The lovely people at WordPress make sure every user can see exactly how their blog/site is performing by sending out an annual summary of the posts, visitors and numbers from all around the world.
If you came to any of the SGN launch events in late 2013, you’ll have heard that one of the key goals for the network is to increase transparency and visibility, to make sure everyone knows what’s going on and what the network is up to.
In addition, the website is the key component in phase one of the plans for the SGN in 2014, so exploring how it’s performed as a part-time grass roots effort is an important benchmark.
So, here’s the rundown of the site in 2013. The last year, we hope, it’s been run as a part-time, one-man, zero investment effort…
In 2013 the SGN site, which has been a community for Scotland’s games sector to date, received over 180,000 visitors and we had our busiest year ever in terms of posts, with 325 new stories going live over the course of the year.
The most popular posts were, unsurprisingly – or maybe surprisingly – those about Minecraft. As soon as the team at 4J Studios mentioned an update, the entire Internet, or that part of it which is <18yo and has access to Minecraft, descended upon us and drove numbers through the roof.
And we’re growing globally, with visitors from nearly every country, including Syria, Uzbekistan, Suriname and Myanmar. So a big hello to our international readers!
The network itself continues to be distributed across all of the most popular social networks. Visitors came to the site from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – in that order. Then from the major gaming websites including VG247 (massive thanks to Mr Dave Cook on that front) and the team at Rock Paper Shotgun (which is odd, given their focus on PC games and the make-up of the games released by Scottish companies in 2013).
So, for everyone who’s posting their own news on the SGN Facebook group – you’re missing the largest part of the community. You can pretty much quadruple your audience with a post on the main site, which is shared across ALL of the social channels…
This is all organic growth, with a focus purely on the industry as it exists in Scotland and driven almost exclusively by news updates. With a more global, external focus, a greater variety of editorial content and some actual honest-to-goodness marketing, the next year could be even more exciting.
So tell your friends. Keep the news coming in. Make sure the SGN knows what you are up to and we can make Scotland a real shining beacon of wonder in the global games industry.
You can read the whole summary here. Enjoy!
Questions or comments, feel free to share.
Happy new year.
