25 November 2011
With the summer season well and truly behind us, it’s interesting to look back at the traffic trends on the British Cycling website.
Powered by a growing membership and driven by our new look calendar and results sections, traffic (page impressions – i.e. the number of pages viewed on the site) from January 1 to the end of 24 November 2011 was up over 50% on the same period of 2010.
Calendar traffic, in particular was well up, with a rise of over 100% in traffic viewing upcoming events. The related national rankings section saw an increase of 24%.
Backed by a strong and consistent membership marketing drive, traffic on the site’s membership pages, including the new member dashboard, was up over 70%. This, of course, also reflected the growth of the organisation's membership, which went through the 40,000 mark during 2011.
But it wasn’t just the events, rankings and membership sections of the site which saw a rise in traffic. The editorial sections, which include news, race reports and features also saw healthy growth: the Road Racing pages attracted over 30% more visitors in 2011, Track Racing was up 49%, and Cyclo-Cross was up 34%, with other editorial theme areas showing similar growth.
An improved race reporting service, involving the Snowdons agency, meant an increase in race reports posted on the site, with the emphasis being on same-day reporting on as many races as possible. For example, over the mid-season months of June and July, the number of race reports posted for Road Races was up by 39% with a marked improvement in the percentage up and on the site on the day of the race.
Major events received greater depth and speed of coverage than ever before: a combination of regular updates of the main race report and supportive tweeting saw traffic on the National Men’s Road Championship report up by a remarkable 225% on the 2010 figure. Similarly, the National XC Mountain Bike championship report, which employed the same reporting methods, saw traffic up 120%.
With more exciting changes to the site planned for 2012 and a continued commitment to covering your sport and providing the essential event info (including increasing availability of online-entry), rankings, results and reports, we are optimistic that this growth will continue and we’d like to thank the many contributors to the site for their help through the 2011 season. And, of course, our thanks also go to our many readers. We look forward to your continued company in 2012.
