased activity on social media, putting NB on more social networks, constantly recruitment, a stronger news cycle, diverse articles, and cold hard cash are just a few of the ways we can start herding even more people through the doors of Nerd Bacon! If you want to help out and/or you have any other suggestions about getting visitors to the site, please discuss it wih us further!
| NerdBerry NerdBerry@NerdBacon.com |
The Cubist TheCubist@NerdBacon.com |
| Doc Croc DocCroc@NerdBacon.com |
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| Issue #11-S | October 3rd, 2015 | Volume 1 |