Golden February 2020 for FIRST online, which burns all his previous records by scoring over 3 million direct visits and almost 4 million in aggregate terms, confirming that, in the end, even on the Net, the reliability, quality, independence and creativity of economic and financial information pay off and reward good journalism.
Le views registered in February on the FIRSTonline website were – according to the surveys of Google Analytics - Exactly 3 million and 373.307, with an increase of over 50% both on the previous month (2 million and 53 thousand visits) and on the month of February 2019, when the previous record for contacts was set with a total of 2 million and 151.836 views.
If the 316.803 registered on the FIRSTonline Facebook page and the 279.731 collected on the Microsoft Italy platform (www.msn.it), of which FIRSTonline is the official supplier of economic and financial content, the aggregate total of views collected in February 2020 rises to the record figure of 3 million and 969.841 units, just a whisker from the threshold of 4 million and net of visits collected by its three vertical sites (FIRST Art, First&Food e FIRST Tutorials). The previous aggregate record, also in February 2019, was 2 million and 660.019 views, again net of the 3 verticals.
- unique users there were 831 thousand and 791.
On average, in February 2020 FIRSTonline was read by around 137 people a day, distributed across the various platforms to which the site's contents flow. It means that, in terms of aggregate average daily views, FIRSTonline - depending on the different calculation methods used - is virtually placed in fifth place in the ranking of Italian economics and finance sites, behind illustrious publications but with an incomparably higher number of journalists to the editorial staff of FIRSTonline, which is made up of only seven journalists and a few collaborators.
It is interesting to note that the February record is not the effect of the news boom connected to the Coronavirus explosion, which certainly counted in the last ten days even if not in a decisive way, but from the upward trend underway since autumn 2019 and which mainly relies on service articles or quality insights. The proof lies in the fact that the most read service in February was the one on news on pensions, with over 277 thousand views, followed by the one on accounts of the Sanremo Festival with more than 146 thousand visits, from the one on news of the Milleprorogh decreeand for doctors and specialists with more than 132 thousand visits and from that on Nursery bonus with over 110 thousand visits. The most read service on Coronavirus is about what's new for businesses and employers with about 60 visits, followed by reports on history of Google, on the stock exchange emergency due to the Chinese epidemic and the events related to Brexit.
At this point, the goal of 4 million readers a month, which until a few months ago seemed just a dream, is now one step away and becomes a goal realistically within FIRSTonline's reach. An objective all the more remarkable if achieved, as in our case, with budgets in order and without any public providence and with a team of intergenerational and numerically reduced professionals, but endowed with high professional competence and a great passion for good journalism, first understood everything as a civilian mission.
