Looking Back: 2012 Blog Analytics and "Media Kit"

Just to give in to a request by an online friend on why Tutubi commented that Facebook is more of a marketing tool for blogs but it's not really effective in giving you the more important thing needed by a blog: traffic!

This blog does not have the numbers when it comes to Facebook page followers nor Twitter nor RSS feed subscribers but there's one thing here that advertisers and affiliates see under the hood, something readers don't see unless you monitor the blog's statcounter numbers daily:

herewith are the web analytics from January 1 to December 31, 2012 from Google Analytics:

Google Analytics for 2012 showing visitor traffic

Google Analytics for 2012 with 2.4 million pageviews for 2012

Blog Statistics:

Total visits for 2012: 1,638,038 visitors
Total pageviews for 2012: 2,408,763 pageviews
Average monthly pageview: 200,000
Average monthly visitors: 120,000 visits
Average daily pageviews: 6,000
Average daily visitors: 4000
Average daily returning visits: around 700 (per Statcounter)

Highest visits: 224, 423 visitors (april, peak in Holy Week)
Highest pageviews: 327843 pageloads (april, peak in Holy Week)
Lowest traffic month: December where visitors and pageviews drop around 50%

Adsense revenue: of course this is confidential, please note that it's only around august/september when the site was fully optimized for adsense that resulted to 30% more revenues without increase in traffic (thanks mucho Google). This is the reason why there has been no major template re-design here (besides Tutubi's dysfunctional motor system syndrome)

Now to support the claim that Facebook is next to useless (for now) here are the numbers:

Number of published blog posts: 930
number of Facebook page likes: 2,592 (since September 2011)
number of Twitter followers: 221 (since September 2011)
RSS feed subscribers: 434
Google Reader followers: 73

these numbers above are paltry compared to other travel bloggers but if you look at the actual traffic generated by facebook, even facebook likes on the facebook page do not guarantee the actual post as read by people.

In fact, Facebook users only click Like on a facebook post but do not actually visit/read the promoted post!

In numbers, Facebook referrals out of 2.4M visits for 2012 is only around 11,000. Google is still is this blog's best friend followed by Yahoo! Top blog referrals came from Flipnomad and Chyng Reyes (thanks).

Something more must be done to improve the likes and traffic from FB, but looking at other bloggers with more than 10k or even 20k followers on FB but traffic, gauged from Pinoy Top Blogs, is still too low, is discouraging. (By the way, do you have an idea why Tutubi opted out of Pinoy Top Blogs? :)

Getting more FB likes and Twitter followers is nice to have though and improves the "media kit" image besides having a more solid "Digital Influencer" status

Anyway, blogging is just a distraction for Tutubi, something he does in his (very limited) free time...and he doesn't like to be called names nor wants to be famous thus his still being a private but not anonymous blogger.

Looking forward for more explorations (and less post backlogs) in 2013!