Just today, Fuji X Weekly surpassed the 10,000,000 page view mark for 2023! Amazing! This is an unbelievable milestone.
Specifically, 2.3 million visitors (it’s projected to reach 2.4 million by the end of the year) have viewed over 10 million pages and articles on this website this year. That’s a lot of visitors, and a lot of page views! I broke this down not very long ago, and the number of actual regular readers is nowhere near 2 million. Still, nearly two-and-a-half million visitors viewing over 10 million pages in one year is just incredible, well beyond anything I ever thought possible! I’m stunned by it.
Looking at all-time stats—from when this blog began in 2017 through today—over 6.5 million visitors have viewed 29.5 million pages (sometime in January it will surpass the 30 million mark). Over 1/3 of those visitors and page views happened in 2023. Interestingly, visitors increased by about 30% from 2022, while page views increased by 25%, which means each visitor viewed fewer pages in 2023 than 2022. A few different things could cause this, and I’ll have to dig more deeply to see if there’s something that I should be doing better. There’s always room for improvements, and I’m constantly trying to do a little better as I learn new things and gain more experience.
Most people visit this website for Film Simulation Recipes. Those are always the most popular articles. The Kodachrome 64 Film Simulation Recipe is by far the all-time most viewed, with double the views of second place: Vintage Kodachrome (which has been around for twice as long). I write about a variety of topics (mostly related directly to Fujifilm, but sometimes just photography in-general), but (with a few exceptions) those articles that are not about Recipes tend to not get a lot of attention compared to the Recipe posts.
One more note that I want to discuss: I’m back to having ads. After my expenses for running Fuji X Weekly increased earlier this year, I experimented with one ad company, but had an absolutely awful experience with them. It lasted a few months, and then I pulled the plug. I’m just now trying a new company, and so far am having a much better experience; however, I’m concerned about your experience. Please let me know if the ads are detrimental to your use of the website or are causing frustrations. I’m doing my best to keep them minimal, opting for an optimized user experience (within all of the options that the ad company provides). There’s a limit to what they’ll allow me to do (I’ve already had to fight for some things), but if there is something that they do allow that I can do, if it makes the user experience better (or, with regards to ads, less worse), then I’m happy to do that. So I guess I’m asking for your feedback. Please speak up if the ads are causing you problems. I can’t guarantee that I can fix or change it, but if I can I certainly will.
No issues with ads from my end as I use ad blockers. I wouldn’t have even known there were ads here if you hadn’t mentioned it.
Oh, interesting. Which ad blocker do you use? That would make visiting certain websites much more enjoyable… 🤣😀
Congratulations from France my friend… good work is always rewarded 😉
No problem with ads… but have you ever thought about sponsors? It could help you continue to develop your universe with companies you like, and you could share their good work with us.
Yeah, I’ve only had conversations with one company (a camera store you’ve most likely heard of) about the possibility of sponsorship. So far nothing has come of it. Previously, I had conversations with another camera store (that you’ve likely heard of, too) about collaborations (not sponsorships), and some progress was made with that, but it suddenly ended for reasons I have no idea about. I’ve also had collaboration talks with a photography-related gear maker (if that’s even a good description) that so far hasn’t materialized into anything, but I’m still hopeful. Otherwise, there has been no interest (that I’ve seen) in anyone sponsoring anything on Fuji X Weekly. I’m definitely open to it if the company is a good fit, but companies don’t appear interested. I appreciate your kindness and encouragement!
Well, so much for the Ad blockers… Google said that I had three more attempts of blocking them and they’ll block the player for me. 😛 SO I had to let that go and activate also their advertising on my blog to “pay” for the free hosting. I got no gains for years. Anyway, advertising on your site is ok for me, the only thing that is annoying is the video player that appears in the right-down corner, it slows the web page for me (my laptop is modest). I close it and then all is ok
Thanks for the feedback! I haven’t yet found a way to disable the video-player ad, but I asked the company if it can somehow be removed; however, they’ve yet to get back with me.
Congrats! I don’t mind ads within the text and pages but I despise ones that popup covering a portion of the screen requiring to close them.
Thanks for the feedback! I’m attempting to minimize the ads as much as possible… I’m waiting to find out if I can remove the video player pop-up ad (it doesn’t seem possible, but I’ve made the request).
That would be great, that is one that is bit annoying. Though it won’t prevent me from coming to your site regularly since I’m already hooked on your content.
I haven’t heard back from them (I’m guessing because of the holidays). But if it is possible to remove, it will get removed. Thanks!