Seraphim SL traffic stats via Similar Web
Seraphim SL, the top user-run Second Life fashion/shopping blog, is reporting that the site attracted over 20 million pageviews in 2021 -- that's doubling its traffic from 2019, when it earned 10 million pageviews for the year. This is noteworthy, because actual overall Second Life usage has declined slightly in recent years.
To put that traffic in broader perspective, this Second Life fashion site gets more pageviews than many top real life fashion sites, like Fashionista. Related to Second Life as a virtual world community, this suggests that users are spending less time in-world -- and more time consuming virtual world content on the web and across social media.
Kess Crystal attributes this pageview growth to curation, and regular discount events:
"The biggest change over the last year has been the growth in deep discount weekend events. e.g. Happy Weekend and The Saturday Sale," as she puts it to me. "We probably get one or two applications a week for new weekend events and we focus on providing coverage of the best quality ones. Unlike some other shopping trends in SL this one doesn't seem to be diminishing anytime soon and we're expecting to see this continue for at least another 12-18 months.
"Overall the key is good quality content. We receive multiple applications for new events every single week and our team takes a considered view on each one to determine whether they will be bringing something to the table that our viewers are going to be interested in."
Another secret to Seraphim SL's success is analytics: "We use our analysis of historical site data built over 10 years to base those decisions so we know we are bringing our readers more of what they want."
I think part of it is that there are *so many* sales events now, that people can't easily keep track of them all anymore, and it's helpful to have one central listing.
A contributing factor might be my personal impression that a lot of the recurring "themed" events are featuring a lot less thematic content, and just kinda... losing their focus. So Kawaii Sunday just featured a bondage harness and a very large, uh, marital aid, and the Kinky 69 event had a perfectly normal hairdo and some completely innocent photo backdrops... you kind of have to look at everything to find deals/sales, 'cause you never really know what you're going to find where.
Posted by: lkosov | Tuesday, January 11, 2022 at 05:54 PM