Trends & Visitors

Last May I wrote a post entitled "Faraway Places" in which I spoke about the detailed view of visitors and their preferences thanks to SiteMeter's real-time stats.

It's interesting to observe how things have changed in those eight months.  A few highlights:

Then: about 52-53% of visitors were from Italy, 32-33% from the USA.

Now: 44% from US, 35% from Italy.  An ever-larger percentage of visitors is coming from "other" countries, notably Canada, Scandinavia (especially Sweden), Germany, France, Belgium and...Slovenia??  Yes, Slovenia.  Canada just surpassed the UK to go to #3.  Some days the "other countries" outnumber Italy and almost match the US.  There seems to be a broad desire for knowledge about Italy's wines...and New York restaurants.

Overall site traffic and page views are 3-4 times greater than in May, hurray.

Then: US visitors seemed to come from all over.  I recognized some regulars, of course, but otherwise, no geographical focus.

Now: The overwhelming majority of US visitors comes from the New York City area.  Something tells me that's a good thing.  They search both for wine and restaurant info.  I think it's good to have a local base.  Shows I'm relevant, so to speak.

Then:  Over 50% of visitors had Italian as the language on their computer.  English was in the low 40s.   Obviously, there wasn't much readership in those "other" countries, unless of course they were Britain and Canada.

Now:  English 54%, Italian 36%.  German, French and Spanish follow.  Slovenian and Japanese are in the top 10.

Reason: I made a conscious decision to emphasize English-language postings.  After all, I thought, if my task is to tell the wide world about Italian wine, I had better stop preaching to the converted and start talking to the wide world in today's lingua franca.  Like it or not, mes amis, that would be English. Personally, I'm grateful that this tricky tricky language is my mother tongue.

Then: Googles of many lands were the source of most visitors. 

Now: This hasn't changed.  In fact, Google got stronger after I started running Ads by Google.  Hmmmm.

Then: I noticed that there is still an Italian diaspora.  People regularly visited from a couple of countries.

Now: They're present more than ever, people from Sweden, Greece, Turkey, France and the Far East with Italian on their computers.  Buon giorno, amici, e grazie.

Then: I was pretty content with the blog's layout and "style."

Now: I realize it's pretty ugly and clunky.  And it doesn't allow me to slug in ads easily.  That will be changing in the next month or so.  Stay tuned. (Stefano Frega, are you getting this?)

Comments

[Lizzy]

Your success as wine blogger grows, mr. Ambassador!
I'm very happy for you.

congrats from Valpolicella!
L.

[Stefano Frega]

Yessss!
Stefano :-)))

[alex]

Terry,
interesting analisys of the figures.
At the end, what counts is that you have more than tripled the readership in 8 months!!!
Quality always pays :-))
See you soon in Verona
alex

[Terry Hughes]

That is nice, Alex, but what matters more is having a whole bunch of people who comment all the time.

It sounds a little absurd, but when I get up in the morning I eagerly look to see if anyone has left a comment overnight.

So you've already made my day, amico mio.