Travel Website Statistics: August 2013

As I’ve mentioned somewhere before, we did a bit of research through the labyrinthine recesses of the interwebs to prepare for our long-term travel adventure/descent into bankruptcy. We discovered most of the useful information not on familiar sites like Lonely Planet or TripAdvisor or whatever, but on travel blogs, written by fellow travelers who shared their stories and tips while on the road.

As some old tales go, in the beginning there were three:

Nomadic Matt – In the travel blogging pack, he’s the top dog. His website is viewed by thousands each month, and he has managed to make a living off his travels throughout the world. He’s been around for quite a while, so his tips on basically everything travel-related were a great help.

Never Ending Voyage – We stumbled upon this wandering couple when researching what to pack for our indefinite expedition to the Americas. It ended up being one of our more fortuitous encounters, since they are the lovely people behind the Trail Wallet, which we have found to be a fantastic tool to keep track of our budget.

Globetrotter Girls – They are a lesbian couple traveling the world and sharing tips and experiences. We first learned of house sitting through them, along with a vast amount of timely advice.

As we investigated deeper, many more travel blogs kept popping up. There seemed to be an awful lot of people traveling the world and somehow managing not to be on the constant run from creditors. Interested to see if we could come up with something similar, we created this little website you are now reading (probably by mistake – damn you, Google!)

Lunaguava began as a repository of past travels. We put some photos up and added a few stories, happy to relive enriching experiences in distant lands. Nonetheless, since we were working from memory, a lot of info was left out. Writing now in the almost-present, I can infuse our stories with updated tips and hopefully a more adequate understanding of where we’re at.

As I built a social media presence via Facepoop and Twitter, I caught a glimpse of the gargantuan size of the travel blogging industry, which made me wonder if there was anyone left in the world still working in an office. But I’ll leave this particular rant for another time, when I’m feeling fresher and my brain is not overflowing with numbers.

Since I’ve started doing a monthly update of our budget and how closer we are to becoming the most ridiculous duo to hit the streets begging for money, I though of doing the same for this website’s statistics: how many people see it, how many are following on the various social media platforms, etc.

Most of the numbers below will make no sense to the lovely people who actually follow our travels, since they are still mostly friends or friends of friends. I promise I’ll get back to the good stuff shortly, folks!

This whole travel blogging venture is both an experiment and a challenge. I still feel like a little kid in a quarterly profits meeting at Goldman Sachs though, and there are many sides to it I am naturally uncomfortable with – such as the ability to “sell myself”.

Before I go on with the numbers, I just need to borrow a line from the uproariously brilliant Dylan Moran: “Your potential is like your bank balance, you always have a lot less than you think”.

Website statistics AUGUST 2013

Social Media

Subscribers: 14
Facepoop: 101
Twitter: 56
Stumble Upon: 0
Klout: 47

Social media is a great way to interact with the cool people who care to know what we’re up to and to give some visibility to our site. Having said that, I find it very difficult to take it seriously. Everything just sounds so… needy. It’s a work in progress though, and I’m now almost at the level of a not-particularly-bright 5-year-old. You’ll know I’ve become more accustomed to dealing with this side of things when I stop writing “Facepoop”.

Twitter is like the high-maintenance girlfriend I never had. I’m doing my best to understand it (and keep up with it), but feel I’m still falling short and she will eventually dump my sorry ass.

Website Statistics

(Google Analytics) (01/08 – 31-08)

Monthly Views: 448

Monthly Unique Views: 357

Pageviews: 789

Avg. Visit Duration: 1:51

Pages/Visit: 1.76

% New Visits: 72%

Bounce Rate: ~70%

Google Page Rank: N/A

We’re averaging a hundred views for the stuff we post on Facepoop, but that does not translate into actual views of the website. At least, not according to the mighty Google. Still, for someone who has no idea what he’s doing, I guess I can’t complain…

The last batch of statistics belongs to two sites who keep track of traffic rank.

Alexa:

Overall Ranking: 897,450

US Ranking: 139,105

Sites Linking In: 13

SEMRush:

9,226,055 (US)
2,542,691 (CA)
2,386,453 (AU)

Yeah, I also don’t really know what those numbers mean. But hey, I’ll figure it out at some point, right? (hangs head in resigned despair…)