It is that time again where I like to go back over the prior year and highlight where the blog is at, and talk about some of the interesting data that came out of Google Analytics.
Overall my traffic on the blog was less than it was for 2015. This is understandable because I have taken most of my interaction with the readership over to Facebook. That, and I am doing a lot of contracting overseas still.
The way I have been using the blog now is to write about stuff that is unique that is not being talked about out there. Typically I find myself seeking stories and sharing them on all of my social media spots, and not really creating any new content. I get fast feedback at my Facebook profile and can quickly comment and interact with the readership. This is important to me if I want good intuition/Fingerspitzejngefühl/coup d’oeil on this industry. It is how I stay ‘oriented‘.
On a technical note, I have a Facebook profile and a Facebook page. The page actually has analytics for it, but I am not active on it at all. I do most of my activity on the Feral Jundi profile page. Hopefully Facebook will create a profile analytics tool that is built in so I don’t have to hunt around for a tool. There is stuff out there, but nothing I am interested in yet. So most of my analytics will come from Google Analytics. So lets begin.
My overall stats for the blog for 2016 is 83,436 visits and 109,102 page views. That brings my total life time visits to 1,733,575 and page view total at 2,610,379 (January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2016). My first post for the blog was on January 22, 2008! It seems like yesterday that I was just firing this thing up and digging into all of the particulars of the industry.
The health of the website is alright. This is the second theme that I have used, and I continue to use Bluehost as my host and WordPress as my blogging platform. Over the years, quite a few links of websites have expired and I have had to remove them. Or images have expired, so I had to remove traces of that in order for the posts to work well and look appealing. But all in all, the site is doing pretty well considering it’s age. I would like to find a new theme, but nothing has really jumped out at me. If folks have any suggestions, let me know.
Now for some data. Here are the top countries that have visited the blog last year. One change is that more Russians are visiting. I have been writing about Russian contractors here and at FB, so that is a factor.
The next graphic is devices. No surprises there, but it does emphasize how information is consumed. Mobile devices do matter. Guys and gals read this stuff while sitting at a doctor’s office or at the bus station or wherever. So it pays to have a website that is friendly for those devices.
As for how folks find Feral Jundi, here are the top channels or paths. Organic search means they found me through a search engine like Google.
Under that Social portion, I wanted to highlight where folks are coming from in that world. No surprises there, and this is why I use Facebook. I do attempt to create some activity on Twitter and Linkedin, but really, the action is at FB. I also fired up an Instagram account last year, but I really wasn’t that active. I might try to post more photos there, but that kind of thing really doesn’t interest me.
Now into the content world. What were the top posts of the website? I did not do a lot of posting last year and it seems like my older posts have dominated. The Job Tips article has been very popular over the years. The only post this last year that registered in the top ten was the War Dogs movie post. People probably wanted to look up the company called AEY Inc to see what I had to say about the company after watching the movie.
As for Social Media referrals, as you can see Facebook is the winner. Google Images is another good one because I will make a poster or set up a graphic for a post, and it will pop up in Google Images. Folks will click on that and find the blog that way.
One interesting side note is that Feral Jundi is actually getting referenced in Wikipedia. I do not have a Wikipedia page for the site, but folks are using FJ as a source or reference. One advantage of running this blog for so long is that my content has not disappeared or shifted. I am hoping that links to posts on this blog remain healthy and informative to any future readers and researchers. Like I mentioned above, if you see anything that needs correcting let me know.
Some other data that I will just write about is demographics. My readers were mostly male, but females were very much represented. I am still not sure how Google is able to ascertain that?
For age groups, the top readers were millennials. That makes sense because they are young, more active on the internet, and looking for work (hence why Job Tips is so popular). Also veterans in their late twenties or early thirties that are getting out of the military are looking for work and seeking answers to questions about this industry.
I do get a lot of emails still, and it is a pleasure to help out where I can. Emails come from all over the world and I am always intrigued by what pops up in the mail box. Unfortunately I am not able to easily access those emails while I am away on contracts, but I do eventually get to them.
