Now that we're into the new year of 2021, I decided to look back at some of the traffic stats for this blog for 2020. This is the average number of pageviews per month for the years 2018, 2019 & 2020...
Back in 2018, the blog used to get an average of 3,561 pageviews per month which is a reasonable amount for such a niche subject as amateur radio. In 2019, that had more than doubled to 8,475 pageviews per month.
As you can see from the chart above, I split 2020 up into two data points.
In April of 2020, I had one post on the blog about the first trans-Atlantic contact on 432 MHz between Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean. This story was picked up by the Hackaday website which reported on it and linked back to my blog. The result was a huge jump in traffic with that particular post getting over 54,000 pageviews in just a few days!
With the traffic from April 2020 included, the site got an average of 17,589 pageviews per month. If April 2020 is removed then the average for the other 11-months of 2020 was 12,669 pageviews per month which is a 50% increase on 2019.
Most Popular Posts... The most popular posts tend to be the ones where I report on unusual long distance contacts on the VHF bands. Quiet often, I stumble across news of these contacts on websites, forums, Facebook and Twitter and they might be just a comment left somewhere or just a bit of simple text. Sometimes, they hardly get noticed and can often go largely unreported.
I try to collect as much information as I can, generate maps and graphics and put the significance of the contact into context in a blog post. My posts are often picked up then by other amateur radio news outlets and a lot more people can find out about unusual VHF contacts.
My reason for generating these reports on these VHF reports is twofold. Firstly, I hope that to get other radio amateurs interested in trying to make long distance VHF contacts themselves. Secondly, I think it's important to have a record of significant VHF contacts with as much information as possible so that people in future can refer back to it.
The advantage of the blog format is that all of the info is laid out there. Sometimes with Facebook or Twitter or forums, it's a bit like writing something on a Yellow Post-it note i.e. fine for the very short term but very hard to find it again.
Most Popular Page... The most popular page on the blog in 2020 turned out to be the 40 MHz page with over 5,100 pageviews!
I started the 40 MHz page back in June 2018 around the time that Irish radio amateurs got access to large parts of the low VHF spectrum. At the time, there was very little information about any activity around 40 MHz and anything that was there was scattered across the web.
I had considered putting up a blog or website just to promote 40 MHz activity but I likened this to building a shop out in the middle of a forest i.e. the website might look great but if it hardly gets any traffic then what's the point.
My reasoning was that it was better to have a smaller shop in a busy shopping centre (Shopping Mall for our American friends 😊) i.e. Have a dedicated page on this blog where it might get noticed by others who are visiting for other reasons.
It may not be the neatest but at least there is a lot of relevant information in one spot. The main reason it is there is that anyone that is interested in reading the 40 MHz posts will leave with a better understanding of what is happening on the band. In that context, having the 40 MHz page get over 5000 pageviews in a year is great.
Sources of Traffic... The chart below shows the breakdown of visitors.
It's good to see plenty of traffic from countries where English isn't their first language.
Plans for 2021??... More of the same! What goes up on the blog is really a reflection of my own interest in radio. If I find it interesting, I write about it.
I have a long list of news items and subjects to get through so there is plenty more to come.
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