Our (recently established) monthly edition of sharing with your our monthly most read stories has suffered from too much work (between May and the Election) but also from too much rest (as I flew away as soon as the last ballot was counted). In order not to let the late posts piling up on my virtual desk, I decided to treat our 10 most-read stories for May and June in the same article. Wait? That’d be 20 most-read-stories?!? Correct! Unplug your phone cord, throw away your SIM card, you’ve got some reading to catch up with !

Sic transit gloria elegi or something like that – but was it worth it? From our professional point of view, and taking in account the fact that our job is mainly to publish news about the European Parliament in 22 languages and in a way my Latvian Grandma can understand, yes it was. And I am not only referring to the professional fun we had, despite the stress and the really heavy load of work. No, I am refferring to concrete figures: the stats of our website. Now, I will not give any figures, but I can provide some comparison.

This was the night.

In the first six months of 2009, the European Parliament’s website welcome 93% of the visits, 97% of the visitors and dispatched 87% of the viewed pages it had during the full year 2008. Had the Elections been set up a week later, we would have had in six months the equivalent of last year frequentation and consultation.

During this first semester, our monthly average number of visits was 1.85 times the monthly average for 2008, visitors average was 1.94 and viewed pages 1.74.

Well, not so bad for a *boring* institution and *complicated* elections.

May – best month ever
May 2009 will remain for ever not only as the first month in which I became closer to my forties than my thirties, but also as the month with the highest frequentation we ever had: 2.92 times our 2008 monthly average for the visits, 3.15 times for the visitors and 2.09 times for viewed pages.

In the first six months of 2009, the European Parliament’s website welcome 93% of the visits, 97% of the visitors and dispatched 87% of the viewed pages it had during the full year 2008.

And what did all those visitors read most? Here are the ten most read articles on our Headlines in May:

1° United in diversity: Rules for the European Parliamentary elections

2°- “Internet has to be free, but not regulation free” – Harbour on telecoms package

3°- FAQs on political parties and party politics

4°- No agreement on working time directive opt out

5°- Mums and dads at home with newborns: how long should they have off?

6°- Election countdown: 10 things you should know about the European Parliament

7°- You decide what tomorrow’s news will be

8°- European elections – Delicious!

9°- Quick A- Z of MEPs’ duties and obligations

10°- Animals used in science, seal ban debated Monday

What I like in this top ten is the fact that the digital crowd which came to visit our website because they, somehow, have heard about the European elections took the opportunity to read some stories on other subjects. Half of those most read stories deal with news from the Parliament and not specifically with the elections themselves. It’s one thing to repeat and repeat that the European parliament actually decide on every day’s life issues, it is another to read it on the website.

June: almost as good as May.

We were all very happy when the European elections days finally came, because most of us had worked on the communication campaign and the editorial coverage since January 2008. It was a long expected Election night the one we had (and twitted in 22 languages) and we were relieved that it finally took place. Now, we have to deal with some kind of elections blues, but that’s another story.

But on a purely statistical ground, the elections days came too soon. One week later and June would have beaten May 2009. June made just 2% less visits and visitors than May.

The ten most read stories of June 2009 were:

1°- Getting ready for a new start — what’s on the agenda?

2°- Centre-right clear winners in European elections

3°- European elections: where to find the results

4°- After the elections – now what happens?

5°- ONE: 1 vote

6°- EU-twitter !

7°- 2009 Euro Elections- turning the tide against apathy

8°- Choice boxes – a conversation across Europe

9°- THREE: 3 main institutions of the EU

10°- More FAQs on the European elections

We reached the peak of the electoral dramaturgy and it is quite logical that “results” and “next steps” are found at the top of this podium.

Since the Elections, the traffics has come back to last year’s level at the same period. It’s a bit soon to see if we’ll keep some of our new visitors in our daily frequentation. We usually do: after our last major banner campaigns, we increased our daily average by 15-20%.

Summer time being definetely better spent in all other kind of surfing and outdoors activities, our daily frequentation will now enter its sleepy phase until September. During this summer break, we will publish some light contents on the European Parliament’s website and, possibly, totally different posts on this blog. Let’s keep in touch, as they say.