NMC was exactly two and a quarter years old on 31st December 2023 and is just out of its nappies, so I thought it might be useful to record where we are up to and where we are going.
In 2022, the first full year, we had around 50,000 online hits (page views) and that rate has been the case in 2023, perhaps a little higher, I don’t know the final tally yet. We aren’t, and will never be anything like Pitchfork, which gets millions of hits each year but that isn’t a bad number for a small production with only one main writer and one post a day on average and which is focused on the music from a small area of only 20 million or so people.
(Incidentally, I’m always looking for new contributors; hit me up if you’re interested).
In the last three days we had almost 850 hits in total. If we could keep that up it would mean 100,000 a year which would move us up from League 2 to the fringes of the Championship to use a football analogy although aspiring to the Premier League cannot be realistic for a while yet!
The total number of posts is 730 since we started, over 821 days, an average of 0.89 per day.
Page views have come from about 170 of the 193 recognised countries in the world. The concentration, as might be expected, is in the Nordic countries, led by Sweden but the UK, the US and Germany also figure highly.
The readership is difficult to pin down exactly but I am gratified as to how many music professionals count amongst them, including label owners, producers and A&R people in addition to the music lovers who are the mainstay, the bedrock of the enterprise. Also journalists, other publication editors and social media ‘influencers’ who are themselves looking for something out of the ordinary to write about. I’ll probably do a Survey Monkey or something this year.
The articles are about 75% reviews of Nordic singles, occasionally EPs and less occasionally albums. Albums are very time consuming and I’ve cut back on them. I can do at least three separate single reviews in the time it takes for one album.
So for 2024 there will be some full album reviews, I can think of two for January already, but the majority will be of ‘sample’ tracks, chosen either by the artist or by me. The rest will continue to include live reviews (I intend to increase those), news items, interviews and special features and the non-Nordic ‘Weekend Intermission’ section articles.
In 2024 I intend to improve the SEO on the site, which I’m not very good at, to increase the readership further. If anyone can help with that please let me know. I find SEO to be a minefield.
Finally, several artists have asked if they can contribute to the expense of running Nordic Music Central. Hitherto I have not been keen to do that, for example opening a Patreon account, partly because I don’t like to beg, and partly because unlike an artist there is little I can offer in return to a paying supporter, like discounted tickets to shows, first hearing of new releases, special offers and so on.
However, the expenses are increasing and travelling to shows in the Nordic countries is especially pricey, which goes some way to explaining why I cut back on showcase festivals this year.
So shortly I will be opening an account, probably with ‘Buy me a coffee’ for anyone who wants to help out with the running expenses of NMC. More about that later.
I think that’s all for now. In the absence of a Survey Monkey questionnaire at the moment if anyone has any questions to ask or comments to make about NMC please do so via the form at the bottom of the About/Contact page, or by email to [email protected].
That’s all folks! Happy listening!
Oh, and please spread the word about NMC! There is nothing quite like word of mouth to generate interest.
David
