Been working hard for a while now to make improvements to GreatLakesBass.com to make it the place to be for Great Lakes region bass anglers. So much more I'd like to do but I have made quite a few changes still. Some are obvious and some aren't but it is apparently working!
GreatLakesBass.tv has played a good part with anywhere from 80 to 160 people on there watching videos most of the time now. The new home page has had a big impact (with more changes coming there). And of course, I have so many of you to thank who have signed up and who make running this website much easier than maybe some other websites are to maintain, especially on the social community level. Thank you thank you thank you!
What I'm geeked about is the unique visitor numbers lately! Normally, in the winter months I would have anywhere between 4,000 and 6,000 completely unique visitors for any winter month with 300 or so visits a day. In the summer months I would jump up anywhere from 7,000 to maybe 11,000 unique visitors in a month with 400 to 600 visits a day, sometimes peaks up to 800 or more.
In February - often a very low month for the site - we had almost 12,000 unique visitors!! One of my biggest months ever... in the winter no less! I was pretty psyched about that until March rolled in and over everything from the past!!!!!!!
March 2011 finished with over 25,000 unique visitors!! I started checking all my stat and analytics programs for bugs first ;D They all said pretty much the same thing (except compete.com which seems to be all over the map for some reason).
So I'm sitting here wondering... what happens if I get my normal warm weather jump in traffic this year? Hard to imagine that it could continue to go up the rate it is right now...? But, looking at the first 5 days of April with day 5 not completely in yet... we're at 6,090 unique visitors!!!!!! Multiply that daily average of 1,218 visitors per day by 30 days and you get - OVER 36,000 unique visitors!!!! In one month! And climbing closer to 2,000 visits per day! oh my gosh
All I can do is keep trying to improve the site and try to get more of the many new forum visitors to Join (http://www.greatlakesbass.com/join/) in on our fun faster! I've always said, 'the more, the merrier!'
And keep saying thanks to all of you who have been along for the ride to this point. I will be hoping to have more contests more often this year with cool prizes including a soon to be announced fishing report contest. Just waiting to finish up some sponsor discussions which is another reason I do ask all of you to please, please consider the companies who make it remotely possible to keep GreatLakesBass.com growing. And when you get a chance, make sure you tell them you are doing so because they help out GreatLakesBass.com. Without them, I cannot keep this site growing or even running.
For those of you I haven't lost in this long post by now, there are some interesting stats to follow just for fun.
Some summary stats for the 31 days between March 5, 2011 and April 4, 2011 (26,736 unique visitors / 38,106 visits):
Top 10 Countries in number of visits:
1. United States 25,436
2. Japan 1,159
3. Canada 908
4. Germany 622
5. United Kingdom 611
6. India 548
7. France 449
8. Brazil 355
9. Italy 337
10. Spain 301
Top 10 States in the good ole U.S.
1. Michigan 11,139
2. Illinois 1,490
3. California 1,304
4. Ohio 1,283
5. New York 1,007
6. Texas 875
7. Florida 766
8. Indiana 629
9. Georgia 462
10. Pennsylvania 425
Top 10 Cities in Michigan:
1. Grand Rapids 1,569
2. Lansing 575
3. Livonia 471
4. Warren 318
5. Dearborn 303
6. Detroit 283
7. Plainwell 240
8. Saginaw 230
9. St Joseph 224
10. Trenton 199
All of you in Grand Rapids are AWESOME!!
The rest of you are pretty cool too! ;D
How does the system link the IP address with a location if you are using a Verizon Mobile card or some other type of mobile device.....???
900 from Canada?? That must be Bondy stalking.. ;D
if you need any help i just so happen to be unemployed. ;D
Dan, I always said you were the best website leader out there. This just proves it. Fantastic news for you, and the rest of us. I know myself and Colin better step it up. Neither Austrailia or Flushing made the lists. Great job and great news.
Congrats Dan! Keep up the great work! You run a fantastic site, one of the best in the bass fishing, with a great group of members.
Can't wait to see the future of GLB.
Yep, looks like I need to work on the Indiana numbers !!!! lolol :D
Congratulations my friend!!! ;D
Congrats Dan. I always give out the site when I can.
Quote from: bassfan586 on April 06, 2011, 07:33:33 PM
Congrats Dan. I always give out the site when I can.
That means a ton to me - thanks!
Quote from: Firefighter Jeff on April 06, 2011, 03:08:49 PM
Yep, looks like I need to work on the Indiana numbers !!!! lolol :D
I actually worry late at night wondering why my Indiana numbers aren't going up? Illinois came out of nowhere a few months ago and just blew right by followed by Ohio? Either something else is preoccupying them or there's something special I have to do to make Indiana anglers happy?!? See what you can do, would you?
Quote from: mikesmiph on April 06, 2011, 11:35:00 AM
Dan, I always said you were the best website leader out there. This just proves it. Fantastic news for you, and the rest of us. I know myself and Colin better step it up. Neither Austrailia or Flushing made the lists. Great job and great news.
I was more than a little surprised Australia hasn't cracked the top ten yet, let alone Flushing?? If you could both do something about that, I sure would appreciate it!!
Quote from: motocross269 on April 06, 2011, 08:19:24 AM
How does the system link the IP address with a location if you are using a Verizon Mobile card or some other type of mobile device.....???
900 from Canada?? That must be Bondy stalking.. ;D
I don't know exactly how that works. I'm sure if I did some research I could find out. Some of it is best guess the software does. I'm sure a lot depends on the type of service and how Internet access is controlled from the various countries and zones. I'm also sure Google will continue to hold all their real secrets close to their vests and not tell me even if I ask real nice.
There are fair amount of 'non-Bondy' Canadians who visit the site more and more regularly. And I thank them for that. I may provide a 'Canadian' language version of the website someday just to get more of them! ;D
Well Dan - Right about now....... you know who would be chiming in with some grand grandt wise crack about now ... :D......
Roses red on my spinnerbait, violets a good color on St Clair too ........
From D'twoit to Australia - noone provides for the fishing community like you .........
;D
Quote from: djkimmel on April 06, 2011, 10:16:44 PM
Quote from: Firefighter Jeff on April 06, 2011, 03:08:49 PM
Yep, looks like I need to work on the Indiana numbers !!!! lolol :D
I actually worry late at night wondering why my Indiana numbers aren't going up? Illinois came out of nowhere a few months ago and just blew right by followed by Ohio? Either something else is preoccupying them or there's something special I have to do to make Indiana anglers happy?!? See what you can do, would you?
I've been working in Ohio since mid Feburary and try to get people to check out the site.
So... it's you causing the Ohio thing... So who's responsible in Illinois then?
Quote from: bob o on April 06, 2011, 08:22:48 AM
if you need any help i just so happen to be unemployed. ;D
Though I know very little about having actual employees and it kind of scares me I wish I could hire some of the unemployed. Really. I'm starting with trying to keep myself paying the bills first anyway. And once I get that figured out, I'll see where I can go from there. Good luck with the job hunt.
Thanks again to all of you who keep this a fun place to hang out and find out stuff and such. And if you do recommend to other people, that's so much better. I'll see what I can do to say thanks other ways. I really do want to.
I am not suprised. This is the best fishing website anywhere.
I sure do appreciate that sentiment but I know I can always improve things so I'll keep trying. Thanks fuzzygrub1611!
I am not surprised the U.S. and Michigan lead the first two lists. I am surprised however that my town made the Top 10 Cities in Michigan and it made the top 5 there. :o
Quote from: djkimmel on April 06, 2011, 12:20:01 AM
Top 10 Cities in Michigan:
1. Grand Rapids 1,569
2. Lansing 575
3. Livonia 471
4. Warren 318
5. Dearborn 303
6. Detroit 283
7. Plainwell 240
8. Saginaw 230
9. St Joseph 224
10. Trenton 199
All of you in Grand Rapids are AWESOME!!
The rest of you are pretty cool too! ;D
Pretty cool stuff. Where do cities outside of Michigan come in??? Just curious. ??? ???
BD ;D
That stats program only does them by State and then by city. Looking at how far the other states are below Michigan, most likely only a few big cities in other states might crack the overall top ten. I might look at that more soon because it actually helps me strategically to know where traffic is coming from and not coming from.
Scratch that. The program does do by City rankings for the entire United States. Not a huge surprise about the top 10 cities:
City Visits
1. Grand Rapids 1,569
2. Chicago 741
3. New York 580
4. Lansing 575
5. Livonia 471
6. Warren 318
7. Dearborn 303
8. Detroit 283
9. Plainwell 240
10. Saginaw 230
Mostly Michigan cities due to overall stats and the bulk of the traffic I'm getting from Illinois and New York are coming from the biggest cities.
Interesting stats. My city still cracked the top 5. With proximity to the Great Lakes region, I am surprised that Cleveland, Buffalo, maybe Indianapolis would crack the Top 10.
BD. ;D
Great job Dan. The fact that this forum is run so well without all of the bashing and bs of other forums is the reason why we chose to become a sponsor. One forum I frequented has gotten so out of hand, I can't stand to go there anymore and it seems that some of the old posters have left there as well.
Quote from: UAWBigDog on April 08, 2011, 09:58:40 AM
Interesting stats. My city still cracked the top 5. With proximity to the Great Lakes region, I am surprised that Cleveland, Buffalo, maybe Indianapolis would crack the Top 10.
BD. ;D
BD, if you know anyone in those cities, please mention GreatLakesBass.com! New York has actually just started to come on a little better in the past few months. I am working on ways to improve that end of the Great Lakes.
I'm not sure why Indiana isn't growing better. Though I continue to try to figure that out. All the time. Guess I just need to do whatever is happening in Ohio and Illinois lately!
Quote from: independentMike on April 08, 2011, 10:29:38 AM
Great job Dan. The fact that this forum is run so well without all of the bashing and bs of other forums is the reason why we chose to become a sponsor. One forum I frequented has gotten so out of hand, I can't stand to go there anymore and it seems that some of the old posters have left there as well.
Well I sure do appreciate that. I got sick of the drama sites a loonnngg time ago. I see some of them are imploding now. Sooner or later, they all seem to do that if something drastic isn't done that can be almost as bad.
I've always believed the good, helpful members avoid those sites more and more over time allowing more room for the 'Springer' fans to populate.
I daily appreciate that we are so fortunate to have so many mature, adult-behaving people on this website. I couldn't run the site otherwise. THANKS!!
I peeked again today and still heading for a record 30,000 plus unique visitors in April so far! Still geeked!! ;D
Can't really go by so few days though. Kind of like watching the stock market hour to hour. ;D I notice first day under 1,000 unique visitors in a while yesterday... Where was everyone?!? ;D