AntGalvin’s Blog

I have discussed in a previous post how impressed I was with Ben Huh of lolcats fame at the Future of Web Apps expo. Ben runs a ‘farm’ of websites, all of similar formats, revolving around straightforward user generated content. Nothing slick, all very simple. All highly successful. His most recent website focuses on politics and already has 125,000 page views a day. His farm of sites makes up 10% of the total traffic received by WordPress.com – A phenomenal statistic when you consider how many blogs are hosted there.

He made a point regarding his sites’ users that hit home with me immediately. Very candid and upfront, he didn’t shy away from giving us numbers on his site’s success. (Always easier when you are success).

Ben broke his site visitor’s into four catgeories.

1. 50% of the visitors to his site never come back again. Get over it.

2. 45% of his visitors are occasional visitors, once a week or once a month.

3. 4% are Fans who check regularly for new content.

4. 1% are obsessives.

He had a great description of the obsessives – If you site went down for a month, they would be back on it within 10 minutes of it coming back up.

I know those users – They have been an immense help to us with our own site. If a problem occurs, they are on the phone to us to let us know. I would guess that they comprise about 1% of our audience too. They provide us with most of our user feedback, and are the first and most prolific when it comes to suggestions.

This is a problem.

Ben pointed out that to grow our site, we must start converting those people in the other segments. Regular users into Fans. Fans into Obsessives.

We have been talking to the wrong people.

I’ll get back to you on our efforts to identify and talk with those not on the obsessives list. Its not such an easy task – For one we run the risk of pissing off those who we have already established regular lines of communication with.

But we must face facts, running a website and improving it is not about one to one communication. If we are to grow, we must become invisible to our users. We need to provide them with the means of sharing experiences with each other, not with us. When we have done this, we stand a chance.