This site was originally launched on the 6th December 1999. In the first two years we were delighted with the response from visitors however we have been amazed how the visits have increased during subsequent years. The visits in year 5 for example increased 17% on top of a 55% increase in year 4 bringing the total visits in the first 5 years to over 386,000. Below is some  detailed information and statistics about our first five years plus general site statistics for subsequent years.

The site as it was launched 6th Dec. 1999

Year One

When our site was first published on the 6th December 1999 we really had no idea what to expect. Initially there were a number of positive comments and also some negative ones and we moved quickly to change anything that the Clubs or the Karters in New Zealand felt could be improved.

By the time we checked our first series of statistics we were confident that the site was achieving what we had set out to do and we were pleased to find a total of more than 500 visits to the site in the first month (an average of 18 visitors a day). By the end of April 2000 this average was up to 55 visitors a day with over 5000 hits on the site. By this stage we were very happy that the site was working and with the number of reports and information on new meetings coming in the site was being updated at least once a week and sometimes as often as once a day.

By the end of September 2000 the average hits per day had reached 70 with over 15,000 visits to the site in the first 10 months and by this stage we had a very clear picture of what the most popular pages were and what pages were least viewed. This also helped us to better target the information on the site. One of the more popular pages proved to be the "Buy, Sell and Exchange" service with some karters emailing the details of their ad one night and then emailing again 1 or 2 nights later to say "remove my ad it's sold".

We also trialled downloadable Entry Forms for some meetings in 2000 and these proved to be very worthwhile at the Sunbelt Champs and the KIWI KART Winter Road Series with over 40% of the entry forms for the road series coming from the website. This became a regular free service available to all New Zealand Clubs for permitted events and was expanded in 2001 to become one of the most popular places for karters to find entry forms for major meetings.

As we came to the end of our first year we had received over 20,000 visitors to the site and the average number per day for the last 1 month period was now over 90 and showed no sign of slowing down.

Year Two

As we moved into our second year we started updating the site at least 3 times a week and added rule updates on a very regular basis. This proved to be extremely popular and by early 2001 the average hit rate was up to 125 visits per day.
 

In February 2001 we gave the site a cosmetic update with new graphics and a new look home page. This update was received very positively and we started getting some very good feedback about the site as both a tool for existing karters and a great source of information for new karters to the sport.

In the same month we also launched our new publication kartsport.news which was made available for download in full colour. We added a "Feedback Form" and a "Search Engine" to further enhance the site and by mid 2001 we had received a total of 44,000 hits on the site with an average of 140 visits per day.

The site after the update in February 2001

In October 2001 we added the complete KartSport New Zealand Rule Book for download as well as a number of other important documents including the KartSport New Zealand Licence Application Form. The Classifieds and Reports pages continued to be very popular and by the end of the second year we had received over 66,000 visitors to the site with an average of 150 per day.

In the third year we continually tried to expand the site with additional information and downloadable documents.  The site had clearly become an excellent communication tool for current Karters and Clubs and also a source of information to attract new people to the sport. 

A dedicated downloads page was created for the complete Rule Book in PDF format with automatic “bookmark“ contents and linking. Licence applications were added and were downloaded in increasing numbers as was the Strategic Plan and the Track Rating and Complex Criteria.

The Classifieds page continued to be the most popular and most accessed page providing a valuable service to Karters.

One of the most noticeable areas of use in the third year was the Rule Updates page.  Following each Executive meeting, as new rules were published, the hit rate on this section increased dramatically.  This was clear evidence that Karters were using the site to obtain topical information in a timely manner.

In March 2002 a new section called “Proposed By Laws Changes” was added.  The process and schedule for changing of By Laws and the meeting dates were all listed along with all the proposed changes as they were released.  This was very popular with Karters and Clubs as they were able to obtain this information quickly and easily in a timely fashion without having to contact their Clubs committee for the information.
 

In June the site was cosmetically updated to coincide with the launch of the new KartSport New Zealand brand name and was republished to the new site address “kartsport.org.nz”.

The ‘Getting Started in Karting’ page was rebranded “HOT START” when the site was relaunched as KartSport New Zealand in June to tie in with the sports advertising campaign.  A “HOT START” animated button was added to the home page with a direct link to the getting started information and this page together with the ‘Introduction to KartSport’ page remained high in the hit counts.

The relaunched KartSport site - June 2003

The History page was expanded in year three as people started to provide pictures and information about the sports history and a new section was started listing all past National and Island Champions for each class for each year.

As the third year ended the average number of visits had risen to over 250 per day with a twelve month average of over 200 per day. The total visits for the year was over 73,000 which brought the total visits for all three years to over 139,000 and the total number of page views to over 2 million.

Year Four

In year four the site continued to achieve its primary objective of being an excellent communication tool for current Karters and Clubs and also a source of information to attract new people to the sport.  Many Clubs were now using the site as a central point to make Entry Forms and information about meetings available and those Clubs that were using the site for pre and post meeting promotion were seeing positive results from this.  The statistics of the fourth year also showed that karters were becoming increasingly aware of the information provided by KartSport New Zealand via the site especially Rule Updates and important announcements.

Overall there was a total of 114,293 individual visits to the site in year 4 at an average of 313 per day however the average was as high as 393 per day in some months. This was an increase of 55% on the previous year and brought the total number of visits to the site for the 4 years to 253,964. The total number of page views in year 4 was 1,647,758 bringing the total page views throughout the 4 years to over 3.7 million.

Year 5

Year five saw the site continue to provide information to Karters and Clubs as well as information about the sport to potential new members. Banner and Trade advertising attracted new advertisers and provided a dedicated target market to those companies who chose to use the site for their advertising.

Overall there was a total of 133,431 individual visits to the site in year 5 at an average of 366 per day however the average was as high as 401 per day in some months. This was an increase of 17% on the previous year and brought the total number of visits to the site for the 5 years to 386,951. The total number of page views in year 5 was 1,857,797 bringing the total page views throughout the 5 years to over 5.5 million.

Some of the other statistics from our first five years are also quite interesting as can be seen below.

In year 6 there was a total of 142,178 individual visits to the site at an average of 390 per day however the average was up to 441 per day in the last month of the sixth year. This was an increase of 6.5% on the previous year and brought the total number of visits to the site for the 6 years to over half a million at 529,129. The total number of page views in year 6 was 2,101,905 bringing the total page views throughout the 6 years to over 7.6 million.

Year 7

In year 7 there was a total of 179,185 individual visits to the site at an average of 491 per day however the 12 month average was now up to nearly 500 per day with the highest average month being 567 per day. This was an increase of 26% on the previous year and brought the total number of visits to the site for the 7 years to 708,314. The total number of page views in year 7 was 2,639,321 bringing the total page views throughout the 7 years to over 10.3 million.

We have enjoyed bringing this site to you and look forward to further growth in usage during the years ahead with the site continuing to provide a central source of information for both new and existing karters in New Zealand. We sincerely hope that you have enjoyed what we have provided to date and will continue to visit in the future.

Average Visits per Day for the first 7 years.

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