Seeing Another Websites Hits?

[Funderbunk]

I want to do some research about the amount of hits webcomics get (specifically comparing older webcomics and newer webcomics) for a school project, is there somewhere or a way that I can check it or do I need to go on and ask them?

[Rob]

Alexa dot com or if your site has project wonderful you can check the stats of any other site that is a member... actually now that I think about it you just have to join project wonderful as an advertiser. You don't have to even have a site of your own.

Those are my best suggestions. But as I've expresses before.... I don't believe in such a thing as hard numbers when if comes to web traffic.

[ShadowsMyst]

Keep in mind as well, that not all sources measure the same amount of hits. Google Analytics, Webalizer and project wonderful all give me very different numbers in terms of hits for my sites. I also used to use statcounter, which gave me another number. Also, hits and visits are not the same, and hits and visits may not equal readership, if that's what you are trying to measure.

A comic that's been advertising might see higher hits for a little while as new visitors go through larger archives, but the actual unique visitors won't spike as sharply. And those people may not stay after the first visit. Also typically comics see a spike on any day they update and a drop off on days they don't.

So just make sure whatever research you are doing, you compare apples to apples in terms of what you actually want to know. If you are trying to determine audiences numbers, I'd suggest asking or checking something like comicrank.com for number of readers. Although not all comics use it. Otherwise, you may have to ask individual comic creators what their approximate numbers are for whatever you choose to compare.

Rob's right about project wonderful though. You can just click the 'advertise here' link and it shows you the amount of traffic in hits for each page for each region the ad is available in. I'm pretty sure you don't even have to be logged in to see that. Its at the bottom left of the ad page.

[Funderbunk]

Well, I got an assignment that goes "we want to promote this, and we know webcomics are super popular, so we want you to make a webcomic" and I question their logic. I am not sure it will help in meeting their goals because popular webcomics generally take years to build their audience. That's pretty much what I want to show.

EDIT: Although that Alexa website is incredibly handy as well. Thanks, Rob.

[Rob]

From more successful friends I've learned that you can scrape a (meager) living off a comic that has around 30-40k unique readers a day. If you manage your business and market your merch and such right. But that's hardly "super popular" and requires a lot of hustling and there are very few comics that hit those numbers before 3-4 years of strips are in the archive.

You'd have to have a lot of luck, cred, contacts or skill in inordinate amounts to just jump into a "super popular" webcomic. Not to say it hasn't been done. Bug is doing amazingly well and has less than a year of strips (and it's in black and white so it's really bucking a lot of trends). But it's pretty far and few between.

[ShadowsMyst]

While webcomics can be used in addition to other things for promotional purposes, it shouldn't be your only or primary strategy. As you have correctly guessed, most comics take at least a year to build a decent audience, and that's assuming you know what you are doing. Depending on what it is you are promoting, there are probably better ways you'll get a quicker response. It also very much depends on what it is you are promoting.

[Funderbunk]

It's pretty much a celtic culture celebration event. Very down to earth and not very technology related at all. It'll take place in June I think.

[ShadowsMyst]

Ah, well event advertising is a little different than product advertising because you've got to get a bunch of people in a single place at a specific time. There's a deadline, and webcomic promotion doesn't work so well with events since it takes years to build a reasonable audience.  (I work in a marketing department that deals a lot with events, so I've got a pretty good idea of how they differ.) Events advertising and webcomics are kind of on two opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of promotion.

One thing to remember about events is people need to be reminded, and reminded frequently about them, getting increasingly frequent towards the actual event day. In today's day and age, as far as event publicity is concerned, you need to collect people's information, either email, facebook or twitter, to remind them of your event. If you don't have a website, a facebook page, and a twitter account for your event, you are shooting yourself in the foot. You should be clear about what your event is, and why people should come. Be concise, short, and sweet. On your website you should have a mailing list sign up and probably a forum so people can ask questions and stay informed. The mailing list will allow you to send out updates and newsletters as well as reminders as the event draws near.

As to where to find an audience, I'm not sure about your area, but you'll want to promote most heavily in the areas closest to the event, probably within 50KM. No one outside that area will probably come, especially if your event is new and relatively unknown. I'd suggest looking at other events in the area, such as renfests, or oither cultural events where you could pass out business cards or fliers encouraging people to go to the site and sign up for a newsletter, or even better, run around with a laptop or Ipad and sign people up on the spot. You should appoint someone in the event staff who's good with twitter to start building an event twitter account, follow other celtic resources, spew celtic facts and interesting articles, get people to follow you, and follow other people who are into celtic stuff as well as other event co-ordinators. This will get you some cross traffic, and promote the facebook page through a like button on the website, and encouraging people to like the page on twitter and in email while you are leading up to the event. You may also want to search around the web for celtic resource or community pages and make them aware of your event. In a non spammy way of course.

Even if your event isn't heavily technologically related, you need to use technology to promote it. Although don't discount clever paper promotional pieces and reaching out to the communities that already exist which may already have an interest in what you are offering.

You want to build hype and excitement around your event and the great things happening there. Focusing around a webcomic and sort of hoping people will come to an event is not really the best use of your time. Although if you can find an EXISTING celtic themed webcomic and get them to maybe mention your event and plug your event webpage, that might be a better use of your time.

[Funderbunk]

Thanks, that allows me to pinpoint a better strategy and helps me create a more solid foundation (professional advice is always a great boon for any project). The thing is, the webcomic is not my idea. The event organizers just approached our school with "hey, we want your students to create us a promotional webcomic for our event" with pretty much no other research, and frankly I think that's kind of dumb. :-X

[ShadowsMyst]

Well at least this gives you some clout going back to the organizers and telling them why its probably not going to help their overall strategy. Its best if they focus their efforts into social media and building relationships with the proper pre-established communities relating to their events. Having some kind of a comic CONTEST might be okay, but there's no point in starting a full blown webcomic.

[Rob]

Then again you could just do it. Do the best comic you can and hope for the best. There's absolutely no harm in trying and they can use the comic in their other marketing efforts to cross promote (and it will be one more thing that will work with all that social media Shadow mentions above).  ;)

[Funderbunk]

Yeah, we mean to discuss it with them. I do love me some webcomics so I figure if they're dead set on it, I can always do it. Also, they want a 3D webcomic. So yay, more practice.

[Elizabeth_Bryant]

There are so many sites like Alexa, site worth traffic, traffic estimate, stats how and calculator web. You can check any of them and in case you are looking for a detailed report, it is better to sign in.