It's been over 2 1/2 years since I last did a post highlighting how teachers are using our website. A lot has changed since then, as visitors to our website have quadrupled since then. 

By now, you realize that I am a data geek, so it would only seem natural that I obsess over our website statistics and the story it tells about how educators, students, parents and others use us. Please note that we don’t track individual users on our site and get our aggregate data from Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google.

I thought I would choose a day from last month. How about Wednesday, November 20th? Here is what I can tell you about that day:

• Users visited 1,542 unique webpages on our site on this day and spent close to 600 hours finding resources for their students. Teachers tell us they like comprehensive nature of our site as their "one stop" for their personal finance classroom and its great to see the value they find in so many different webpages on our website!
  • Top five pages visited: Home Page, Arcade, Curriculum Unit Pages.Semester Course and Activities. 
  • In terms of most popular units on this day, the top 3 were Types of Credit, Budgeting and Investing
  • Three most popular Arcade games: STAX, PAYBACK, Shady Sam
  • Number of new teachers who created teacher accounts: 55 (or about 1 teacher every 30 minutes). Word of mouth was the #1 way they found out about NGPF. Thanks to all those who share our website with their colleagues! 
  • Favorite blog post was a question of the day: How much money is spent on the internet every 60 seconds?
  • Favorite search terms: PAYBACK, student loans, insurance, budget, checking 
  • Here are a few pages that I love that had all of one visitor on November 20th (I am glad that at least someone found them):
    • Activity idea: Ten + Thought-Provoking Questions To Get Your Students Writing
    • Graphic: The Wheel of (Mis) Fortune OR Why You Should Avoid Payday Lenders
    • Video: How Can We All Be Original Thinkers (Adam Grant TED Talk)?
    • Video Montage: 50 Ways To Swipe Your Credit (or Debit) Card Numbers (with apologies to Paul Simon)

• In terms of geographical reach…
  • We had users from all 50 states visit our website on November 20th
  • California, Texas and New York were top 3 states in terms of users 
  • Users came from more than 2000 cities and towns from Athens (GA) to Zionsville (IN)
  • We had some international visitors too, with users from 50 different countries, including Canada, United Kingdom, China and India

• In terms of sites referring users to our site…
  
  • Users came to us through the Jump$tart Clearinghouse, TeachFinLit.org, Visual Capitalist (infographics) and state personal finance resource lists developed by states, including California, Kentucky, 

We are so grateful to you, the educators, who make such a difference by providing these valuable life skills to your students. Thank you for visiting our website! 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

More posts by Tim