Site Visit Bingo update!

It has been a really long time since I last did a site visit bingo update so I figured no time like the present! If you're new to the s.v.b. concept - it is something I came up with last year around this time. After being introduced to the amazing data wonderfulness of google analytics (a program that tracks site visits), I decided to make a game out of it and track my progress of all the countries I get views from on my etsy site! I went full boar into the challenge and decided to go for a full out site visit blackout - which - was a little hopeful. I excitingly checked my visits each night when the info from the previous day was updated online and saw as each country filled up! Eventually I lost momentum on the s.v.b as I quickly realized that (1) most of those places I'm still missing are 3rd world/don't have the internet access and (2) they probably don't really speak english so why read my english website....oh well. I have seen a little bit of progress over the last year though, so I thought I'd share my exciting achievement with all of you!

Progress last seen on nov 7th 2009:


Progress as of oct 19th 2010:


Very nice! Looks like my u.s. visits just keep going up (woo hoo!) and I've managed to make some substantial progress in south eastern europe and asia! Plus I've snagged a few more countries in south america and (the ever challenging) africa! Fun! Perhaps one day my map will reach blackout..until then I'll keep appreciating the wonders of google analytics and keep trying to make my etsy shop as good as I can! It does leave me wondering - anyone else out there go mad over data?

Conquered!

It only took 47 days of tracking but I did it! I got a blackout of the united states in google analytics site visit bingo! (Back story here). New Hampshire sure was tricky - but at long last - completion! Success!


Now to work on the rest of the world...

Come on New Hampshire!

So close! Come on New Hampshire! Check out my etsy site already...please?


(Oh, and if you don't know what I'm talking about read this)

Bingo Update

Since I haven't updated in a while I thought I'd quickly discuss my minor gain on the ultimate site visit bingo blackout front! I've been picking up a few countries in Eastern Europe and Western Asia as well as perpetual gain in the United States. Take a peek at the data goodness:

Progress last seen on Oct 23:


Progress as of Nov 7:

I was really hoping to fill up those blank countries faster but with the whole, "most of those places are 3rd world/don't have the internet access" in addition to the probable "they don't really speak english so why read my english website" thing I was destine to lose a little momentum. *sigh*

But in other news, I've discovered when you click on the "ever popular with my etsy site" US, it shows you which states have visited my site (verses all the other countries that just show you cities) and I'm only 5 states away from blackout there! Bonus!


Hooray! More minor success! But it does beg the question - what is it about California that makes it account for 10% of all my site visits from the entire world? Seriously - any ideas?

Hooray for Africa!

Not too long ago, why just yesterday in fact, I spilled the juicy details of site visit bingo and pined about my lack of territory conquest in Africa. Well pining no more. Thanks to one wonderful random in Stellenbosch, I've had visitors from every continent! (Um..well, the highly populated non-frozen ones google analytics tracks at least...). Hooray!


As you can tell, I'm pretty darned excited! Oh, and a little surprised on how fast that was. Now to try to get that ultimate site visit bingo blackout...but chances are that will take substantially longer...I'll keep you posted.

Site visit bingo!

As previously discussed, I have been spending quite the amount of time racking up the chart and graph data goodness google analytics has so kindly bestowed on me. Well, for the last few days I've been paying particular interest to that map that tells you where your site visitors are from. I mean how cool is it that you can actually see what areas of the world have checked out my geekery on etsy? and in such a nicely colour coded manner! Oh my!

So it's got me thinking - wouldn't it be fun to see how long it takes to get visitors from every country? Maybe I could start with every continent before I go for the full-out site visit bingo blackout, but still, a girl can dream. In the meantime, check out my sweet progress from the last ten days:

Progress as of October 13th:


Progress as of October 23rd:


I feel like my geography 390 prof (Tom Waldichuck) who excitedly ran back and forth to the slide projector to point out minor differences between pictures. Woo! In all honestly, I am most stoked that I finally got a visit from Russia. Sure tiny European countries are great and all, but Russia great? That's hard to compete with. I've contemplated developing some actual tactics to provoke visits for the ultimate site visit bingo blackout, but that feels dishonest. I think this needs to be a more natural process. Unless of course any of you have friends in Africa dying for a new site to check out...it's ok...I won't say anything.

More adventures in internet addiction

Lately I've been spending a lot of time searching through etsy's storque how-to's with the dual purpose of 1) the eternal strive to perfect my etsy shop and 2) gaining useful knowledge to share with my dear friend lindsay who is about to dive into the ambitious world of etsy selling! There are some pretty sweet helpful tidbits of awesomeness in there, hence their creation I'm sure.

Amidst all the wonderful online reading I discovered my most sleep depriving addiction yet - google analytics. Who knew google had such an amazing program that tracks site usage! I set it up for my etsy site and blog and have been consecutively staying up until midnight each night just so I can see how popular my sites were that day (right down to what pages were browsed, where the traffic came from, how long they spent there, and where in the world they came from). So cool! Best of all, all the lovely data goodness is displayed in pretty clickable charts and graphs! Seriously, the data is gorgeous, free, and completely insightful. Sweet deal. Here's a nice sample of the map overview of visitors from the last few days on my etsy site. I know, I'm drooling.


Although this discovery seems like a blessing, I'm starting to think it's going to drive me to insanity. Not only has it cut back on my precious (and integral to the health of my poor compromised immune system) sleep time, but now that I can actually see what is and isn't popular on my sites and have to confront the fact that a few things aren't actually popular. Sure I still love each and every part of what I create, but is a mother's love really enough? Isn't the whole perk of online selling how much easier it is to deal with online rejection verses actual rejection? *sigh* Deep breath. Now, only 23 more hours until I can see how popular this posting is...