Hello all. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a good upcoming New Years. I took most of the last week off of work and working on RefrigerantHQ. Sometimes it is nice to take a step back and spend some relaxing time with the family.
During this time I was thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in 2019 for RefrigerantHQ. 2018 was a great year for the website and we saw a lot of growth. In 2017 we ended the year at three-hundred and seventy-thousand views. While there are still a few days left in 2018 I can safely say that we will end this year at five-hundred and forty-thousand views. That is nearly fifty percent year over year growth. Not a bad number if you ask me!
Breaking these same numbers down per day we find that we are averaging around fifteen-hundred views per day for the 2018 year. This was again a nearly fifty percent year over year increase. Obviously, our best month this year was in July at just over one-hundred thousand visitors and our worst month this year is this month at around twenty-thousand views.
We also saw significant growth in our mailing list subscribers. We started 2018 at just over six-hundred subscribers and we are now over sixteen-hundred. We aim to have over twenty-five hundred by the end of 2019.
Recognition
Along with the growth we mentioned above RefrigerantHQ has also begun to be noticed by those within the industry. Towards the beginning of the year we were invited to a refrigerant trade show put on by the SHECCO company. While we appreciated the invitation we were not yet in the position to began attending trade shows.
Please remember that RefrigerantHQ is a hobby of mine and I still have my full-time employment to balance as well as my wife and kids. There are times where it can be tough and I have yet to find the time to attend some of these trade shows. However, as the years progress and growth continues you may begin to see a RefrigerantHQ presence at industry trade events.
Throughout the year we have received story leads and topic ideas from various folks including some of the larger names within the industry such as Chemours and Honeywell. If you have any topic ideas feel free to reach out to me and let me know. The more the better!
This summer we had a lunch meeting with ITW Sexton, also known as Sexton Cans. Sexton, based out of Decatur, Alabama, is the company that is behind the refrigerant cans that you find in automotive stores and dealership shelves. Their products are DOT and ISO certified and they stand behind their quality.
Lastly, earlier this month we met with some folks from Harp International. Harp is a global distributor of refrigerants based out of the United Kingdom. During their visit to Americas they booked an extra flight in Kansas City to meet me for lunch. We had a few beers in downtown Kansas City and talked about the wonderful topic of refrigerants for a few hours. They were good contacts to establish and I look forward to meeting with them in the future. I occasionally travel to Brussels for my day job, so we might just have to arrange a visit!
2019 & The Future
The future of RefrigerantHQ is growth, of course. But, what kind of growth? I’ve been thinking about this for a while as I plan out how I want to grow the website. This time last year I thought adding community forums would be a good way to grow and also offer another feature for my readers. After piloting this for around six months I found that it just wasn’t worth it. The forums became overrun with spam and fake messages and then towards the end of July the forums allowed hackers to infiltrate my site. The site was down for a week while I made frantic repairs.
Looking towards next year one goal that I have in mind is to create more and more of our Refrigerant Fact Sheets. These posts focus on providing anything and everything to do with a specific refrigerant. The goal here is to have a one stop place to answer any question on a refrigerant. Eventually, we will have a fact sheet for every popular refrigerant out there… and maybe for every single refrigerant.
Along with the fact sheets we will also be keeping up with the latest refrigerant news here in the United States. This includes regulation changes, pricing changes, supply and demand, tariffs, and everything else. We want to be the place you go to for the latest news and changes within the industry. If over the next year you know of a story or article that should be written please do not hesitate to reach out to me either via e-mail, Twitter, or Facebook. Chances are we will review the story and write it up for our subscribers.
Also, if you feel like something is missing from the website or there is something that you are always looking for online and can never find please let me know. I’m always looking for that next big idea within the industry.
Conclusion
Next year our predicted view count should surpass seven-hundred thousand. My optimistic goal is to hit over eight-hundred but the seven-hundred number is more then reasonable and should be easily accomplished. This traffic will be a mix from all corners of the industry including manufacturers, distributors, contractors, technicians, and even end-users.
I’ve mentioned this earlier and in previous posts, but my goal with RefrigerantHQ is to turn it into a full fledged refrigerant magazine and for it to turn into a full time income source. Today there are multiple revenue streams that are helping me reach this goal.
I have considered offering advertising on my website as well from various sponsors throughout the industry. While I have had a few inquiries I have yet to sign with a company. At this point I am uncertain if this is the business model I want to move forward with. Time will tell.
If any of you have other ideas for potential revenue streams I am open to suggestions.