Statistics for www.personhistoriskasamfundet.se

The Society's main chief function is, and has always been, to publish Personhistorisk Tidskrift (Swedish Journal of Personal history) - a prestigious scientific journal which can be found in the
major libraries all over Sweden.

The Society's by-laws from 2002 says: "The Society is a scientific society which purpose is to raise and maintain interest for biographical research." The total amount of members in the Society does not exceed 200 at the moment. About 150 institutions subscribe to the journal as well. There is however a growing interest in personal history and biographical research. During the period of July 22 and August 21 2008, the website has had 103 visits. Almost 87 % are new visitors. 65 % do stay a moment at the website, in average 1 minute and 12 seconds. The main part of the visitors come from Sweden, a few from France, Finland and Norway. Only 15 % of the visitors return for a second or third visit.

Just over 50 % of the visitors come straight to the website, the rest through searchengines of various kind. The visitors mainly look for information about the journal.

Conclusions
Considering the very low amount of members in the Society, the number of visits is relatively high. Interestingly enough the great majority of the visitors are new to the website. There is a possibility that more and more members discover the website, but more likely people in general (though with a special interest in personal history and biographies) end up at the site through searchengines, when looking for biographic information or related topics.

As of the moment the website's purpose is to provide information about the Society, enough to raise interest in the journal and if possible recruite new members. Since the Society's main purpose is to publish the Journal, the website should be developed further towards becoming a more effective tool in recruiting members and subscribers as well as developing good relations with the very same target groups.

One particualr issue is to make the visitors extend their visits, and also return more than twice to the website. A conrete goal is to make the average visitor staying 2 minutes at the website within 6 months. To reach this goal two immediate changes on the website would be necessary:

1) To emphasize the advatages of becoming and being a member of the Society, or being a subscriber, straight at the home page. That is to focus more on the prestigious scientific journal, Personhistorisk Tidskrift.

2) To provide more content to people who might become members or subscribers, content that will also be of interest to those who are already members or subscribers. A suggestion is to provide specific information about writing personal history and biographies. Also to provide articles from older issues of the journal. The coice of articles should ofcourse concern issues of particular interest to the Society.

A third step towards a more strategic website would be to adress people who might not even consider becoming a member, but are interested in Swedish history (people and events) who are searching for facts and are looking for credible sources. Through raising awarenes about the Society to a broader audience, the goal of spreading and maintaining interest för personal history and biographies will be achieved.

All these questions leads to a change in the Society's area of interest. The focus on the scientific journal might have to shift a little, to meet the demand for information and content on the website.

For the moment, the Society has to make a desicion about how to use the website. If they choose to work more colsely with the website, a first step would have to be to implement a few changes according to the conclusions above, to put up some goals, and in four to six months start measuring the changes and the successfullness of the new strategy.