Sarasota CLUCK hits 50,000 pageviews!

Sometime over the past weekend at the end of April 2012, the Sarasota CLUCK website logged its fifty thousandth pageview - an impressive showing for what was ostensibly a local blog with a narrow goal (re-legalizing chickens in Sarasota).

CLUCK Advertising ?!#@*

Sarasota CLUCK Blog is rapidly approaching its 50,000th page view. We haven't had a month with less than 1,000 page views in more than a year and last month was over 2,500.

It is clear that readership has extended far beyond Sarasota (over 10,000 pageviews from outside the US!) and many of our pages (the constant offerings at the top, not the everchanging posts) are getting lots of views. Consider some of these pageview numbers:

• Annotated City Ordinance: 1,737 pageviews
• Quiz to see if people are ready for backyard chickens: 720 pageviews
• Coop design tips for Southwest Florida: 652 pageviews
• One Dozen Tips to Legalize Chickens in Your Community: 324 pageviews
      (this was first posted 41 days ago, so we are getting 8 pageviews a day)
• Our 25 Funky Chicken Facts, which appears as both a post and a page has received 2,789 pageviews!

CLUCK blog records 35,000 pageviews in less than a year

When the first Sarasota CLUCK blog posting went up on June 11 2009, it was assumed it would simply be vehicle for advocacy of passage of a local City of Sarasota backyard chicken ordinance.  Then, nearly a year and half later, on December 18th 2010, the blog recorded its 5,000th pageview (averaging 9 pageviews a day) and the ordinance was passed just a few months later on February 7th, 2011. Now, exactly fifty-one weeks after hitting 5,000, CLUCK has recorded its 40,000th pageview, an average of nearly 100 (97.49) pageviews a day, which is a ten-fold increase. That means the vast majority of pageviews have occurred after passage of the ordinance. This posting is a summary of some of the dimensions of this success. 

The most viewed post, (out of 187 posts) with over 1,800 pageviews is Sarasota CLUCK's Top 25 Funky Chicken Facts. Posted in mid-January, this posting (now with 30 funky facts) lists interesting, and sometimes nearly unbelievable, information about chickens and includes links to sources, a feature virtually all other chicken fact sites lack.

The second most popular, with nearly 1,400 pageviews is an annotated version of the City Ordinance. This document includes both the official language of the ordinance, and an accessible interpretation of what each section means and the intent behind it.

The third most popular, with about 1,200 pageviews is a discussion of treadle feeders, which are feeders that chickens activate to access food by standing on treadle. 

Other noteworthy posts include the Are You Ready for Backyard Chickens Quiz, which has over 550 pageviews and the reprint of the Backyard Poultry magazine article based on the Sarasota experience, which has been averaging six views per day and is expected to become one of the more popular posts. 


No doubt about it -- December 2011 has been a big month for local CLUCK: hitting 40,000 pageviews, an article published in Backyard Poultry Magazine and the first meeting of Manatee CLUCK. 


And clearly the blog has evolved from just a one-time, campaign-driven, local-focus resource to a site accessed all over the country and planet (over 2,000 pageviews from United Kingdom and Russia combined).


But one goal remains unmet, and that is relaxing restrictions on backyard chickens in unincorporated Sarasota County. That is a big target for the coming year. If you are interested in changing the county rules, please write to us at SarasotaCLUCK@ gmail.com or join the Facebook Group. 

Sarasota Blogger Weighs In on Hot Chicks

It seems entirely fitting that the posting taking this blog to 30,000 pageviews is about another local blog: true green bliss. Blogger and green lifestyle coach, Elsie Gilmore, recently posted her reflections in the wake of the most recent Chickens 101 workshop. Her posting "hot chicks" explains her interest in backyard chickens even though she currently eats neither chicken nor eggs. It's a thoughtful excursion into the local world of backyard chickens and you'll even find a couple of links to this blog. What goes around, etc. 

Five More Sarasota CLUCK Milestones

Sarasota CLUCK just keeps on keeping on -- we have five new milestones to announce that involve our blog, Facebook, our supporters, and the support we are providing:

CLUCK Blog sets new record: 20,000 pageviews

What was once just a local chicken blog has caught on and is being viewed by chicken lovers and the chicken curious across the nation and planet. We started tracking pageviews last June and have been surprised at the responses. Pageviews peaked in January, the high-profile month the local City ordinance passed (see figure). Then numbers dipped in February as expected. But they started to rebuild in March (exceeding December) and the numbers for April (which is only 2/3rds over) have already exceeded total pageviews for January.The reason? With more than 130 distinct posts, the blog is becoming a go-to resource for people outside of Sarasota.