DGB Passes 1.5m Page Views

It doesn’t seem that long ago before I was celebrating the symbolic landmark of DGB passing the million page views mark. You know me. I like my stats. They help tell the story of the progression and growth of something.

Well, stuck in a whirlwind of work, it appears I have missed another major milestone, in DGB passing 1.5m page views. It’s not as significant as the first one. Your first million is always the big one. But smaller milestones like this are stepping stones onto something bigger.

So, I thought I would take this opportunity to go over the most read posts on DGB in those 1.5m page views, as well as some plans I have for bringing you a better news and opinion service for the window and door industry.

Top ten most read posts

These are the top ten most read posts on DGB since it’s inception:

1. FENSA vs Certass: What’s The Difference?

2. Should We Still Be Using Silicone To Seal Windows And Doors?

3. Tackling The Trickle Vent Issue

4. Top 10 Companies In The UK Window Industry (2015)

5. The Enduring Issue Of Trickle Vents

6. Sliding Doors vs Bi-Folding Doors: Which Is Better?

7. Lintels: Always Fit Them

8. Secure By Design – What Is It All About?

9. The Average Cost Of A New Conservatory Is £5300…Apparently

10. All About The Glazing Beads

If ever there was an advert for good SEO it is this list. Every single one of these post was published between 2009 and 2016. That being said, the 12th most read post of all time was a Safestyle-based post published in April of this year. I suspect that as time goes on this post will climb up the list of most read articles of all time.

DGB has become a publishing machine. Here are some stats that tell the story – accurate to the time of writing:

Articles published: 3434

Comments published: 6089

I’m making a safe bet that few other online fenestration sector has this much dedicated industry content published on their site. I’m also making another safe bet that at 6089 comments, this is top of the pile. It shows that since March 2009, there has been plenty to talk about. Up to press, this site has been live 3500 days. That is almost one article per day for nine and a half years. That is something I am very proud of.

The comment count on DGB also demonstrates the level of participation from readers. The yearly comment count has gradually declines over the year however as the conversation has moved over to social media as sites like Twitter and Facebook have become bigger and more embedded in our lives.

This is certainly not the time to stop and coast. I am already planning on ways to reach 2m and 3m page views in an even quicker time.

Moving forwards

As you have seen throughout the last year or so I have added various DGB services, including DGB Jobs, DGB People and DGB Events. All have been an effort to cover more and more areas of the industry. What I don’t want to happen is for DGB to remain static and be just a place for me to air my views on a single subject once per day. I like to write about a huge variety of things, but I also want to bring other areas of the industry into focus on here, which is what I am trying to do by diversifying the site as a whole.

I’m happy to say that most of the new things that I have tried have worked and have since remained a permanent feature. But if you’re not moving forwards, you’re going backwards.

So, I do have in the pipeline two particular projects to help DGB. One of which I am going to very briefly talk about today. It’s called DGB E.C.O.

You’ve had your head in the sand if you haven’t found the changing attitudes towards plastics in our society. The window and door industry is not going to be immune to this. That being said, there are some areas that are being very proactive when it comes to green business practices and environmentally friendly policies. Eurocell and VEKA are the most obvious ones. The aim of DGB E.C.O is to help cultivate the whole conversation between the window industry and the environment. The two have to be tied together. They have to.

It will cover things like recycling projects, the benefits of using PVCu as a building material, how to use and re-use it in a responsible way. It’s not just going to focus on PVCu as a material. It will include tips and advice on how to run your business as green as possible. How energy efficient windows and doors matters to homes. I also have the backing of one of the biggest companies in our sector when it gets going, who will also provide ancillary content, including video, written articles and guides. Over time I want it to become a hub where the industry can go to get advice and catch up on the latest green industry news. If it can help nudge the conversation in the right direction then it’s doing it’s job.

I DGB E.C.O to be live before the end of the year. The E.C.O bit also stands for something ;-)

The second project I am keeping under wraps, for now. I am hoping to go live with it in the New Year, but what I’m attempting is way bigger than anything I have tried before. So it could be a massive flop! But you don’t know if you don’t try. I’ll say this, if it works and it takes off, no other industry media outlet, be it print or digital, will have done this before.

I have lots of ambition for DGB. It is, and will continue to be, a place that will tackle industry topics that other’s won’t go near. It will continue to be a place where I will speak my opinion, analyse the stories and publish window and door industry content that matters to everyone. The site will get bigger. It will attract more advertisers and traffic will grow. But it will always push the boundaries and standards of fenestration industry media.