Tibor Radványi a.k.a. Photonovice wants to know where your visitors are from. He’s asking this as part of a three-part project on site statistics. The first chunk covered search terms that lead to your site while the second highlighted the most popular posts. By the way, both parts are done now so you can check out the results for both search terms and popular posts anytime you want.

This posts, however, isn’t really about search terms and popular posts. As the title above says, it’s a look at LightChasers’ visitors. Specifically, it’s a look at where our readers come from.

At this point, let me remind you that we’re not talking about this dark little corner’s visitors – we’re putting the spotlight on visitors of LightChasers Photography. Yes, this little blog resides in the same domain, but as the title implies, it’s just one corner of the place. Besides, this little corner probably only has 2 regular visitors. Of course, I can’t really be sure – I don’t really check statistics for this blog.

The question begs asking then – why am I posting this here instead of at the LightChasers blog? As my about page here says, “this is the place where I write about pretty much anything I want – anything, that is, except photography.” I’m trying to keep the LightChasers blog as focused on photography as I possibly can.

Yes, I know I already wrote about the second chunk of the statistics project (as well as the project results), but like I mentioned, I’m trying to keep the site focused. A post on site statistics doesn’t really fit well under the categories of images, gear, tips, or even news, so I might as well put that post someplace where it’ll actually get on the front page – and that’s why it’s here.

Anyway, moving on…

LightChasers Photography, as the about page states, is “a team of photographers based in Manila, Philippines.” Based on this, majority of our visitors should be from this little archipelago of over 7,000 islands. However, our statistics over the past three months (based on Google Analytics) say otherwise.

Less than 15% of our visitors are from the Philippines while over a third are from the United States. I wish this meant I could offer my studio’s services abroad, but sadly, photography isn’t as easy to sell online as web design, blogging skills, or some other things. I could sell through stock photography sites, but that’s for another post – if I ever write about it.

The question of where visitors from are isn’t limited to their physical location – it also includes what sites they visited immediately before landing on yours. In other words, another question Tibor is asking is this: How did your visitors get to your site?

I wish I could say that all the business cards I’ve given out were sending loads of traffic, but again, statistics say otherwise. Less than a fifth of visitors to LightChasers Photography got there directly.

Of course, since only a small fraction of visitors (12.3% to be exact) come from the Philippines, I can’t expect direct traffic from the business cards to be that large either. If you factor in the percentage of direct visitors (12.4%), you might be able to argue that there is a connection. Unless I dig deeper into the statistics though, I can’t make any conclusions.

Breaking this pie chart down into smaller pieces changes how I look at the visitor breakdown. Though the margin is pretty slim, direct traffic is the site’s top source of visitors. This still isn’t enough data to make any conclusions, but it does make me want to learn more.

As for the referrers, the top four, based on the chart to the right, are:

1. Google Search: 11.71%
   I didn’t really dig that deep into statistics like Tibor did, but the amount of traffic that Google sends my way still surprises me.
   
2. Epic Edits Weblog: 9.93%
   Brian Auer’s site caused a spike in LightChasers Photography visitors last December and still keeps sending visitors over. Once again, thanks Brian!
3. PhotographyVoter : 8.65%
   The social site I visit most often – LightChasers is a photography site after all. Thanks to all those people who think my posts are worth voting for.
4. deviantART News: 8.08%
   Over the past few months, people from various sites have kept linking to a little tutorial on shooting photographs like a terrorist. They’ve all sent quite a few visitors over, but the deviants over at dA seem to be particularly interested in the piece.

There you have it – a not-so-brief-look at the visitors to LightChasers Photography.