Wizzley is Really Gathering Speed, isn't it?

There's always been a lot of talk about how Wizzley is a young site.  Barely two years old, and therefore not yet able to make the sort of splash in the SERPs that writers expect from Squidoo, Hubpages etc.  We all still bump into people who've never heard of Wizzley, but we're quick to introduce them.

Patience is key.  On Wizzley, more than any other writing platform, we're largely looking towards jam tomorrow.  Our day will come.

However, I've been seeing signs that this day is more than dawning. We might be as far into the morning as elevensies. (And if we're not, I'll have the cup of tea anyway, please.)

First up was Achim (who has access to the data for Wizzley as a whole) commenting on another thread. (How many writers on Wizzley?)  He said that Wizzley's 'overall traffic has improved'. 

I'd already reached that conclusion, though it's always good to hear it from the top!  Here's how I knew:

I know that Alexa is flawed, as a tool by which to judge any site. It relies upon people downloading the toolbar, or otherwise feeding information back via another browser add-on.  The majority of our readers wouldn't be bothered with all of that.  Nevertheless, it's information.

Over the past few weeks, I've seen Wizzley rise quite swiftly in the traffic ranks.  Back at the beginning of October, Wizzley was ranked between 81-82k.  It's currently 66,367. I've been watching it edge a little higher every day. 

In addition, look at this:

How freaking amazing is that? Readers are coming to our site, presumably following some link or search query, but getting interested in other articles too. The bounce rate wouldn't be so low if they weren't.  Nor is it merely one other Wizzle that keeps them here.  That looks like the average Wizzley reader is looking at 6.5 articles, before they disappear again.  They're on-site for nearly ten minutes.

Go Wizzley authors!  *cyber hi-fives everyone passing*

So how's that playing out on the ground?  Well, I've had the shock of my life these past few weeks watching the progress of one of my articles.  What Makes the Paranormal Activity Movies So Scary? was written in good time for Halloween. It spent the whole of that season on the front page of Wizzley.  Relevant, topical and visible. 

Since October 7th, when it first hit the Wizzley front page, I've had 2659 unique visitors investigate it.  Hopefully some of them even read it!  But the point here is that 98.9% of them were readers who'd found it via Wizzley!

I've always had a good readership amongst my Wizzley cohort, but never anything like this.  It's usually anything between a handful and 100 people, shortly after publishing my Wizzle.  This is different.  Sheer numbers alone would make it so, but also the fact that it's sustained.  It went on during the entire Halloween period, throughout the time when it was highlighted on the front page of Wizzley.

It's only dying down now that the article isn't so visible on the front page.

You know what I'm seeing here?  (Other than my apparent failure in social networking that link out!)  Those aren't 'my' readers, they are Wizzleys.   People are coming here, and they're reading, and they're doing so in droves.

Anyone agree with my take on it?  What stories are your own stats and observations telling you?  Time for that elevensies cup of tea yet, or just the usual informal cuppa, while we get on with our work?

Sorry for the essay, but I wanted to share. :D

yours

Jo

xxxxx

Looks like your headline is irresistible, Jo. Have you posted this article on Reddit, yet? You may have to duck when the masses roll in ... 

LOL  Nope.  But just for you, I've just pinned it onto the lovely Treathyl's Wizzley Pinterest board.  Make us a Wizzley sub-reddit and I'll head for the karma there too!

Back to the plot, from your lofty vantage point in front of all those secret overall Wizzley stats, does the above look about right to you too?

You can tell us. We won't tell anyone else. *smirk*

As you said above - Alexa stats are not very accurate.

Google Analytics says:

1.62 pages per visit

1:14 avg. visit duration

84.16 % bounce rate

Not too shabby.

BUT!

This is, of course, measured across the board.

Many of our top pages show stats similar to Alexa's info.

As we continue to remove low-quality content and add more top-quality pages, we will see improvements in our overall stats.

I have noticed my traffic has picked up the last week or so. I mean, it's still probably low for most people's standards, but I've been hitting 100 views for the past few days.

I've noticed most of it is from Wizzley, I just thought it was all of you friendly people here reading my articles :)  I didn't know it could be people coming to the site itself and just browsing around. This is great news!

Thanks for breaking it down for us Jo. I have to admit, it's kind of over my head.

Indeed!  I found this link on my Pinterest group board.

Agree with Chef.  The headline was irresistible.

Your excitement is contagious Jo.

Chef - This probably requires a new forum thread but with respect to "low quality content" removal - how exactly will that be accomplished?

• I'm hoping teeth don't get pulled without pain killers.  Will we be let down gently and given a chance to improve?  (The Squidoo yank and lock process was very painful.  Oh yeah!  I'm calling out their name!)  I find that at first - with all the sites I've tried - I have to learn to use the platform and then progress to learning the tricks of the platform and then I try to make the presentation better and better (hopefully).  So I'm really glad there's an "edit" button!

• I also find that sometimes I'll contact a writer directly because the article is great but something is "missing" - like an image or whatever and they will write back and say they didn't know but they fixed it.

BTW, whenever anybody asks me, I tell them to write for Wizzley.  Someone mentioned their articles keep getting rejected.  (???)  Someone else signed up through me but never published a thing!  (???)  I have not had a bad Wizzley experience.  I like it here!  So to say the traffic is increasing is really not a surprise.  I expected it!  Alexa and/or Google Analytics or any objective traffic measurement supporting my expectations is fabulous!

As far as I can tell, Treathyl, you won't be affected by our clean-up. We're removing old (and old-fashioned) "SEO-content", shallow articles written for keywords and backlinks only.

Whenever we reject articles, it's for good reasons: horrible English, 2nd-Grade sentence structure, keyword stuffing, etc.

Thanks for your support!  

This is really interesting. I had assumed that the Wizzley visitors were the ones inside the community. This is exciting that it's not always the case, because it's the outside traffic we want as well.

Achim - No matter what site I'm on, the Google Analytics stats always seem more muted than everything else. I wonder what their algorithms actually measure. 

I've never read anything assessing their accuracy either.  Do we generally run with that Analytics says, or are there things to factor in, like with Alexa?

As you said, those figures aren't too shabby. They're not WHOA fabulous, like the Alexa ones, but they're still positive.  On average, people are reading more than one Wizzle, and they're not just clicking away the instant they arrive.  We've got them through the door, we just have to work on metaphorically getting them settled on a comfy couch with a nice cup of tea and some decent reading matter.

We write it. You monitor it. Time will do the rest.

Abby - I remember this time last year, all of the veterans were noting that we're into the Christmas rush. The dark nights came in, so people are more likely to sit at their computers reading stuff. Then the holidays mean that they're online looking for presents and decorations too.  I'm assuming that's the same every year, hence me blithely repeating it!

Ordinarily, I would say that Wizzley hits are the authors being friendly. At least that's how I viewed those turning up in my stats. Which is why that Paranormal Activity one threw me. 2.5k unique visitors are less likely to be fellow authors, than they are readers coming to Wizzley and having a good look around.

I doubt very much that they all just turned up to read that one article and leave again. The implication is that those readers originating at Wizzley - for you, me and everyone else - can't now easily be explained away as other writers. 

In short, we're doing great!

Treathyl - Thanks for the Pinterest group board. <3  I'm glad that my excitement is contagious, because (unless I'm totally misreading and/or over-stating the situation) we have a lot to be excited about! 

Thanks as well for having the backs of your fellow writers.  It sounds like you're doing your bit to ensure that the quality of articles on Wizzley remains high.  I know that you've given me the heads up on typos and stuff in the past, and that's always gratefully received.

Go team Wizzley!

Ologsinquito - As I was saying to Abby above, that's what shook me about the Paranormal Activity article. It wasn't that it got the hits, it was the quantity and the source.  To my mind, there is no other explanation, but that Wizzley has attracted a large body of readers now. :D

To answer your question, Jo - yes, we generally run (like headless chickens) with GA.

@Chef - Headless chickens?  That's funny!  I can actually visualize y'all running around too!

Thank you for setting my mind at ease about the QA.  (Quality Assessment.  Not to be confused with GA.) 

The state of Georgia?  Been there!  Lovely place.  I'd definitely run with that.

Nobody runs in GA. They just sit on the porch and eat fried chicken and apple pie.

And sip mint julap and mojitos.  I distinctly remember the mojitos.

Thanks chefkeem, now I have images of hens clucking, and roosters crowing behind the pages of our beloved Wizzley.

This looks very encouraging. I need to time to understand and assimilate the statistics Jo. I will read this again slowly to understand better.

Shout up if you need me to go over something specific.  Or just ask the question and someone here will fill in the blanks.

The short story is that Wizzley's stats are showing signs that the site is doing really, really well.  This is demonstrable in a way that supersedes blind optimism.