Dear Visitor—just like we did exactly this time last year, we must file an online report on ourselves, for our stakeholder readers & contributors, with thanks for everyone’s continued interest & support.
In 2008, the key headlines for a booming year for Omnibuses2.0 were:
Publishing
- We published 110,636 words in 2008 (2% fewer than 2007)
- Mercifully, the time spent writing in 2008 decreased by 11%
- There were 336 posts (6% higher than in 2007)
- Readers left 720 comments (9% higher than 2007)
- On the basis of comments left, the single most popular post was by our Mystery Contributor, entitled Velvet Refocus
- From 2007 to 2008, the number of people viewing the site increased by 110%
- For every three visits, there were approximately five separate page views (5% fewer than in 2007)
- A minimum* of 68% arrived directly by typing in the site’s URL or via a feed (23% higher than in 2007)
- By adding the above direct entries to those who searched specifically for terms such as ‘Omnibuses blog’, ‘Omnibuses blogspot’, ‘Omnibuses 2.0’ etc, the percentage of readers who arrived here because they wanted to* increased to 70% (as opposed to finding Omnibuses by accident)
- Then add those who also searched for ‘Omnibuses’ and this total rises to 72% (up 11% from 2007)
- The proportion of arrivals from links from other blogs fell from just over 10% in 2007 to just over 6% in 2008
Searches - The number of searches recorded for the period July-December 2008 compared with July-December 2007 showed an increase of 44%
- Even though the number of search engine arrivals was up considerably, the proportion of readers arriving via a search was 20% (42% fewer than in 2007)
- Google was again by far the most popular search engine, accounting for 93% of search engine arrivals
- The most popular search term was ‘Omnibuses’ followed by ‘Optare’ in various guises, Mercedes 608, Omnibuses blog, the term ‘strap line’ in various forms, RMXL/RM/Routemaster and ‘Bournemouth’. An interesting and important search term was Wilts & Dorset’s X12. We published in September some detail on the more interesting searches that found their way here
Conclusions for 2008 - We published about 2½ times the number of words written by George Orwell in his seminal Animal Farm
- Overall, readers at least* more than doubled
- Nearly ¾ of readers arrived here because they wished to visit
- The numbers arriving via a search engine increased significantly but was a smaller proportion of total readers
- Blogrolls are becoming progressively less important in sending visitors
* These figures are minima. Stats packages cannot accurately register readers entering via feeds
