As the weather grows cold at the Wonderful Machine headquarters, we practice the art of hygge — embrace the cold weather and enhance the coziness of staying indoors. While steeping our tea and locating our honey supply, we took a look at the numbers for November. This month brought us 11,247 users and 10,406 new users — a decline from last year’s 14,008 users and 13,025 new. Pageviews and sessions also went down by 24.93% and 21.52%, respectively, from last year. We had 4,229 click-throughs this past month, compared to 4,750 click-throughs in October and 4,997 last year at the same time.
Traffic is everchanging, much like directions on a GPS as you attempt to avoid rush hour to make it home for a holiday. This month 52.5% of our visitors came from search engines, 23.3% came directly, and 8.6% came from referrals. Traffic from social media has increased by directing 10.4% since last year. In reference to location, 68% of traffic came from the United States. Following the US are India and Canada, eh? The top cities (in order) include New York, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, and Toronto.
Our client-facing blog has been on a roll, generating articles for our photographers and bringing people to the site — we’ve had 3,530 visitors reading our member content blog. This month the ladies came out on top with our most-read spotlight blog articles featuring projects by women photographers. Shockingly, our most-read article this month was Shannon O’Hara: A Year of Gingerbread Houses, an article we published over four years ago. We’ll chalk this one up to the season and how a simple Google search for “gingerbread houses” can bring people to our website. O’Hara’s lead was followed by “Things Happen For A Reason”: Michelle Gibson Discusses Her Concussion Recovery and ‘Certainly, Right Away’: Margo Moritz Evolves as a Leader while Meeting Clients’ Needs.
Our member-facing blog also brought in a good percentage of visitors to the site, attracting 7,336 people to the site. Our Expert Advice: Writing a Photographer Bio continues to be our most popular blog post. SEO Implementation: Julia Lehman’s Squarespace Site and Expert Advice: Finding a Rep followed.
We’ve kept up our momentum on Instagram, adding 164 followers in November, bringing our total Insta-audience to 12,978 photo enthusiasts. Our top post got 188 likes and featured the work of Sarah-Bell Rossi. We’ve also found that the best time to post a photo is between 12-3 PM. Facebook likes stayed at 7,034, but our posts reached 1,345 people and had 328 engagements. Engagements are when people click, like, comment, or share the post.