Considering that a recent study shows a vast majority of the people in the United States are concerned about global warming, it is not surprising that environmental websites are also seeing an uptick in interest. Compete.com, an online market research firm who’s research is powered by millions of people who share their online behavior by installing a toolbar has been following trends in the renewable energy website world. It all started with a rather interesting new years resolution for a marketing firm.
Today is the day we all decide to become better people. It’s the day we take inventory of our lives and decide on one thing we can change to improve our health/happiness/career/etc. Today is when we declare our New Year’s resolution.
At Compete we have decided to help Mother Earth. After watching An Inconvenient Truth – a film by Al Gore explaining the dangers of the rising planetary climate – the picture became very clear – as a society we need to change.
The film affected many of us and many of us have begun altering aspects of our lives to help protect the planet, but we all need to make small adjustments. The problem is that not enough people are being reached with the right information.(via)
They wanted to know a lot more about green-website traffic, with the help of our fiend Keith over at The Earth Blog, they compiled a list of 125 green websites (The Sietch included) and they have been following the stats of these sites in order to see if there is a ground swell in the online green movement. They found some interesting results.
A 15% growth in aggregate unique visitors over last January is certainly a marked improvement, but with UV totals for this January just over 3 million for 125 sites, these aren’t Earth-saving numbers. Spurred on by the release of An Inconvenient Truth and now its Oscar win, the topic of global warming has been a popular one this past year, but with an increase of less than 400,000 unique visitors, all the fanfare doesn’t seem to be producing a proportional move to action.
There is reason for optimism though:
- These sites appear to be getting stickier: this January saw a 25% growth in sessions and a 59% growth in page views as compared to the same time last year
- Treehugger, a site I have been seeing everywhere recently, had 70% growth in unique visitors over last January
- I have replaced all the light bulbs in my apartment with energy-saving bulbs – every little bit helps
These growth rates aren’t breaking records, but it is encouraging to see the environmentally conscious movement gaining some momentum.(via)
So they are guardedly optimistic about the future of the online green movement. There findings mirror my own numbers. The number of people visiting The Sietch has been going up rapidly over the last couple of months, we are seeing a 40X increase in the number of unique visitors over last year. Currently we are on track to see 40,000+ unique visitors this month, last year for all of March we had 1329 unique visitors (The Sietch was a lonely place back then).
Here is how Compete.com ranks The Sietch: (remember they only measure American visitors and only the 2 million people who have their toolbar installed)
Here is how they measure The Sietch Compared to several other green sites:
And here are how some of the “big players” are doing:
As you can see the traffic is all generally going up over time.
Personally I think a lot of the green websites out there today focus on the “light-green” market. They target eco-friendly products, eco-fashion, Ecorazzi even covers the green celebrity scene. These sites deal with a lot of things, but the science of global warming and renewable energy is not something they cover very often or in much depth. The real reason I think what I am going to call “dark-green” eco-sites (ones that cover a lot of science, technology and politics) are not as popular is that the science of global warming can be a pretty depressing topic. Even with a regular dose of good news, its not as interesting (or pretty) to learn about the various ways to create ethanol, as it is to see how green Leo DiCaprio is living, or the newest cool eco-friendly design for high end fashion.
I would like to send out a big thank you, to you, and everyone else that has visited The Sietch. Its you that make this space special, Thank You.
People visit you site because there’s good content here.
You’re right: there’s a hunger for solid information about sustainability and the environment. Bring it on — it’s time for change!
Keep up the good work. ;-)
I was thinking, could it be that the increase is due to the fact that many of these green sites are new and on the rise? Not sure, but I like the point you’re making about light and dark green websites. My wife receives a magazine (to be unnamed) that had a prominent green issue. She’s green-minded, but the magazine totally turned her off because of the way it was being approached. There’s no real control mechanism, so we need to hope that the movement stays grounded and doesn’t fizzle out as a tired trend.
Keep up the good work Sietch!
The assimilation of “green” into mainstream America’s web-surfing behavior is pretty complex. We at altcon are green with a lighter skew, but have a great affection and appreciation for our “darker” brethren. Change takes many forms, from the purchase of a hemp Kangol to the study and implementation of solar concentrators. It’s all good.
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I think all these different green sites play a very important role. I hope I didn’t imply that one is better than the other. Each will play its part in moving the people of this country and the world towards a much greener future. I have said before there is no silver bullet to solve these problems, we need silver buckshot. Hitting every part of the problem at the same time from different points of view.
I will for sure check out lighter foot step, jetson green, and altcon, thanks for the tips :)