BenitoLink reached 34,446 in July

This summer, BenitoLink hit its highest number of “unique visitors,” or different sets of eyes to view our website over a month’s time. The figure applies to how many individuals are using BenitoLink as their news source during one month, not how often. People may visit the site once a day, several times a day, or once a week.

We are excited to share some of the recent demographics from Google that we use to review our performance. BenitoLink is a community-supported website that has just completed its eighth month operating as a separate nonprofit. 

In July 2016, we reached 34,446 unique visitors, an exciting number in a county of about 58,000 residents. Of course, not all BenitoLink readers are in San Benito County. Many are in the surrounding counties of Santa Clara, San Francisco, Monterey and Santa Cruz, according to our analytics. And beyond that, BenitoLink has readers from Australia, Europe, Mexico, Canada and all over the world.  A year ago, in July of 2015, BenitoLink had just over 24,400 unique visitors. 

Readers averaged about three page views on the website, or another way to express it is that 100,000 pages were read by 34,446 readers in July. Some news hounds zip on and off briefly but frequently to check for new headlines or major stories. There are also readers who are routinely on the website for 2 to 10 minutes. Surprisingly, more than 2,800 of our readers spend over 10 minutes reading local stories on BenitoLink.  

The majority of BenitoLink users regularly return to the site: 42.5 percent are new to the site compared to 57.5 percent who are coming back for more. 

As a nonprofit news website covering San Benito County and local issues, our mission is to provide essential news and information to better inform and engage our community. We take seriously the responsibility to cover our local elected officials and government agencies. Because of BenitoLink, our readers have the opportunity to be well-informed voters and active community members. This is why we have scheduled two more “Use Your Voice” Election Forums, partnering with the San Benito County Farm Bureau to provide open and fair venues for voters and candidates alike. 

BenitoLink is a community-supported nonprofit that is here for you. We conduct online fundraisers twice a year and encourage our readers to support the site and help us provide San Benito residents the information so they can be well-informed and better prepared to take an active role in our county’s future.