Bragging rights: Voice stats and other fancy stuff

Chris Davis, Keyboard #1, Pincher Creek Voice

Pincher Creek Voice stats
All stats as of 1 pm, Monday, November 14, 2011

The Pincher Creek Voice is rapidly nearing an average of 3000 pageviews a week.  We've crossed several self-imposed landmarks.  The first was to get over 1000 pageviews in one day, which happened back in September.

The next was to achieve over 30,000 pageviews, which we did in October, approximately 11 weeks after our relaunch.  Since then (and since I started writing this editorial) we've climbed to over 40,000 pageviews.  The most recent milestone for us was to have over 10,000 views in a calendar month, which occurred near the 12 week mark last month (October).  At this point, mid-November we've had more than 12,000 pageviews in the last calendar month.   In the last two weeks our pageview count has been consistently over 400 a day, with one day rising over 1000.  We've seen a marked rise generally in visitors in the last two weeks, for reasons we cannot pinpoint, except that perhaps more of you are sharing this with your friends.  We believe the sporting events we cover also reach out to a larger regional audience, particularly to those towns that don't have good sports coverage.

Pageviews by country (last 30 days)

To clarify "pageviews" and to correct my own previously  mistaken understanding of them as measured by Google, and stated (somewhat incorrectly) by me in an earlier editorial:  Every time someone visits this website it counts as a pageview.  That person can visit as many individual stories as they like, but that visit still gets counted as one pageview.  If they leave this site and come back in the same day, it counts as another pageview.   Having this clarified for us via a Google help page caused much rejoicing in the Voice office, otherwise known as my living room.  It means we've been having quite a few more unique visitors than we previously estimated.  For the record, believe it or not, we don't track our own pageviews, because we want to know what is working and what isn't, what is attractive to our readership, that sort of thing.
Older stories gain new life as people discover the Voice and comb through our archives for items of interest.

Of course, the bottom line for you, the individual reading this, is whether or not this website is relevant to your life.  Feel free to give us feedback via the comment form or by emailing us at pinchercreekvoice@gmail.com.

We're working at making our site as friendly as possible to you phone users out there, so if you have any feedback or concerns about how it looks on your specific brand of phone, do let us know.

Our advertising and other income continues to rise in a slow but steady way, gratifying since we don't really have a proper advertising department yet.  Our #1 goal in terms of revenue is to attract customers that see the value in what we do, and we believe that value continues to become more apparent with every week that passes.

As mentioned before, our long-running multi-media company, formerly called Comodisc, is about to be re-branded.  The success of the Voice has been a boon to that enterprise as well.

We have begun to incorporate video in earnest, and you can find the 30 50 or so videos we've created of sporting and cultural events embedded in the stories themselves, and also on our YouTube page.   We expect the quality of that content to constantly improve as we acquire new equipment, and more importantly, working experience in the various environments we cover.

We thank you, our readers.  Truly, without your interest this would be nothing.
We also thank you, our advertisers, for supporting this independent and local endeavor.
A huge thank you to our contributors and columnists.  Thanks for bringing your point of view to this forum.  Thanks for "getting it".  We weren't sure how Pincher Creek would react to having local columnist content, but the numbers indicate they are a very popular feature.

This seems like an appropriate place to verify that we are indeed an independent endeavor.  Some people have assumed, both verbally and in correspondence, that we are affiliated with one of the big news/entertainment chains.  We're not.  We're not for sale either.  Having said that, make me an offer I can't refuse.  Let's see who ends up being surprised.

We have no political mandate.  Well, one.  We'd like the world to be a better place.

We believe in the concept of free press.  We have enough hubris to consider ourselves one example of the concept.  We're not owned by our advertisers, or a head office somewhere that has never heard of Pincher Creek.  We're here, and we like it here.  Our business plan is long-term, which informs many of the decisions we make.

We still get asked frequently if we would consider going to print, instead of being solely an online "paper".  The answer is still "never".  We like not killing trees for ephemera.  We like being constantly up-to-date.   We like bringing you news without space constraints.  If it's a 20 word story, we can deliver it.  If it's a 1000 word story (or Phil Burpee column), no  problem.  If there are 20 relevant pictures, why not.  If there's a good video to go with the story, it goes with the story.  We like this modern medium a lot.  There's still print media out there for those who don't.

Having said all that, please do continue to send us your tips and stories.  This is your Voice too.