We’ve finished our fourth month with UTBA, and it has been a month full of changes. After promising non-review content since the beginning, we finally added it. We’re starting with press releases and interviews, but may one day expand even further to other types of content. We’ve also made radical changes to the layout of the site. Finally, there are new widgets on the main page where you can contribute to UTBA’s web site maintenance, browse new reader comments, and see advertisements and promotions for exciting future projects.
Visitors
Compared to April, May’s web site traffic was approximately the same. We had a slight increase in the number of visitors (1,322, which is up 2.16%), but a slight decrease in the number of web site visits (2,388—a 2.45% decrease). The number of pageviews is down significantly (just 6,612 in May), but this may be due to the easier navigation with the new web site design (because it now takes fewer clicks to browse around the site content). Average time spent on the UTBA web site is approximately the same—2 minutes and 36 seconds.
The most popular reviews for May are Hale Centre Theatre’s The Three Musketeers, the Academy of Performing Arts’s The Little Mermaid, Plan B’s And the Banned Slammed On, Ramona Quimby at The Children’s Theatre, and—finally—Wasatch Theatre Company’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone. I am surprised by the diversity that these five shows represent; they show that the Wasatch Front offers a healthy mix of amateur and professional shows and a wide variety of styles and genres.
In May, 73.7% of our visits came from people in Utah, which is lower than before. The other states in the top 5 were Texas, California, New York, and Colorado, which combined provided 11.3% of visits. In total, we received visits from 38 states, the District of Columbia, and 26 foreign countries during April.
Consistent with past months, Salt Lake City has provided us with the most visits from within Utah to the web site (41.9%), with Provo (14.0%), Orem (11.9%), Midvale (9.1%), and Springville (5.1%), also in the top 5. These were the same five cities that gave us the most visitors for the previous three months, too. Just like last month, our visits from outside Salt Lake and Utah counties continue to increase. The month of May saw our first visits from towns like Delta, Vernal, Blanding, and Manti.
UTBA readers keep coming back to the site. 52.7% have previously visited UTBA and Visitor loyalty continues to rise. 55.2% of UTBA visits are from people who have been to the site before and over half of those have visited at least 15 times since the site started.
Sources of traffic
Just like April, Google was the top source of web site traffic this past month, providing 37.9% of web site visits. Direct traffic (bookmarking or typing in the site’s address) provided 24.9% of visits, while Facebook provided 17.5%. For the first time ever, Twitter was a major source of web site traffic (6.4%); email links (3.6%) were the fifth largest contributor of UTBA web site traffic.
The pattern of traffic we’re seeing at UTBA is encouraging to us. We’re building a strong following all over the state and filling a vital niche in the theatre community for both artists and patrons. You can help by spreading the word about UTBA to others, becoming a reviewer (especially if you live north of Salt Lake County or outside of the Wasatch Front), advertising your production with us, commenting on site content, donating to UTBA site maintenance, or informing us of interesting news from the state’s theatrical community. Most importantly, we’d just like you to keep coming back to the site and reading our content.
