Engagement Numbers Climb!
I previously created a post about engagement a couple weeks ago on July 3rd here. Engagement is one of the most important factors for long term success. I was afraid that as many more people would join the platform the engagement numbers might decrease because of potential dilution from casual & first-time users, but instead they improved! It seems more and more content is being created in various categories so Steemit is becoming a better & broader platform to view daily content and also to discover new content. The ability to earn money and STEEM Power creates powerful incentives for users to produce & vote on unique and interesting content, keeps people reading and discovering content on Steemit and also seems to be creating a positive feedback loop. As more people with diverse interests obtain STEEM power the allocation should spread across other categories over time.
Comparing the current engagement numbers to my July 3rd post, you can see that both Medium and Reddit are essentially unchanged from a couple weeks ago, whereas Steemit has decreased its bounce rate from 43.7% to 40.2%, increased daily page views from 5.8 to 7.6 and increased avg daily time on site from 9:59 to 11:09.
Steemit is increasingly closing the gap on Reddit and continues its wide lead over Medium.
Top 20,000 Traffic Ranking in US!
Also if you look at Steemit's Alexa ranking, it's now a Top 20,000 website in the US! You can see the curve flatten just a bit going into July before another rapid uptrend sparked by the July 4th payout. Globally it went from a ranking of 7,820,939 on April 18th just three months ago all the way to 48,568. Traffic rankings coupled with the engagement numbers seem to suggest great traction so far. The traffic numbers are a great metric because there are many more readers than active users so if the content keeps readers coming back that is a good sign about the quality of content on the website. I just Steemit searched Alexa just a bit before I finished this post and saw this post from @febird that covers some of the Alexa analytics with some additional insights.
Expanding Content
Overall there has been a rapid rise in content to fill out many categories and a lot more categories for those with Steem power to vote on. In the past content was much more concentrated. Although some people might be concerned that a makeup post was rewarded so much, the downtime from the hack probably magnified the post's reward. However that post spurred some creativity with the men's makeup posts and the inside storylines should help strengthen the community. It's also great for publicity. Where else can you make that much that quickly for a post about makeup? And another one about men's makeup! We're going to have a lot more females sign up after word spreads. As the payouts increase from the rise in market capitalization, more users will be attracted to the website, more users will generate good content and the positive feedback loop should continue.
Conclusion
We are catching up to Reddit's engagement numbers and continuing the climb up in traffic rankings. Next stop is top 10,000 in the US! Keep posting the best content you can think of or add insights to existing content on the Internet. Keep voting to help the community identify good content. Lastly be creative and you'll be rewarded!