Executive Directors Report

Going Mobile

The Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce uses several different websites and blogs to promote our community and our members.  We regularly review and analyze the traffic that visits those sites and identify trends and opportunities for the chamber and our members.

 I could tell you exactly how many visitors we had to our websites and blogs last year, or that they came from every state in the union, plus 118 different countries.  Or I could tell you that over 25% of our website visitors, and nearly half of our blog visitors found us from Google searchers.

But to me the most interesting trend is the use of mobile devices.  In 2010 a total of 1,707 mobile devices accessed Pekin.net, compared to only 64 in 2009.  And 10% of our visitors to the Pepsi Medallion Hunt blog were mobile devices in 2010, while there were only 2 people who accessed that site with a mobile device in 2009. 

With smart phones now outselling laptops, those numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise.  And that trend will continue even more dramatically, as smart phones are projected to outsell desktop PCs and laptops combined in 2012.   

The conclusion I drew from these number – we all need to get our websites mobile-ready.  This includes proper formatting and layout, developing smart-phone apps, etc. 

 Super Savers

The chamber offers free Super Saver Chamber Coupons to our members.  All you have to do is fill out a form with your offer.  In the first two weeks of January, our 18 Super Saver Chamber Coupons cumulatively received over 300 hits.

 Membership Directory

The chamber’s online membership directory was searched over 10,000 times in 2010.  About 60% of the searches were alphabetical, 27% of the searches were by category, and 6% were keyword searches.

Through those searches, our members’ basic information was displayed nearly 70,000 times.  Visitors then clicked on the link to go to the members’ web pages 8,500 times, and clicked on the link to a Google map nearly 2,000. 

We can provide you with your own personal summary of your company/organizations traffic.  We can also add your Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin contact info to your directory results page.

Conclusions 

1. What are we (and you) doing to make your website mobile-friendly?

2. What are you doing to make sure Google finds you

3. Are you taking advantage of all of the free tools on the internet, including those offered by the chamber?

Bill Fleming, Executive Director