TV show appearance - how does it effect your web site?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-01-13 11:07:45 - Graham EllisWe were told to expect our web site to get busier when we appeared on "Four in a Bed" on Channel 4, but no numbers were put onto what we might expect. Would it be a doubling of traffic? More than that, or less? It was suggested we ensure the site was robust for further traffic though, suggesting that it would be a significant difference.
So - in case it's helpful to others (and for our own later review).
6th to 12th December 2012, Google Analytics:
115 / 121 / 210 - 65 UK, 30 China (of the 121). Peak hour - 6. Peak day - 25 (1.74 pages / visit)
6th to 12th January 2013, Google Analytics:
2821 / 3100 / 10250 - 2925 UK, 24 China, 24 Ireland, 20 USA (of the 3100). Peak hour - 608. Peak day - 1144 (3.3 pages / visit)
The immediate thing that will strike you is how much sparser the second graph is, but that's because the traffic became very much more peaky during the show and so the axes were rescaled. It wasn't a doubling of traffic in the busiest hour - it was a 100 fold increase (6 to 608).
Looking at the other figures (and these comment are also a key as to what they mean:
• Unique visitors up from 115 to 2821 over the 7 day period (24 fold increase)
• Visits up from 121 to 3100 (25 fold increase)
• Pages viewed up from 210 to 10250 (48 fold increase)
The significance of the last result is that people stayed longer - 3.3 pages each, versus 1.74 on average
By country visits show that the traffic in December was 54% (65 of 121) from the UK, and in January that changed to 94% (2925 of 3100). The big pickup was from the UK, but there was also significant growth from Ireland and from the USA. Of the 2925 visits from the UK, 162 were from Scotland, 62 from Wales and 23 from Northern Ireland. The remaining once were mostly from England, with a handful which aren't specified. We do also have stats by town, but they are known to be a bit unreliable and hard to read, so I won't report them here.
Looking at the graphs for the show week, the highest spike was 5pm on Wednesday, which is when the show featuring Well House Manor went out and the half hour following. 2nd highest spike was the result show hour. I was slightly surprised to be looked up significantly even on Monday. And I also note the positive blip on Saturday when the series of 5 was repeated back to back on 4/7. People moved on very quickly though - the curves drop away very quickly after the show hour. Having said that, the peaks are so high that the increased background traffic has been squashed off the diagram!
For comparative purposes, our training business webs site had 22602 visits in the same December week, and 19147 in the week just gone. Peak traffic was 256 visits per hour in the December week and 238 visits per hour last week. Our rail forum attracted 6174 visits in the December week and 7354 visits last week, with peaks of 80 per hour (December) and 82 per hour (last week).
What the graphs above don't show is the activity away from our web site. Comments were made on various forums during the week as the show developed (there are links in my previous article [here], and this exploded on Friday evening. Here are a couple of examples of what was being said:
From Digital Spy - [here]
| Having just read the reviews on Tripadvisor, it seems that the three nice couples have not a single "poor" or "terrible" review. The undeserved winners have 41 awful reviews just for themselves. That speaks volumes. |
From the official facebook page - [here]
| Well house Manor should have won it! I'm Scottish and live not far from Crieff but after watching these 2 from Knock Castle I was ashamed!! They were abs a holes!! Xx |
From our incoming mailbox
What the viewer / social media user doesn't see is the incoming email - which we're delighted to have received; much of yesterday was spent enjoyably sending out responses to dozens of people - here's a flavour of the sort of lovely messages received.
| Hi, Just watched 4 in a bed and you were robbed. I would just like to say if I am ever in your area I will certainly be staying with you. good luck. |
| Just a quick line to say me and my wife watched four in a bed this week and thought that you and Lisa and your hotel was amazing. I am so glad that you stuck up for your hotel at the final table and told the Scottish guys what we were saying sat watching. You and Lisa were very honest with all your views and payments and if we are down your parts anytime we would love to drop by. Be very proud of yourselves and we wish you the very best in the future. |
| Hi Lisa & Graham I have never felt compelled to send an email as a result of a TV programme. However, as a result of watching four in a bed I do. I just wanted to let you know that the two of you we're robbed you certainly were the real winners. You came across as two genuine lovely people who obviously love what you do. Your establishment looks lovely and as some of the other contestants said great value for money. If my husband & I were ever in the area We would not hesitate in making a reservation. Best wishes |
| Just had to say I think your establishment looked beautiful on "four in a bed", some of your other contestants do not know style when they see it obviously, and it does have character and warmth just like yourselves. Doubt I will ever be in that neck of the woods but well done to you on all levels - the winners for me! |
There are indications in some of the emails that other contestants may have been receiving feedback of a different nature, and indeed we've had a couple of suprises including the report that our staff have been selling poor quality weed to customers. Very odd, that, as the reporter gave a room number that we don't have ;-).
Overall, people seem concerned that we may feel battered and bruised by the experience. We don't - we take the knocks and rude comments (and there have been a few) realisically, and we feel that we've enjoyed it, presented ourselves as ourselves. And having the other different contestants has made us new friends, confirmed our own business and business practices, and provided an excellent contrast through the week.