18.04.2006: Statistically speaking...:	Ron, IU
more news... back to home page...

Just finished having a 'study' of the statistics of site visitors for IrishUnsigned The last 18 months or so has seen IU take a bit of a back seat to "real life". Finishing my Degree (yes, at my age!), moving house, kids changing schools and - most annoying of all - not having access to Internet for two years due to County Council politics (the wrong kind of brown envelope maybe?) have meant that IrishUnsigned has been pretty dormant. Now, however, things should be looking a bit more lively. We're working on various different projects that might or might not come to a head in the Summer/Autumn. The site itself will be streamlined and updated in the next few weeks, new functionality will be added to it and various other bits and bobs should see us back into the swing of things ni the Summer. Statistically, with IU not really being out in the world, so to speak, our visitor numbers have naturally dropped. Last year saw roughly a 50% drop in the number of site visitors, but this year it is estimated that the number will double from last year. We expect to have more than 20,000 visitors this year, downloading in the region of 6,000 music files between them. Of course, that's all just statistical prediction. We'll wait and see. What's interesting, from a site designer's perspective, is the fact that more than 1 in 5 people who visit the site tend to re-visit it within the hour, two-thirds of those are back within ten minutes, presumably this is people who are directed out of the site to an Artist's site wither to see details or to download the Artist's music. If so, it means the site is working as it should. About 10% of all our visitors are referred by 'Google'. and another (almost) 10% are referred by other search engines. Our other biggest referrers are irishmusiccentral.com, then gigsmartireland.com and Dundalk's "Spirit Store" venue. In terms of Artists, our biggest referrer is Lucas. Overall, we are averaging, currently, more than 1500 visitirs a month. That, of course, is not giong to scare our Web hosting provider, but it is 25% up on about the same time last year, and is double what we were getting in our quiet period (i.e. the Summer, when Student have gone home, and don;t have access to College servers). In all, TCD, DCU and UCD account for an inordinate amount of our traffic, especially links to the site, or directly to Artists/News items from our occasional mail-outs. On another note, we are still looking for your ideas for the redesign of the site. Two suggestions we received this week are: An IrishUnsigned showcase/tour/roadshow thing, so that we get around the Country. We're looking into this. If you're interested in helping out, even in only your own area, then get in touch as soon as you can. Rather than just doing gigs, which we will probably do a lot more of in the coming months/year, we are interested in doing a Community thing. We ran a "meet-and-greet" sort of thing last year in The Sugar Club where we had a gig on, lpus bands, organisations, businesses had their material and literature to swap/distribute. That's the sort of thing we want to continue, so if you wish to assist in any way, whather by organising or promoting or co-ordinating sauch a thing in your area, then let us know. Second suggestion was a Artist Interview Podcast. It's an interesting idea: interview Artists, turn the audio into an MP3 and let it be downloaded frm the site. I like that idea, and I'm going to look into it. Again, if you're interested in getting involved, or assisting in this, please get in touch. Also, any other ideas, let us know as soon as you can. Finally, if you can code in PHP, and fancy giving me a hand with the site's redesign, email me asap.

Email the author

Printer-friendly version