CNL2 ‘Unique Visitors’ Steadily Climbing

UPDATED: Saturday, May 18, 2024: The number of people (Google calls them “unique visitors”) visiting CNL2 in a one-month period has risen to 1,700 — a 21 percent increase from the last time we shared data (see Google Analytics dashboard screen shot above).

Web traffic in news sites tends to look like a roller coaster. As the Google-supplied chart shows, CNL2’s highs grow higher, and the lows also grow higher. This means the base of people getting in the habit of relying on CNL2 for news and information is steadily increasing.

CNL2 has published 100 news videos in the past six months, and the ratio of live video streams has increased. CNL2 has landed in-depth interviews with key community leaders, as well as the head of Washington State Ferries. CNL2 coverage of the arts and the environment is increasing. And CNL2 is about to embark on a series of interviews of large and small local non-profits and service organizations. CNL2 is continuing to pursue the goal of six posts per day, a pace the original CNL maintained for years.

Perhaps CNL2’s proudest statistic is very nerdy, but also very important: average time-on-site. CNL2 has consistently been scoring more than two minutes (2:10 to 2:20) for our average time-on-site. In the online publishing business, that’s a good statistic. And it’s exactly the same time-on-site stat the original CNL in Missouri (2008 to 2013) enjoyed for years.

Time-on-site is a prime way of judging audience engagement. A high ratio of people browse a typical web page and then leave the site without clicking deeper in the site. When a person leaves a website without clicking a second page in the site, that’s called a “bounce.” Bounces are often very short sessions. So to have a time-on-site of more than two minutes means many people are staying far longer than two minutes.

CNL2’s initial target is 10,000 unique visitors (UVs), which was the number of UVs the original CNL served for years. CNL2 projects it will have 5,000 UVs per month by the end of 2024. And long-term, due to the San Juans’ high profile in Western Washington and Southern Vancouver Island, CNL2 hopes to significantly exceed the original CNL’s 10,000 UV-per-month benchmark.

ORIGINAL: April 11, 2024: The number of people visiting CNL2 rose by 140 percent over the past four weeks, according to Google (screen shot above was taken in our Google Analytics dashboard today).

To be sure, 1,400 people is just a start. The original CNL in rural Missouri (2008 to 2013) served 10,000 unique visitors from all over the Midwest for years, based from a town the same size as Friday Harbor.

And with CNL2’s “48th Parallel” strategy, we are scoping out a target market much larger that our Missouri target.

We’ve only just begun.