Thank You Dear Reader
When I started writing InnerFidelity a year ago this April Fool's Day, I knew I had plenty to say. I've been professionally involved with headphones for 20 years, and I had a bunch of stuff to talk about. What I wasn't sure of, however, was whether it would be of interest to others. Enough to make it worthwhile, that is.

I knew there was a need for honest and expert headphone reviews--it makes me crazy reading blurbs of praise for a headphone I know to be mediocre--and I knew everybody bought headphones, so product evaluation as job one is a good start to big numbers. But my heart is in the hobby, and the world of headphone enthusiasm covers far more ground than just commercially available headphones. Contentious topics like headphone break-in and the effects of cables warrant coverage. DIYers would benefit from getting their headphones measured. Headphone gear at trade shows and big meets needs a voice. The question remained though, "Will enough people be interested?"

Fortunately, a lot of you have come along for the ride. Thank you...you've made it worthwhile. I deeply appreciate your interest. I love the enthusiasm for headphone listening in all its forms. I've always thought music through headphones was amazing when done well, and most people should get that. I think we're well on the way.

A Look at the Numbers
Advertising pays for InnerFidelity. Fortunately, I have nothing to do with that. My job is to create content of interest, and create the pageviews in which ads can be displayed. My job at InnerFidelity is lots of pageviews.

Here's the month-by-month pageviews for the last year.

The seasonal bump in Nov. Dec. and Jan. is from Christmas and CES traffic.

And the numbers:

To put that into context, Stereophile regularly exceeds two million pageviews per month. InnerFidelity is doing well, but real success starts at a million pageview per month. So, I've got a way to go.

A Closer Look at the Traffic
I have two main groups of people I need to interest: enthusiasts and consumers. Both are vitally important. It's rather natural for me to write with the enthusiasts in mind because I am one. Mainly, I just write about things that interest me and assume it will also interest other enthusiasts. Traffic from enthusiasts linking in to InnerFidelity from other headphone related sites will help significantly in search engine rankings because Google looks at traffic patterns and content topics to strengthen search results. Google knows Head-Fi is about headphones and is an important headphone site. When Google sees lots of traffic between Head-Fi (and other headphone forums) and InnerFidelity, it assumes InnerFidelity is also a quality headphone site, and my search rankings will improve.

Unfortunately, as big as Head-Fi and the headphone community is worldwide (and it is big) it's not nearly as big as the consumer headphone world--everybody buys headphones...everybody. InnerFidelity search rankings have to compete with the likes of Amazon, J&R, B&H, Apple, Sony, Sennheiser, Monster, and many other popular internet headphone related brands. To create big numbers, I have to create content that really interests consumers. If they come to InnerFidelity and see a bunch of geeky graphs, they'll just bounce away...and Google will see that and knock down my rankings. The good news is that consumers just want clear, concise reviews about headphones, which is something enthusiasts want as well. (I just have to sneak in the geeky stuff.)

Here is the chart showing the domains from which people come to InnerFidelity.

As you can see, Google.com (US) is the largest referrer with 24% of all incoming traffic. Foreign Google domains also litter the list. Thank you Google!

A full 10% of all incoming referred traffic arrive by clicking on a link below on of my YouTube videos. I'm rather astounded by that. All I really wanted to do was put a little video for human interest at the bottom of my reviews, but it turns out that the YouTube channel is a spectacular way to get the word out to the broader public about good headphones.

Head-Fi also figures in strongly with 6% of referred traffic coming from links in posts. Thank you for you links in! That's an important traffic source for InnerFidelity search rankings. I'll continue to work hard creating content worthy of your interest.

Visitors to InnerFidelity are roughly split into thirds, with one third arriving from search engines; one third arriving from links in other pages; and one third arriving from a browser bookmark. Just over half of all people coming to InnerFidelity are return visitors. Again, thank you so much for visiting regularly.

Next, let's have a look at what pages people are viewing. Below is a table showing the number of views of the various pages at InnerFidelity.

Obviously, the home page heads the list with 17% of all arriving traffic. But look what's next! 4% of all traffic on InnerFidelity is people looking at the headphone datasheet download page! When I started this venture, I was cautioned by people familiar with Stereophile traffic that measurements didn't get a lot of pageviews. Ha! The success of the measurement program has surprised a lot of people. I can tell you that interest in headphone measurements has gotten the attention of management, and they are behind me 100% in continuing and improving the program. Woot!

The next five entries are category pages that are linked in the top navigation bar, but look at what comes in as the highest viewed product page at number 8: The Monster Beats by Dre Solo! Here again is the power of the broad public. The "World Class Headphones" article did very well, as did the "Celebrity Headphone Deathmatch." It's important for InnerFidelity to cover popular headphones so new readers can be exposed to better headphone alternatives.

Let's have a look at the YouTube channel numbers.

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