Sunshine Matters

On January 5, VISIT FLORIDA launched a new look for VISITFLORIDA.com.  Rather than set it and forget it, we are now looking at the analytics for January and February to answer the question – did we make the right changes?  It seems we did.  Here’s a look at some of the larger changes and how they’ve affected the site’s numbers:

Insiders

The eight interest-focused freelance journalists we call “VISITFLORIDA.com Insiders” are now front and center on the home page.  They also have new drop navigation throughout the site.  These changes have resulted in a 41% increase in page views of Insider content.  We found that having the Insiders appear in the same order each time the page is loaded means higher traffic numbers for the ones sorted first.  We’ve now made their appearance random to help even out the traffic.

Tag Cloud

One of the most discussed aspects of the VISITFLORIDA.com site has been the tag cloud.  Many people didn’t understand it and thought it just encouraged traffic to the same pages.  With the newly designed most popular section for tags and the search suggest feature in the search box, we have found a great solution.  January and February 2010 numbers show that several non-tag cloud pages have seen an increase in traffic, and the gap between the top 10 tags and the other tags has been reduced.

Search Suggest

When someone starts typing in the search box of the “Find” section, the site automatically begins suggesting pages where there is content.  This new search suggest feature is helping to get people to the content they’re looking for.  We have seen a 94% decrease in traffic to the “All Tags” page versus the same time last year.

Have You Seen…?

Highlighted editorial content is now in the new “Have You Seen…?” section.  These articles, videos, and images rotate at least monthly according to our editorial calendar.  In looking at the traffic, we found the top feature receives more page views than the others because it defaults to be the feature image in the section.  By changing this to a random highlight, we feel the numbers will even out quickly.

What’s Next?

Motivated from the positive results of these changes, we have more updates in the works.  Stayed tuned to the site as we roll out new layouts for the tag pages and article pages. 

Industry feedback is always welcome.  Please leave comments here on the blog or e-mail me at jstewart@VISITFLORIDA.org.