Even though 2007 is the first year for which I have complete statistics, I still think a comparison between last year and 2006 might be of interest. I assembled an article on the statistics for 2006, in which did not do much apart from showing graphs and numbers. Here is a graph describing the overall situation:
All three figures are important for each month. Page loads is nice, because that hopefully means that people stay within my site to browse other things I have written. Unique visitors is what I care most about, since that figure shows how much traffic the site receives (a visitor is considered unique if s/he has not visited the page within the last hour). Returning visitors is an interesting ratio compared to unique visitors, because it shows how many people return to the site later on. Here is a quick comparison of monthly averages:
|
2006 |
2007 |
Change |
| Page loads: |
994 |
1806 |
+82% |
| Unique visitors: |
479 |
952 |
+99% |
| Returning visitors: |
184 |
318 |
+73% |
Two things have happened since last year. Firstly, there is a gradual, steady increase. This is to be expected, since it takes time for information and links to propagate through the net. Also, as the number of articles on Snigel.nu increases, so do the odds of people finding the page in various ways.
Secondly, there is a huge increase in visitors during the last quarter of last year. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this is so and here are my conclusions:
Firstly, I started writing exclusively in English this summer, which at first glance might seem like the main reason for the increase. It might be, but not in the most evident way. On average, around 20 % of the visitors are from abroad, which is not by far enough to explain the huge boost of traffic. However, I have noticed an extreme rise in the number of hits from Swedish Google, most notably from people searching in English. This probably means that I am very competitive indeed among Swedish sites writing in English.
Secondly, I have published a couple of articles which have yielded many visitors as well. My role-playing system Nyx generates a steady flow of traffic, even though it at present only exists in Swedish (a translation is planned). I have also published an article entitled A guide to Carcassonne strategy: The basics which explains whatever remains of the spike during the last quarter. Also, I think there is a snowball effect as the number of articles in English inexorably increases.
Visitors constitute a nice bonus for me, but they are not overly important for my writing in any way. I want my site to be navigable and easily understood, but I rarely or never take visitors into account when choosing what to write. Snigel.nu is still my site and will remain so, it is fortunate that others like what I publish, but not essential. Nevertheless, I look forward to the next annual report to see what has happened by then.
