In the right-hand sidebar there’s list of TheSupercargo.com’s top of the pops – my most popular posts. (If you are reading this on a computer or a tablet, that is. If you’re reading on a phone you’ll have to scroll down.) During 2020, the list has shown the ten posts that attracted most visitors in 2019, and they were all written in 2018 or earlier. With the New Year coming up I want to change the list. From January 2021 it will show the top five posts published in 2020 and the top five from earlier years.
How do I know what are my top of the pops? I’m glad you asked.
🙂
Google Analytics
TheSupercargo.com is connected to a Google Analytics account which collects visitors’ statistics for me. (To learn what statistics and how the are collected visit my website’s Privacy Policy.) During TheSupercargo’s year off in 2019, I closed the Google Analytics account down. Foolishly, I forgot to re-open it when I started posting here again at the beginning of this year. I remembered, thank goodness, in April. But it means my numbers are incomplete for the year. Still, those stats I did manage to collect made interesting reading. (Interesting for me at any rate.)
Google’s statistics require a deal of interpretation. They count all the times someone, or something, has visited a page on the website. But one has to look at the time visitors have spent on a particular page, because webbots, benign or malicious, make up the bulk of one’s visitors. Human visitors, though, are the ones who stay and spend time reading or looking at the different posts. (At least, that’s what I hope is happening.)
About Uncumber, Accra and Far flung writing
I published 52 posts last year. Using Google’s statistics I find ten of 2020’s posts have been opened by 384 visitors who spent an average of about 7½ minutes with each one. The most popular post from last year, published last year, is Princess Uncumber – a retold tale from April. People have opened it roughly 15 times a month since I published it, and on average they spent 4¼ minutes reading it. More than 100 readers. I’m very pleased.
The second and third placed posts haven’t garnered nearly as much attention. On the other hand they’ve only been up on the site for a couple of months. Flying to Accra in 1964 and 2018 and Far flung writing: telling stories from a distance have both been opened around 40 times each. Readers each spent around 4½ minutes Flying, but Far flung was open for about 9 minutes on average for each visitor.
About death, tragedy, loss … and a Happy New Year!
The website has a lot of posts from earlier years and some of these are still popular. The top ten among my older posts attracted 855 visitors who spent an average of just under 6 minutes on each one.
The older post that attracted the most visitors overall was a photo-essay from May 2017. Just over 130 people visited In the Dieweg Cemetery. Perhaps because it is mostly photos visitors only stayed for an average of just under 3 minutes each. On the other hand, my post about The Gothenburg disco fire – 20 years on had 132 “unique page views” last year and the average visitor had it open for about 5 minutes.
The longest average time visitors spent on one of my older posts was 9 minutes. This was Isidora: the city she lost, another of my stories. Only 24 readers opened this post, so it’s not one of my more popular, but still, 9 minutes. I hope that means the 24 readers liked it, enjoyed visiting it and found the language appealing and the ideas thought provoking.
Given that my stats for 2020 are incomplete, I think I’ll revise the “most popular posts” links later in 2021. At the end of April, perhaps when there will be a full set of 12 months. For now, though, here below are both the new top tens.
And… here’s hoping for a happier, healthier 2021 for us all.
