While we all went about our business doing what folks do on a Sunday, GreeneCountyNewsOnline hit a milestone. According to Google Analytics, the 1 millionth page was viewed on your locally owned news source.
A million anything is hard for me to comprehend. I know there are folks who have that many dollars – I never expect to have a million dollars at the same time in my lifetime. But not quite 22 months after launching GreeneCountyNewsOnline, I’m excited to have reached the one million mark for page views.
Those page views have been tallied by 88,340 users during 262,751 visits to GreeneCountyNewsOnline. Those users looked at an average of 3.81 pages per session and spent an average of three minutes on the site per visit. Online publishing makes it easy to see who is reading, what they’re reading, and where they live.
Studying analytics is one of those time sucking activities. I log on to find one statistic, and before I know it 30 minutes has passed. I don’t watch GCNO’s analytics closely, except for the daily and 30-day page view counts. That’s enough of a gauge for me of the relevance of my news.
I could open up some sort of sweepstakes asking readers to guess the date the most pages were viewed. I don’ think many people would get it right.
The highest single day, to date, was Sunday, Oct. 5, 2014. GCNO didn’t report a fatal accident or a house fire that day. A feature written by Mary Weaver about the demolition of the Rippey school was the lead under the Good News tab that day. A former student created a Friends of the Rippey School Facebook page and linked it to the story. GCNO had 2,695 visits that day, a beautiful sunny October Sunday.
GreeneCountyNewsOnline is updated when news events call for it, and readers have become accustomed to turning to GCNO when tragedies strike. The second and third highest site visit counts came following posts of young people killed in accidents.
Close behind those two days is Thursday, June 18. (Thursday analytics are usually strong as people read for themselves what they’re hearing co-workers talk about from Wednesday Newsday.) The Wednesday update included posts of the Greene County school board calling for the bond referendum and a Riley Online column about the two county school boards’ battle over transportation. Thursday morning Wild Rose Jefferson announced its grand opening plans and headliner Kenny Rogers. GCNO was the place to find the news that day.
The fifth highest day was a Saturday following a house fire in January, 2014. When the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission met Thursday, June 12, 2014, to decide the fate of a gaming license for Wild Rose, more than 1,000 people turned to GCNO for the news. It was the sixth highest single day.
Notice that although Wednesday Newsday sets out to be GCNO’s big day of the week, the highest counts haven’t come on Wednesdays. News doesn’t wait for presses to run and with online publishing, readers don’t have to wait to read news, either.
Readers have come from 151 countries, as shown by the IP address on the computer the reader is using. The US leads, but 2,334 site visits originated in Russia and 1,028 originated in Germany. Filling out the Top Ten in international visits are the UK, Israel, Brazil, Canada, China, India and Japan. So your son has moved to Slovenia? Don’t worry – he can keep up with Greene County news daily if he wants.
Readers have come from every state in the Union. Iowa leads as expected. Readership is strongest in the Midwest and the places to which Iowans escape. In the Top Ten are Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Arizona, Missouri, Virginia, Texas and California.
Jefferson folks account for 57 percent of the Iowa readership. Churdan is next in order and Creston is third, but only a little in front of Des Moines and Scranton. Filling out the Top Ten on the Iowa list are Ames, West Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Boone and Ottumwa. Carroll is in 11th place.
Milestones often prompt a bit of reflection. GreeneCountyNewsOnline was launched 22 months ago to fill a void in the community – to provide news of Greene County and Jefferson at no charge to readers, written by someone who knows the community and cares (a lot) about seeing it thrive. There have been more than 3,600 posts, but an entire month of sheriff’s reports counts as only one, as does a list of funeral notices. That’s a lot of free news.
It’s the support of advertisers who have made it all possible. News is free, but as you all know, life isn’t. Without the support of advertisers, particularly those who took a chance on a new venture from the start (Home State Bank, Jefferson Telecom and Medicap Pharmacy), I might be leaving Jefferson for employment, or dealing blackjack on the corner. Instead, I’m doing what I love to do – providing balanced news that matters to people who matter to me.
Readers can support GreeneCountyNewsOnline by supporting advertisers – click on their ads, buy their products, use their services. Is there a local business where you shop that isn’t yet an advertiser? You can help GCNO by letting decision-makers in those businesses know that you’d like to see an ad linked to their websites on GreeneCountyNewsOnline. After all, no one has to wash newsprint off their hands after checking out an online ad, and the ad hasn’t been dug out of a recycle bin, either.
The first million has been great… and just since Sunday, the number has already grown to 1,004,000. GreeneCountyNewsOnline ~your locally owned TIMELY, FREE, GOOD NEWS source
