Following the usual summer/winter lull in July and August (where hits to the English Raven site drop to a little under 100,000 per month), I confess to being pleasantly surprised with the numbers presented for September...
Half a million hits so far. And September ain't close to over yet.
But this got me to thinking: what exactly did I do that brought so much visitation to the site this month?
All I can really think of are newish things I haven't done a lot of for the site in the past, and those things are:
- Added a lot of fresh resources (as well as a refreshed interface)
- Really leveraged the power of social media across blog, Facebook and Twitter to get the word out there about things being added to the site
- Created something in the way of an interface between both the site and the blog in terms of making and explaining ELT materials
- Made much better use of YouTube to add audio-visual components to many of the resource pages
- Brought my son (affectionately known as English Raven Jnr) into the fold as a partner and participant, something he loves being part of and whom site visitors obviously take to given that (a) I maintain a site for teaching children and (b) he's just naturally charming and talented!
- Added a lot of free (and open source) stuff
- Added interactive components for several resources that allow learners to practise directly online (an interesting direction I've wanted to explore for a long time now: making English Raven a potential destination for learners as well as teachers)
- Perhaps just got lucky during what is (based on 10 years of site traffic to compare to) often a boom month for the site as teachers head back to classrooms for a new term
In any case, it looks like ER is in for a booming last quarter to the year (October has always been a massive month for visitation to the site).
Why post about it?
Believe it or not, for anyone out there looking at making and distributing their own ELT materials online, I thought this experience might be helpful to pass along... It's no longer a matter of making worksheets and flashcards and posting them on a members-only portal. Teachers are using different avenues to find their teaching ideas and materials and they (seem to?) expect to find different things on offer when they arrive somewhere.
Interesting to observe and think about!
:-)
