NewCanaanite.com in May achieved its highest-ever single month of website traffic, reaching 134,891 pageviews and 34,357 unique visitors.
Driven by news of a widely anticipated arrest and a story about two New Canaan High School workers who saved a choking student’s life, the total traffic represents a 12.6 percent rise over the prior highest-ever traffic month. That was April 2016, when New Canaanite broke news of the “sundae slinger”—the woman who tossed an ice cream sundae behind the counter at Baskin Robbins after complaining that the dessert had melted by the time her husband brought it home. (Here’s a list of the top-10 most-read articles from all of 2016.)
As owner and editor of the site, I sincerely thank you, our readers for your interest and engagement, and I would like to say ‘Thank you’ also to the local businesspeople that advertise on NewCanaanite.com and make this enterprise possible.
This is a dream job for me, working in my hometown as a reporter. It started as an idea that followed a mass layoff, and in three-plus years it’s become a reality that’s exceeded my expectations and improved my life in many unexpected ways—in no small part thanks to guidance from the nurturing New Canaan Chamber of Commerce.
Many of our readers come to the New Canaanite through a daily Monday-to-Friday newsletter that goes out at 6 a.m. It’s free, local information that’s originally and professionally reported. You can sign up here.
The May 2017 traffic represents a 29 percent increase from the same month one year ago. So far in 2017, traffic is up 3.2 percent overall.
In the month 0f May, 97.5 percent of all traffic came from the United States, according to Google Analytics—the tool shows where readers physically are when reading NewCanaanite.com, not where they reside. Most of those U.S. readers—54.4 percent—were in Connecticut, while 20.8 percent were in New York. Of the Connecticut readers, 33 percent were in New Canaan itself, with 22.8 percent in Norwalk, 9.2 percent in Stamford, 8.7 percent in Westport and 4.4 percent in Wilton. Among New York readers, 65 percent were in New York City itself at the time they read the site. On average, readers spent 1 minute, 43 seconds on NewCanaanite.com per session in May.
Please add your events to our community calendar, list your business in our directory and keep us in mind for news tips. Our next Community Coffee is to be held 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 8 in the art gallery at New Canaan Library.
A month-by-month snapshot of traffic on New Canaanite since our January 2014 launch. Source: Google Analytics
Congratulations on the latest record-setting traffic report, Michael. Your enterprise continues to grow. As you point out, you’ve benefited in many unexpected ways, along with ways that were not so unexpected, or at least not so hoped for. But the town of New Canaan is the primary beneficiary, and has you to thank. Maureen and I are proud to be small contributors to the geographic diversity of your demographics.
Thank you very much, that means a lot. I did not realize Aunt Mo was reading, as well! Hope to see you both soon.