I'll keep it short and sweet but I thought I'd share some numbers on how this experiment called, The Settlement Channel, did for the year 2007.
In our first full calendar year of blogging and podcasting, both audio and video, our total numbers for the year are far beyond my wildest projections, and our growth in traffic, unique visitors, subscribers and podcast downloads have grown at a stunning rate. December was our biggest year of the month, with a 28% increase in traffic from November, and daily traffic far in excess of any prior month.
Total unique page visits for the year, 36,500. This number, the way my counter is set, is for new, unique visits and does not include search engine bots, returning subscribers, or previously recorded IP addresses. So this equates to approximately 3000 new visitors per month. What's surprising is this number shows the greatest month to month increases of about 29%.
Total web page hits for the year, 285,000. This number, again with filters to eliminate search engine bots and other repetitive hits, equates to just under 800 page views per day. Again, this number continues to grow at a month to month rate of about 15%.
Total audio or video downloads off the site for the year. 103,000. This is a cumulative total and does factor in our numbers on Yahoo, Itune, podcast alley and other sites where we share our audio and video content. Still, 8500 podcast downloads per month is far beyond my early expectations. What is amazing is that even with a reduced schedule of broadcasts over the last 60 days of the year, actual down loads continue to accelerate month to month by about 18%.
Subscribers to the RSS feeds. 1231. This numbers fluctuates monthly but the general trend is up, with a year to year increase of 132%.
I don't know where I rank on Google and other blog measurement services, and while I guess I should care, I don't. What I'm concerned with is growth of our subscription numbers and absolute downloads, as well as daily views, and as LBN and The Settlement Channel continue to roll out new shows in 2007, and you will see three new shows in the first 30 days of 2007, I have no doubt the spill over from those channels will create continued traffic growth and the high quality audience of attorneys, paralegals, settlement and financial professionals we seek. We are a niche blog and to have this kind of traffic is far beyond my early estimates.
With the completion of our Phoenix studio, and then the subsequent expansion of the studio to include the ability to shoot full HD video, and do live streaming, as well as the addition of two more staff members, we are poised to really move this forward in 2007. After the first taste of the "technology and broadcast world" with LBN that cost a stunning amount of money, we now have a facility that costs us about 16% of what we use to pay, runs strongly in the black, and is about to increase it's shows and productions for attorneys and financial professionals by about 500% in the next 6 months.
If you are a reader and listener, thank you for your support and feed back, I'll endeavor to do even more and provide higher quality for 2007. If you have a show, a topic or a channel you'd like to develop, please contact me so we can discuss getting you into this exciting and dynamic new model for educating and reaching your target audience.
Happy New Year from Mark Wahlstrom and the staff at The Settlement Channel.
