A recent commentor on my weblog reminded me that I should do an end of the year traffic analysis for my site. I’m a well known data “geek” because I like to find trends in data and just get an overall idea of what, if any, impact what I spend a considerable amount of time writing about here has any impact “out there”.

The results were encouraging thanks to a year dominated by elections – both locally and nationally – and the fact that I carried through on a resolution I made last New Year to post more on my weblog in 2008. I also really tried to focus in a a few issues this year like mass transit and Milwaukee County politics.

While my site is nowhere near what the national blogs see in terms of visitors or traffic, it is encouraging to see that I’ve at the very least picked up a good following and most importantly I’ve been able to do that while focusing mostly on local issues, sometimes having an impact on them. All the while, keeping what is at times lively debate from going in to the gutter as it does on so many other weblogs, which I have all of you to thank for as much as anyone.

October and November were the most highly trafficked months of the year, obviously because of the run-up to the election. October saw 145,000 page views and November saw just under 135,000. November 4th, election day, was also the busiest of the year with 5,000 page views

Overall, I had approx. 1.5 million page views (not “hits”) in 2008, or about 128,000 page views per month, or about 4200 page views per day. As of December 2008, just over 1000 people a day are visiting the site on average, up from about 300/day back in January 2008.

The most popular posts in terms of traffic I wrote this year was also interesting to see. Some of the content on my web site such as the posts about the Sales Tax referendum and where to get Obama yard signs in Milwaukee were each among the top hits on Google for those who were looking for more information, so it was obvious why they were popular. Other content like the recent million dollar web site posts got a lot of attention from traditional media like talk radio and the other blogs.

Most popular of 2008:

• Where to Get Obama Yard Signs in Milwaukee
• Milwaukee Sales Tax Referendum Will Be on the November 4th Ballot
• 1130 WISN-AM Promoting Soft Porn on Its Website; Stay classy WISN 1130
• Wisconsin Sending $1 Million to a Company who doesn’t know the difference between Madison and Minneapolis
• Jay Weber: Poor and Hungry in Milwaukee are a Handout Crowd Looking for Freebies
• Milwaukee County Sales Tax Referendum Passes
• Scott Walkers Dubious Odds for Becoming Next Governor of Wisconsin

Thanks to all of you who come back time and again, especially those who challenge me and work to foster a spirited and productive debate. Here’s to ’09!

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