ISSUE ONE

HONESTINSIGHTS
M A R K E T T R E N D S G O O G L E A N A LY T I C S W H AT S N E W A S K H J
THE SITE IN NUMBERS
Mokka 2012

21,394,549
PAGE VIEWS

16,427,555
UNIQUE PAGE VIEWS
Trax 2013

UNIQUE USERS VISITS VIA SOCIAL REFERRAL OWNERS REVIEWS OF TRAFFIC VIA GOOGLE MOBILE AND TABLET USAGE

4,201,179 14,212 500

Captur 2013

67%

40%

Nissan Juke

The most popular crossover

hatchback? It wouldnt appear so our top three reviews from March to May were the Skoda Octavia, Volkswagen Golf and the SEAT Leon. Together they produced more than 150,000 page views. Those three high quality hatchbacks stick to a tried and tested formula which is obviously proving popular among our users. But judging by the growth in page impressions, we dont think it will be long before the likes of the Captur and 2008 become equally popular on the site.

NEW SITE

f theres a new kid on the motoring block, its the small crossover. The creation of yet another niche shows the appetite of buyers who want a vehicle with compact dimensions but with a raised driving position. The Nissan Juke started the trend and last year saw the launch of the Vauxhall Mokka with its counterpart the Chevrolet Trax following soon after. French brands are getting in on the act, too, with the Renault Captur which we recently tested, and will arrive in UK showrooms

in July along with the Peugeot 2008. 2014 will see Ford enter the fray with the EcoSport. There are also rumours that Honda will be resurrecting the HR-V Weve seen the growing popularity reflected in site traffic with these models quickly moving up the rankings. So do these new niches signal the end of the traditional saloon or

2008 2013

Ecosport 2014

The difference between users looking at saloons and hatchbacks vs. crossovers

1%

WEATHER TRENDS
TWO WEEKS OF SUNSHINE from 22nd April 7th May saw a 137% increase in people looking at our top ten convertibles, taking them to 2nd place behind small hatchbacks, and pushing medium family cars back to 3rd place. For the rest of the period convertibles were in 12th place. 1ST TOP TEN SMALL HATCHBACKS 2ND TOP TEN MEDIUM FAMILY CARS 3RD TOP TEN ESTATE CARS
www.honestjohn.co.uk

Convertible and generic automotive keywords and their WoW growth for April provided by Google Automotive trends:

The most popular convertible during the warm weather was the Mercedes SLK (2004-2011) followed by the BMW Z3 Roadster (1997-2003) model and in 3rd place was the Mazda MX5 2005 model.
01

Audi S4 83.13% Hyundai 21% Nissan 18.74% Mazda MX5 12.76% BMW convertible 12.04%
1 March - 31 May 2013

HJ TRENDS

USER ENGAGEMENT
GOOD GARAGE GUIDE VISITS

199,390 16,559* 5,429 4,692 2,521 2,202 299

NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTIONS

GARAGES ON THE GOOD GARAGE GUIDE

NEW REGISTRATIONS

GOOD GARAGE REVIEWS

QUESTIONS ASKED

NEW GARAGE REVIEWS

*Average for March, April and May 2013

Hyundai ix35 wins Car of the Year at Honest John Awards 2013

Top three manufacturers and their top three models

1 SERIES
FIE STA ST

FIESTA

ERI 3S

POLO

Up!

SE

ES

1 March - 31 May 2013

KU GA

RI

ES

LF

FORD

VOLKSWAGEN

BMW

02

www.honestjohn.co.uk

REAL MPG

Best performing models for three popular categories this Q

The best performers:
SMALL HATCHBACK:
1] Honda Jazz 46.8mpg equivalent to 90.8% of the average combined mpg 2] Suzuki Swift 49.6mpg equivalent to 89.3% of the average combined mpg 3] Citroen C3 53.6mpg equivalent to 86.5mpg of the average combined mpg

So what is it?
Real MPG was launched in April 2011 and allows drivers to log the true fuel economy of their vehicles. It has since developed into a database of more than 40,000 Real MPG submissions, covering almost 2,500 model and engine combinations of cars from 2006 to 2013. Real MPG provides the most usable everyday alternative to the official fuel economy figures by using real life data provided by users. It takes the average fuel consumption from all entries for the most realistic results.

CROSSOVER:
1] Skoda Yeti 41.8mpg equivalent to 88.6% of the average combined mpg 2] Hyundai ix35 41.7mpg equivalent to 86.7% of the average combined mpg 3] Nissan Qashqai 42.9mpg equivalent to 86.4% of the average combined mpg

CONVERTIBLE:
1] Volvo C70 41mpg equivalent to 96.3 % of the average combined mpg 2] Mazda MX-5 RC 34.9mpg equivalent to 95.7% of the average combined mpg 3] Volkswagen Eos 41.1mpg equivalent to 94.8% of the average combined mpg

BEST REAL MPG PERFORMER AT THE HONEST JOHN AWARDS 2013

Suzuki SX-4 Average 40.2 MPG (97.1% of the official figure)
www.honestjohn.co.uk

03

1 March - 31 May 2013

SOCIAL & MOBILE

What do our readers want to know?

Most popular news stories
YOUTUBE VIEWS

560,660 4,381

FACEBOOK REFERRALS
Death of Margaret Thatcher 9th April 2013 Referrals in relation to Declassified government documents: The Future of British Leyland

FACEBOOK PHOTO VIEWS 20 MAY 2013 AFTER THE HONEST JOHN AWARDS

Budget Day 20th March 2013 Referrals in relation to Fuel Duty and Car Tax story

BBC Breakfast Tuesday 14th May 2013 Referrals in relations to Most Endangered Cars story

OF ALL SOCIAL TRAFFIC COMES VIA FACEBOOK

61.45%

4000 Visits to the site via facebook

2000

OF ALL SOCIAL TRAFFIC COMES VIA TWITTER

24.25%

15 March

29 March

12 April

26 April

10 May

MOBILE USAGE
Google Automotive trends show tablet and mobile searches increasing by over 1000% YoY. Honest John mobile and tablet usage has increased by 108% from last year. This increase doesnt overtake desktop usage as most users are in a research frame of mind.

Traffic during the day is 80:10:10 across Desktop, Mobile and Tablet as people are more likely to use a computer at work. During the evening this ratio turns to 60:20:20 as people tend to use mobiles and tablets while in front of the TV as tablets have replaced the household computers. Take a look at this graph below. It shows when Dave

(TV Channel) repeats the episode of Dragons Den showing the concept electric car BEE, which all dragons opted out of. Traffic is significantly increased to that particular page indicating people browse the internet and watch TV simultaneously. The smaller peaks indicate early morning showings, the larger spikes indicate afternoons and weekends.

OF ALL VISITS WERE THROUGH A MOBILE DEVICE

35% 34% 32%

500 Page Views

OF MOBILE VISITS WERE THROUGH AN APPLE IPAD

Thurs 14 March 312 Views

Sun 14 April 402 Views

Wed 24th April 301 Views

250

OF MOBILE VISITS WERE THROUGH APPLE IPHONE

April 2013

May 2013
www.honestjohn.co.uk

1 March - 31 May 2013

04

SMALL HATCHBACKS

Small Hatchbacks
The rein of the City Car
he rise in popularity of city cars has been huge on HONESTJOHN.co.uk in recent months. And the reason is the trio of the Volkswagen Up, SEAT Mii and the Skoda Citigo. The latter has been phenomenal with traffic up 34% compared with the previous three months. Weve been just as impressed by these three and its no surprise to see how well theyre performing on the site. We described the Mii as a stylish and affordable small hatch in our review and thought the Citigo was one very well packaged design while the Mii is nimble, distinctive, well built and represents good value for money. The question is will the rise in popularity of city cars have an effect on small hatchbacks like the Ford Fiesta. Well it

ANALYSIS:

certainly looks that way judging by the statistics from site traffic. The Fiesta and Corsa have both seen drops in traffic although the Jazz and new Clio have both seen rises.

DID YOU KNOW?

On average city cars are up on last year and your average small car is only up on last year.

Its no surprise

71% 16%

to see how well theyre performing on the site

Volkswagen Up

Skoda Citigo

With the gap between different segments getting ever more blurred, we predict that the rise in quality, practicality and refinement of city cars will see the differentiation between city car and small hatchback disappear as buyers seek the best value for money.

SEAT Mii

CITY CAR VS. SMALL HATCHBACK

Fiesta -8% Volkswagen Up! +30% SEAT Mii +48% Skoda Citigo +209% Kia Picanto -0.5% -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 % on same period last year
www.honestjohn.co.uk

Corsa -18% Jazz +45%

Vs
05

Clio +48% Yaris +13% -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 % on same period last year
1 March - 31 May 2013

HJ CLASSICS

CLASSICS IN FIGURES

PAGE VIEWS

923,204 771,863 180,579

UNIQUE PAGE VIEWS

PAGEVIEWS ON 14TH MAY 2013 #MOST ENDANGERED CARS

The story behind Honest John Classics

onest John Classics arose as there was a clear gap in the UK online market for a general advice and review-driven classic car site. The idea that a visitor would like to find out more about the older car of his or her dreams and could visit a single resource site to find out how that car drives; what you need to look for when buying and running one; how many are left; how they perform in MoT tests; and then learn more about the model history seemed like an inspired one. And yet, no ones really done it before in a simple easy to navigate way like www.honestjohn.co.uk. Keith Adams, our Classics editor, suggested that we could extend the format of the main site to create a new classics-related site, and was met with a positive response. Knowing we all had the same idea was one thing then being given a few weeks to make it happen with a strict deadline was something else entirely. It helps that Keith is passionate about old cars and might explain why the HJ team burned the midnight oil to serve up a new site on deadline, and ensure it was comprehensively stocked with content from day one. BRITISH LEYALAND

THE THATCHER YEARS

The editorial team at HJ HQ decided we needed some meaty content to launch the site with. So we raided the National Archives to see what documents were available about British Leyland while it was under government control and were surprised at just how much was there, and how much had yet to be publicised. Keith wrote a feature that covered the first few months of Margaret Thatchers premiership and readied it for the launch of Honest John Classics. Little did any of us know what was in store for us on launch day Margaret Thatcher died, and interest in her sky-rocketed! Although it was a sad day for British politics, it was a heck of a scoop for Honest John Classics.

PAGEVIEWS IN FIRST MONTH OF LAUNCH

23,830 14,212

VISITS VIA SOCIAL REFERRAL

Page Impressions in the first month indicate extremely successful MoM growth.

Ford Sierra

Rover SD1

Austin Allegro

Austin Montego

TOP 20 #MOSTENDANGEREDCARS
would find this quite fascinating with the BBC TV and local radio, as well as various national newspapers, picking it up. Our story ended up being the most viewed on the BBC website that day... quite an achievement, and proof positive that old cars really do have widespread appeal!

e obtained the DVLA data on how many cars are still on UK roads, and whether they are taxed or SORNd. This data might be freely available, but making sense of it is something else entirely. But again, we crunched the numbers, matched the names and have produced figures for all of the classic cars that were correctly registered in the first place. From that, we then compared with original production numbers to create a list of percentages remaining to create an endangered list little did we know the media

CLASSIC OF THE MONTH

SURPRISINGLY THE MOST SEARCHED classic car in the first few weeks and therefore our first classic of the month is the Renault 5 Gordini. This hotted-up version of the R5 was sold in the UK between 1979 and 1982 before being replaced by the Gordini Turbo, but clearly made quite an impression in those three short years. Were all surprised that the review page has been hit as many time it has been for this excellent little car, and have already made sure that weve given an R5 that belongs to the Renault UK Heritage fleet the full road test treatment to give all of its fans something to enjoy.
1 March - 31 May 2013

06

www.honestjohn.co.uk

HJ VANS

A van load of visitors to our new LCV site

Honest John Vans was launched in February and has proved a real success, surpassing our expectations. In the first month we served 95,000 page views and May saw that rise to 125,000. Steady growth and weve got plenty more to come including some great features and a whole new section we cant tell you about yet...

VANS IN NUMBERS

PAGEVIEWS

332,325 251,015 12,212

UNIQUE PAGE VIEWS

AVERAGE PAGEVIEW GROWTH EACH MONTH

TOP FIVE VOLUME MANUFACTURER MoT PASS RATES 1] Toyota 65.4% 2] Fiat 63.8 % 3] Volkswagen 57.6 % 4] Peugeot 57.6 % 5] Mercedes-Benz 54.7 %

PASS RATE ON MoTs

81%

THE VAN MOT FILES

Following on from our high profile MoT story of last May, weve now been able to launch The Van MoT Files. And the results make interesting reading. Of course what everyone wants to know is what the best performing van was. Well we set a benchmark of a 1000 MoT tests to get a more representative picture of the market. The van that came out top was the 2008 Toyota Hiace with a pass rate of 81 per cent. Toyota was also the top performing mainstream manufacturer.

THE TOP SELLING VANS OF 2012 For the uninitiated, buying a van can be a complicated business. With so many variants and options its often easy to ask what are the most Toyota Hiace popular selling models? According to the SMMT figures these were the When was the last time you saw one of these? The Austin Maestro Van top five in 2012. 1] Ford Transit is a rare sight these days and car based vans like this and the Ford 2] Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Escort Van are a dying breed. Even the ubiquitous Vauxhall Astra van is no more as manufacturers move towards more specialised vehicles. 3] Vauxhall Vivaro But that doesnt mean cars and vans are moving further apart in fact 4] Volkswagen Transporter the relationship between passenger cars and commercial vehicles is a 5] Peugeot Partner tight one. This is evident in the fact that there are now more van-based v Our five Most people carriers than ever. Popular Vans 1] Mercedes-Benz Citan 2] Ford Transit Custom 3] Volkswagen Transporter 4] Nissan NV200 5] Hyundai iLoad

CAR-BASED VANS

www.honestjohn.co.uk

07

1 March - 31 May 2013

HJ TRENDS

HJs most popular this Q

The lowdown on trending topics at HONESTJOHN.co.uk
Most popular searches in site-wide search box
Dual Mass Flywheel Tyres DMF Ford Focus Vectra Diesel 2.0

Honest John Community Forum threads with the most recently added posts
TBD best car for high MPG when driving at 85mph 140 posts Oil Change, x miles/1 yr, whichever comes sooner 121 posts Cyclists and the law, or indeed above it 105 posts

Most popular tags for published questions asked

Technical Issues
Small Cars

Wheels and tyres

Used Cars

Buying

New Cars
Insurance
Automatics

Legal and consumer advice

Owning

Tags with most page impressions

[1] Technical Issues [2] Diesel Particulate Filter [3] Buying [4] DSG [5] High Seating Position

Most popular on YouTube

Ford Fiesta ST 2013 Road Test 38,652 Views 2013 VW Golf Mk VII Road Test 21,250 Views Renault Captur 1.5d Cl Road Test 17,125 Views

Most popular news stories

Honest John Awards 2013: The Winners Geneva Motor Show Budget 2013 road tax rates Shell V-Power Nitro+ promises even better performance Mixed messages about falling used car prices from the auctions

STAY UP TO DATE WITH HONEST INSIGHTS AND FOLLOW OUR LINKEDIN COMPANY PAGE OR TO ADVERTISE ON OUR SITE CLICK HERE
1 March - 31 May 2013

HONESTINSIGHTS
08

www.honestjohn.co.uk