Metal Building Article: Here We Grow Again

First let me say that the statistics I'm using here are calculated by LiveStats software which analyzes the traffic logs for MetalBuilding.com. I understand that different statistics software handle such logs differently and may return varying results. While you may have a preferred software for web analysis, these numbers are certainly useful for benchmarks and year-to-year comparisons. They also help to create a profile of the online metal building community. Please forgive me if I do some rounding here and there to make the numbers easier to digest.

2002 traffic here at MetalBuilding.com increased by a whopping 100,000 users to almost 240,000, a 76% increase from 2001. November, 2002 was our busiest month ever with an average of 823 users per day. Our busiest day ever was November 12, 2002 with 1,494 users. Historically, we've experienced an upsurge after the December holidays as new computers are purchased and new online accounts are established. At this writing, that trend continues as January, 2003 leads all other months, though we're barely 2/3 through the month at this writing.

The Metworker enjoyed a similar traffic increase. In 2001, 963 projects were submitted to The Metworker. 2002 saw a 47% increase in projects to 1,412, an average of 3.9 projects per day. The number of responses to Metworker Requests jumped similarly from 7,110 in 2001 to 10,203 in 2002, leaving the response rates for both years very close at just over 7 per project. The Metworker dominated MetalBuilding.com in 2002, with over 16,000 page views in December alone. The Metworker Pro came out late in 2002 and currently counts 23 subscribers, all of whom hold distinct advantages over their Metworker Basic competitors. The largest project handled to date by The Metworker was in excess of 500,000 square feet and came from California. The Bid Board was also very busy, garnering over 2,739 responses to Bid Requests.

Our Newsletter mailing list more than doubled in subscriptions and now numbers just shy of 1,000. While most are here in the United States, we also send our letter to subscribers in Peru, India, Slovenija, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, Ghana, Greece, Canada, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, China and Vietnam.

Click-thrus for our advertisers were led by Roof Hugger, our 2001 sponsor of Ask the Expert, with nearly 1,500 targeted visitors delivered last year. Next came Austin Building Systems followed by STL Building Systems, both from the Manufacturers section of our Classifieds. Metalmag and MBMI were late additions who both achieved high monthly click-through rates and can probably expect an increase in 2003 as overall traffic rises.

Speaking of Classifieds, ad numbers more than doubled in 2002 with 234 new ads being inserted, bringing the current total to 449 ads. You could kill an afternoon reading through the Classifieds these days and some people apparently did - there were over 9,000 page views in our Classifieds in December alone. In 2002, 1,313 e-mails were sent through our Classifieds. These contact numbers don't include phone calls, website visits, faxes and other forms of contact initiated through the Classifieds. While we have not yet actively sought a prime sponsor for our Classifieds, there is certainly an excellent opportunity here for a great deal of exposure. Next to The Metworker, The Classifieds represent the most intensely used feature of MetalBuilding.com.

So who's buying? Let's start with Texas. If you manufacture metal buildings and you're not selling in Texas, then what are you waiting for? More buyers from Texas have used The Metworker than any other state, and they outnumber buyers from #2 California by over a 2-1 margin. Why so many in Texas? Maybe you can tell me. Rounding out the top 5 are Florida, Georgia and Louisiana. Either the South uses a lot more metal buildings than the North, or they simply shop for them online... or both. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Our Articles section saw increased traffic in 2001, with over 3,600 page views in December alone. Given that Metalmag only recently signed on as our Articles sponsor (bringing with them added content) we expect those numbers to increase substantially in the year ahead. We've also begun to see an increase in reader submissions which led to the creation of a new section late in 2002 for just that purpose. The comments feature at the bottom of each article mysteriously remains underutilized. Though many of you read the articles as evidenced by page view and site visit data, most of you choose not to comment. We made adjustments to allow the use of 'anonymous' responses, and that created a slight uptick in comments, but nothing like what I'm used to seeing in some of the high-tech arenas I regulary visit.

Early 2003 will see the addition of a Photo Gallery and Photo Contest, along with MetalBuilding.biz - our online store. We continue to strive to offer All Things Metal Building, and we value your input. Feel free to leave your comments below, but know that I'll understand if you don't. The metal building community is a busy group, but remains a quiet bunch. We're working on that.