2023 was another banner year for the Fleet Society with increases in almost every major category of analytics. Here’s a summary of the improvements that members enjoyed and the impact it had on the site and its growth throughout the year.
Website Analytics
In 2023, the 1715 Fleet Society website saw more than 15,000 new and active visitors to the site which is akin to more than 1,000 new viewers learning about the Fleet each and every month! Each one of those new users viewed, on average 6 web pages. Usually, they found our site by searching for things like “lost treasure,” “sunken treasure,” “1715 Fleet,” and other associated fleet-related terms. What is truly amazing is that nearly 93% of those users interacted with us in some way beyond just passively viewing the site, including following our social media channels, commenting on the site, joining us at in-person and virtual events, or responding to emails, etc.
You can see in the charts above that the traffic is fairly consistent, showing a solid base of return viewers and sustained traffic all year long.
The vast majority of users are visiting from the United States, but we do have viewership from other countries such as Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, and Spain. Our users browse the site mostly on Apple and Windows devices, which is fairly normal as those two types of devices are the most prominent in the market.
We continue to be viewed by mobile devices (about 60% of our traffic) far more often than desktop, as has been the trend over the past five years. Tablet usage is increasing and we even have a few views from connected Smart TV’s! Who knows, maybe in a year or two, we’ll have some traffic coming from the new Apple Vision Pro or other virtual reality devices! Just imagine the cool things you’ll be able to do with the Society’s amazing imagery!
The top pages that drew new visitors in 2023 were the following:
- History of the 1715 Fleet Society
- History of the Real Eight Company
- The 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet
- The 1715 Fleet Newsletter
In total, the Fleet Society generated 20,052 total sessions and over 88,000 page views this year, which is an increase of almost 30% year over year. Nearly 70% of those views found us organically, which means they searched online or through their browser’s or phone’s voice search feature and selected our site out of all the options. This is a credit to the Society for creating such interesting and compelling material all year long, and for which keeps readers coming back.
One area perhaps where we can improve is with new user retention. The analytics indicate we’re doing a great job of getting noticed by new users, but we can always do more to continue engaging them later in their journey. You can see in the chart below that users engage with us more heavily in their first 3 days of finding out side. Then, their engagement starts to wane about a week after their first visit.
You’ll be happy to know we’re planning some website design and function changes that will mitigate this and continue to engage, and provide a platform for even more activity, amongst our users. As we get closer to releasing that functionality, we’ll likely ask for a few beta testers and hope our most ardent members will answer the call and be the first to test the new functionality! If you’d like to sign up to be a beta tester, please fill out the form below and we’ll add your name to the list. Beta testers must be Fleet Society members. If you’re not a member yet, please check out the membership options here.
Social Analytics
In 2022 and 2023 we implemented and expanded usage of our social media channels. We averaged around 4 social posts per month (about 1 per week) on each of the social networks where we post, including Facebook, Instagram, and X. At the moment, these are the world’s most popular social media channels so we can make sure our incredible Fleet imagery is displayed in the highest resolution to the most people as possible. That’s more than 150 social posts promoting the 137 new articles and newsletter posts we published throughout 2023 on the 1715 Fleet Society Website.
If you haven’t joined us on social yet, take a moment to click the links above and say hello!
In the meantime, we’re going to keep creating the stories, articles, images, and content we know you all love!
Stay tuned for more, and thanks again for a great 2023!
