I have mixed results in the prediction game. My Lewandowski sources turned out to be wrong; he’s not running. To incentivize traffic, I said we wanted to beat WMUR’s Alexa rank by Christmas, but after more research, it may take years to get close.
Christmas 2024?
We need to build a much broader national base to compete with Hearst media. And when thinking about it, the top 10,000 websites domestically are not going to roll over or make the sorts of mistakes that will make it easier for us to move up. But we’re still moving up.
In September of 2018, we launched Grok 3.0. In 2019 we saw a 540% increase in total page views over the previous year. It is why we were cemented into the top two domestically for NH online print media and got all the way to number one.
We surpassed every newspaper’s online footprint in New Hampshire, Vermont, most of Maine, and more than a few online media footprints in Massachusetts.
If we want to do better, we need to do more and better.
What does that look like?
Our largest demographic opportunity is the 18-35 age group. That means younger writers and more audio and video with a passable if not improved mobile delivery service. I’m not sure how we get there from here. I have been fishing for young Republicans who share the conservatarian worldview. If you know any, who can write (do short political video or podcasting) and will do it to get the practice and the exposure, send them my way.
The biggest video issue we have is sound quality. We are working on that, but it will continue to dog us. Boring town hearing video can be worth watching if you can hear it. We’re still dancing with that devil. The same applies to any event media. We should avoid sharing content that burns the brand and the medium as a vector for growth but that’s a hard call to make when someone spent hours trying to make it work.
We need to more interviews and breaking news and interviews on breaking news. It is a huge opportunity. Recording a comment from elected officials or activists when something happens locally or nationally. We have the technology; we need to use it. Weekly. I’m on that, I think.
Polling. We need to do more of this even though it will never be scientific.
Better headlines and stronger hooks with well-written content that rewards readers. This is a skill you have to want to learn and make time to learn. Hobby bloggers looking to vent may not have a lot of time, but I’m working on this myself and encouraging others to do the same.
Building out the microgroks and tuning them toward local issues. They exist as a platform for local conservatives and republicans in their respective towns and regions. Like everything else, they need content creators committed to covering local issues a few days a week. Every week.
Your ideas? What would you like to see us do? Again, feel free to email me suggestions.
We’d love to add a half-million new users in 2020. That would push page views well past the 3 million mark, possibly 3.5-4 million for the year. A tall order, but if you don’t aim high you won’t come close.
We’re aiming high. Let us know how you think we can get there and please share us with anyone you feel would benefit from the product.
And, as always, thank you for reading.
