In comparison to September 2018, the number of total users of the Wonderful Machine site rose 1.46% this past month. While the 12,421 users that visited us this month is not significantly greater than the 12,242 of September 2018, we are nonetheless pleased. During the month of August 2019, we had practically 300 more visitors (but August does have one other more day than September, lucky duck).
Moreover, the number of new users of the site increased by 3.95% since September 2018 but dropped 3.5% since August 2019. Arguably more important, WM received 1% more returning users over August 2019, but 1.8% fewer returning users since September 2018.
This category tabulates how users interacted with the WM site.
Between the months of August and September 2019 the click-throughs, the number of times a user followed a link onto a photographer’s site, dropped from 4,550 to 4,473. Between Septembers 2018 and 2019, the numbers of click-throughs dropped 15%.
Specialty searches, when a user searches photographers by their specialty, increased by .66% from August 2019, but decreased by 27.8% in comparison with September 2018.
Profile views, which are the number of times users visited the profiles of individual photographers, increased 16.9% since August 2019, but decreased 10.3% since September 2018.
Finally, photographer searches increased 3.25% since August 2019 but were down 28.5% in comparison with September 2018.
Like most websites, the majority of our traffic comes through a variety of sources including “organic searches,” which means using a search engine like Google; “direct,” which means users that came to our site without an intermediary; “referrals,” from other sites; “social,” from social media sites; “email,” from our periodic emails to subscribers; as well as the unfortunate “other,” which does not specify.
In September 2019, organic searches accounted for an impressive 54.1%, which constitutes a modest .3% increase over September 2018. In comparison to August 2019, the number of organic searches increased by 3.2%, from 50.09. This is interesting because WM is a site that owes much of its success to word of mouth and not simple searches—we work hard to make sure that everyone in the industry knows who we are.
Also, the amount of traffic we received from social media increased by a gobsmacking 4.2% (hold on to your hats!) in comparison to September 2018 but dropped slightly in comparison to the monthly average for the preceding 12 months.
When considering traffic just from social media platforms, Facebook accounts for 68.5% while Instagram—what we take to be the social media channel most used by our members and industry—only accounts for 11.3%.
Desktop Mobile Traffic
There is a balance between desktop, mobile, and tablet website traffic. During September, 69% of the traffic to the website came from desktop computers. The remaining 29% came from smartphones and 2% came from tablets.
When examining social media analytics, a few points should be considered, our social media guru Cliff Willson explains:
As an example, when you post a single image on Instagram in the span of one day, that post will frequently receive more likes than an image that is posted amidst other images within the same day. Therefore, the two posts would not be equal by comparison. The likes are spread more thinly in correlation to the number of posts within a span of time. Also, certain days of the week generate greater attention than others. Apparently, on Tuesdays, you guys are going thumb crazy (and there’s nothing wrong with that).
Wonderful Machine’s Facebook page has 7,068 Total Likes and 7,629 Total Follows. During September, our Facebook posts received 3,764 total likes, with an average of 235 likes per post. Our post about Lisa Godfrey’s shoot for Diamond Pet Foods reached 440 people and 166 engagements. Our post about Zoe Wetherall’s “Earth” project reached 849 people and 89 engagements.
Wonderful Machine’s Instagram feed has 12,631 followers and received 2,621 likes during September.
Member photographers frequently ask where the users of Wonderful Machine are located. Each month we tell you that they are largely from the United States (shocker!), although we do have a significant constituency from India and Europe, respectively, and elsewhere. To maintain that tradition, we will pass on that this month 64.9% of our users came from the United States, 5.6% from India, and 3.9% from the United Kingdom. However, should you like a breakdown of the cities where WM users reside, we have included it here.
You’ll see that most of the major urban locations worldwide are represented, not excluding cosmopolitan Ashburn, Va. While the latter may seem like an odd statistical goof, in fact, a tremendous amount of internet traffic goes through the Dorf of Ashburn. If you’d like to know more, consult these articles from the Washington Post and Gizmodo.
During the month of September our two blogs—one featuring recent projects by WM member photographers and one publishing a host of articles on topics germane to the commercial photography biz—saw an 18.3% increase in traffic and a 9.3% decrease in traffic, respectively.
The most popular Photographer Spotlight posts included
Julia Lehman Empowers Cat Malatack with a Fitness-Based Modelling Shoot
Zoe Wetherall Weathers All Storms and Setbacks to Create “Earth”
Jody Horton Showcases Bently Heritage’s Locally Produced World-Class Spirits
The member photographer blog again found the following posts enjoying the greatest popularity:
Expert Advice: Writing a Photographer Bio
Expert Advice: Print Portfolios