Wood Central achieved a significant milestone this week after its user base broke through the 50,000 barrier.
Growth has been rapid, with new traffic acquisition growing 66% over the past month.
Last month, Wood Central reported that its user traffic passed 30,000 – with the latest update pointing to an increase of 20,000 plus new users over the past month.
Wood Central can also report that ‘return’ users (i.e. those that have visited the website and become regular visitors) are growing, with more than 34,000 page visits over the past 30 days.
By the numbers, this represents an increase of 12,000 page visits over the previous 30-day period (or 24,000).
Amongst the top 10 clicked-on articles include:
- Demand for Timber to Increase Fourfold by 2050: Where is the Wood?
- How the Maldives Fair Islands Used Mass Timber to Achieve Zero Carbon Ready Certification
- First Post-and-Plate High-Rise Revolutionises Mass Timber Construction
- Victoria Bans State Native Forestry: Harvesting to End 2024
- Worldwide Impact: EU Passes Law Banning Deforestation Products
- Forecast: Global Reclaimed Timber Market to Hit $74B by 2030
- Mass Timber Roof Installed Over Portland Airport
- Vancouver’s Amphitheatre: World’s Longest Clear Span Mass Timber Roof
- Russia’s Timber Volume Drops as Chinese Demand Plummets
- NZ Log Exports: 12-Month Low Amid China-led Timber Downturn
According to Wood Central publisher Jason Ross, traffic density provides revealing insights, with mass timber and trade-related stories attracting the most user clicks.
“Over the last 30 days, our most popular centre around Russian and Chinese trade volumes, global mass timber projects but also carbon investment in forestry.”
Biomass and climate change are also emerging topics – with recent forest fires in North America fuelling traffic.
Fires continue to rage in Canada, and with the US Weather Bureau predicting the return of El Nino conditions, Australian users are on high alert after the 2020 Black Summer Bushfires.
“Renewable energy is also attracting a lot of attention, with nature-based solutions, like woody biomass, being embraced as part of the climate solution.”
“Innovators are now using woody biomass to replace plastics and dyes in clothing whilst governments are embracing biomass to produce sustainable aviation fuel.”
Mr Ross said biomass is big business, with biomass a crucial part of Australia and California’s climate pledge last week.
To midnight, August 24 (Australian time), Wood Central’s articles have attracted 122,000 visits since mid-March, totalling 52,145 unique users.
“We now have an interesting data set that we use to develop future stories,” Mr Ross said.
“With more than 750 articles posted, all indexed on search engines, we are learning more about our users daily.”
“We are committed to producing informative and engaging content for our users.”
Of users, just under 16,000 are Australian-based, with India (7,000), the United States (5,500), New Zealand (2,000) and Canada (1,700) rounding out the top 5.
Wood Central’s publisher, Jason Ross, said traffic is strongest in Australia.
“On average, our Australian users spent just under 2 minutes on the website. New Zealand, Canada and Singapore are next with just over 1 minute per website visit.”
In addition to the website, Wood Central produces a Daily Newsletter (known as the Digest) and is active across LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
With an eye for the future, Wood Central is also looking to produce short-form video.
“We are looking to use these videos on social media primarily but also embed the clips in articles on the website,” Mr Ross said.
“We believe this will help us attract new audiences, which might not have the time or concentration to read articles on the website.”
