Managing Editor Joe Zlomek.

SANATOGA PA – “It’s been a phenomenal three months for The Sanatoga Post,” as determined by key readership measurements, Managing Editor Joe Zlomek reported today (Monday, June 1, 2009).

During its third quarter of online distribution, which ended Sunday (May 31, 2009), The Sanatoga Post website was visited 14,169 times, 138 percent more than during its previous quarter.

Compiled data for The Post, an interactive news resource that covers Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, the village of Sanatoga PA, and the Pottsgrove School District, also show that its readers during the quarter viewed 24,938 pages among more than 1,100 articles The Post has published through the end of May (2009). Page views more than doubled since March (2009), the statistics show.

The figures – those of visits, and of pages viewed – are among any website’s most important gauges of activity and success. “As always, we thank our readers for their interest in and loyalty to our reporting,” Zlomek said.

Page views monthly for The Sanatoga Post, between Aug. 2008 and May 2009. Statistical data and graph provided by WordPress.

During its third 90 days, The Post averaged 157 visits and 277 page views daily, compared to 130 visits and 156 page views daily in the second quarter. “Those numbers tell us readers are spending more time with The Post each day,” Zlomek noted. Post readership grew at an average of 7 percent each week of the quarter, down slightly from 12 percent a week in the earlier period.

The Post began publication on Aug. 25, 2008, at www.sanatoga.org and sanatoga.wordpress.com. Quarterly statistics reported reflect readership for only the period of March 1 to May 31, 2009; are compiled from several independent sources, and have not been audited.

The Sanatoga Post and its companion, The Limerick Post, are published by Career Education Media Ventures of Sanatoga PA.

Other third-quarter milestones:

• Public service advertising. The first public service advertising in The Post was published March 6 (2009) under the headline “Today’s Food For Thought.” One ad has been added daily since. The banners are linked to websites supporting a variety of charitable causes. They appear under a partnership agreement between the Ad Council and The Post, which donates the space and any click-throughs. “We particularly favor campaigns we think have relevance to our area and our readership, like hunger, teenager adoption, and support for the nation’s military,” Zlomek said.
• New calendar. To expand reader usability and provide greater detail, The Sanatoga Post and the companion Limerick Post during the quarter consolidated their separate public calendars and moved them from hosting by Brown Bear Software to Google. The new calendar format is wider on the screen, more colorful and more easily read, and more comprehensive in events listings. Those who want events listed on The Posts’ calendar can send them anytime by e-mail to sanatoga@yahoo.com.
• Subscriptions. The Post uses Constant Contact, the nation’s largest provider of spam-free e-mail services, to deliver a free daily headline summary – Monday through Saturday by 8 a.m. – to subscribing readers via e-mail. By the end of the quarter, Constant Contact said it had delivered 3,116 e-mails at subscribers’ requests, compared to 1,125 in the previous quarter. “The Post’s free subscriber e-mail is booming,” Zlomek noted. Those interested in receiving the no-cost subscription can apply here, and need supply only an e-mail address.
• Geek speak, Part 1. The Post’s “Technorati Authority,” a measure by the website Technorati of its influence among specific reader groups, grew slightly during the quarter from 12 to 15. Its “Google Authority,” a similar measure by the Google search engine, fell dramatically from 49 to 0. Its “BNN Authority,” a similar measure by Pennsylvania BlogNetNews, also fell sharply from 30.5 to 7. However The Post continued during the quarter to rank, on average, 12th among the Top 20 most influential of BNN’s more than 90 Pennsylvania affiliates.
• Geek speak, Part 2. The Post’s “Alexa Traffic Rank,” a measure by the website Alexa of its cumulative global reach, by the quarter’s end was 3,466,693, an improvement of 32,753 positions or about 1 percent over the previous quarter.

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