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Change.org grows traffic and improves engagement as a result of its new blogging strategy.
In early October, Change.org re-launched its social action platform with a new blogging strategy. We immediately wrote that “Change.org Shifts Strategy to Blogging and Content.” The site was re0rganized around topical blogs for each of the causes such as global warming, immigration, gay rights, and social entrepreneurship. We went so far as to claim that blogging had won over social networking and that content had won over connecting. Of course, at the time there was nothing to back this up.
Three months later, Change.org’s Compete numbers are off the chart (relatively speaking).
Traffic grew by nearly 700% over two months from about 21K to nearly 150K unique visitors per month. We don’t have the actual analytics. Compete.com provides estimates that, in our experience, are light by about 20% but otherwise fairly accurate. At the very least, it reliably shows trends one way or the other. And while the spike in traffic could be attributed to factors that don’t relate directly to the new content strategy, Compete.com also shows a similar boost in engagement that implies the content is not only driving traffic but keeping people on the site longer.
According to this, total time spent (attention) grew by more than 700% over the same period. What drove this success?
Change.org began as a online community that enabled people to network and organize around social causes. Their members could connect with other like-minded individuals and support the nonprofits that addressed their chosen causes. Ultimately, donations could be made and action could be taken. What was missing, however, was actionable, engaging information. Yes, we know there is genocide in Darfur and that global warming needs to be addressed. But just knowing that an issue exists and being passionate about it doesn’t necessarily inspire or translate into action. And that’s what Change.org ultimate needs to do in order to be successful. On the other hand, if we have a consistent source of relevant news (content) about that issue, we’re reminded about how we can affect change and why we want to be a part of the solution.
On a practical level, content is what people are ultimately searching for. It’s a key to being a beacon and attracting precisely the type of customer or user you’re seeking. Because they’re also seeking you. Content becomes a sustainable, long-term source of traffic and potentially conversions, especially when it’s organized on topical blogs in a relatively narrow fashion.
Recently, the healthy-conscious-green-living portal Care2 adopted a similar strategy. This month it launched a cause news network, which consists of blog channels for global warming, animal welfare, politics, civil rights, and many other cause categories. As with Change.org, the causes themselves are built into the URLs (http://www.care2.com/causes/global-warming), which is highly SEO friendly. Care2’s rate of new posts is not as high as Change.org, which we’ve observed at about one new post per day per blog. Nevertheless, we’ll track Care2’s success and follow up in a couple months.
It’s also worth noting that Care2 and Change.org have different business models. Whereas Care2 is predominantly an ad-driven business, Change.org relies on its nonprofit platform, for which it charges a fee, as well as taking a percentage of charitable donations made by its members.
(Note: it’s possible that Change.org’s recent success is attributable to other factors, and we welcome input from the company or others privy to this information.)
Update: Below are the Compete.com numbers including December 2008. The growth spurt continues. And the company just launched seven new blogs as of January.
Update 2: Change.org continues to increase its traffic. Here are the January ‘09 Compete numbers: Up 2000% on the year with 715K unique visitors. All about content and engagement. Obama certainly didn’t hurt, either.
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Ben Rattray // Dec 28, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Thanks for the kind post (this is Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org).
Things have indeed taken off since the re-launch of our site in October, and for largely the reasons you mentioned. In our experience Compete’s numbers are less than half of our total monthly traffic per Google Analytics (partially because it only reports US traffic, and partially because it seems to systematically under-count traffic for smaller sites), but either way the trend, and the lesson, is clear: quality content wins.
Keep up the good work,
Ben
2 James Mandabel // Dec 29, 2008 at 2:02 pm
You forgot to add that change spammed hundred of thousand of people!
3 Ben Rattray // Dec 29, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Alas, I wish we had that power, James…
4 Max Gladwell // Dec 29, 2008 at 2:38 pm
This comment was emailed to us anonymously:
“Change.org’s traffic has little if nothing to do with their new blog strategy.. in fact, it was going pretty much nowhere. There is one reason for their traffic, and that’s Obama’s victory.
The initial surge in traffic came from Obama’s announcement that his website is “change.gov”, and lots of people are typing in the wrong url. The graphic from Compete shows when the change in traffic actually occurred…on the day Obama announced the new website name.
The second wave has come because they did something smart, and that was capitalize on Obama’s statement that he wanted input from the public. So, they set up a contest to capture that Obama traffic and solicit ideas / vote for the best “ideas for change in America”. This contest has spread well in the blogosphere.
Based on what we’re hearing, they’re not getting much traffic to the actual blog posts (and the # of comments on most posts would suggest that’s true). That said, they have done some clever things to drive quick traffic hits such as (http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/is_digg_sexist)
Time will tell whether they can hold on to this traffic and/or whether they’ll move their entire strategy to an Obama-centric one, but there’s no question Obama was the catalyst.
5 Ben Rattray // Dec 29, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hm. It seems that success inspires envy, even when it’s for good. Understandable, I suppose, but I’m always disappointed when I see this, whether it’s directed at us or at others working in the social change sector.
It’s my policy not to respond to angry anonymous comments (nothing constructive ever comes from it), but I’ll give a quick response here since this was posted by Max.
In truth our rapid growth began immediately upon our launch, and our traffic has doubled every month since (in October, November, and again in December).
We no doubt enjoyed a hit of traffic when Obama kindly announced change.gov (very nice of him), and the brand association doesn’t hurt. But that sort of thing is fleeting, and in total we received about 60,000 more hits than we normally would have expected last month from type-in and search traffic. In the context of our overall traffic, which was more than 350,000 in November, that’s pretty small.
It’s also true we’ve been getting a decent amount of traffic from our successful Ideas for Change in America competition, although it comprises less than half of the more than 750,000 people we’ve had on change.org thus far in December.
As a final note before signing off on this topic, I hope people who care about using the web for social change can keep things constructive and try to support, rather than rhetorically tear down, others working for change. I’m all about constructive feedback about how we can improve, and actively solicit it on a regular basis. But random anonymous attacks with ill-intent and misinformation don’t serve anyone and are a blight that I hope we can all fight, Max included.
6 Sara // Dec 29, 2008 at 3:39 pm
“As a final note before signing off on this topic, I hope people who care about using the web for social change can keep things constructive and try to support, rather than rhetorically tear down, others working for change.”
Cheers to that.
7 Randy // Dec 29, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Thanks for the mention of Care2!
Yes, we’re excited about the launch of our Cause channels, as they make it easier for folks to find what they’re looking for on Care2. It’s sort of a one-stop-shop approach to all the good things on Care2 related to Human Rights, Global Warming, or whatever your interest is.
With so much content on helping people live a more healthy and sustainable life, navigating it all has always been a bit of a challenge. We’re just getting started with the Cause channels, so I think within a few months we’ll have learned a lot and hopefully have a very compelling offering.
While I agree with you that search traffic is an important issue to consider, historically at least, we’ve found the *vast* majority of our traffic comes from word of mouth and then repeat visitors. Perhaps that says we’re not very good at SEO, but it has helped us get to 10 million members. That said, I very much agree with your fundamental premise that great content, around a central premise, is key to success.
8 Bess // Jan 4, 2009 at 6:37 pm
WARNING Stay away from change.org. I had problems with trojans attempting to attack my computer while on that web site. This is the only web site where I have ever had problems with trojans. Change.org does not believe in free speech and will censor posts and ideas that don’t go along with their one sided views. Go to the real Obama site Change.gov.
9 Harold L Doherty // Jan 7, 2009 at 12:37 pm
It is too bad that Change.org wasn’t more socially responsible about it’s selection of bloggers. Change.org has decided to hire two bloggers from the anti-autism cure faction to blog its autism page thus opposing the human rights of autistic children to treatment and cure as set out in the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959).
http://autisminnb.blogspot.com/2009/01/changeorg-opposes-human-rights-of.html
10 Martin Smith // Jan 10, 2009 at 8:03 am
Ben,
If you had the foresight to use the Obama win (and then the contest) as a way to drive traffic, then no matter what others say, that was genius….Harvard Business School case study genius. You, no doubt, will continue to get crap as your success grows.
I am interested to see how Obama’s team will respond to change.org once in office…whether they will embrace it or try to confront the branding problems between change.org and change.gov straight on.
Either way, congrats what looks like the beginning of a successful run on change.org.
Sincerely,
Martin
Martin Smith
CEO
JustMeans
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