Best Of 2021
What content has been the favorite IN 2021?
Another strange year has passed. We all hoped the pandemic was going to be over by now, but it’s still here. The good news is that vaccines are helping reduce its incidence and people are starting to travel again. We hope that our blog posts have helped you smile and dream of Barcelona during these last months. Maybe bringing a piece of Barcelona to your home, maybe giving you ideas for a future trip… on 2022 maybe?
As the new year starts, I wish to look back and see whats’ been our most popular content. Maybe it was something you missed because we weren’t under your radar yet. Or maybe it’ll be something you’ll want to review. Who knows? What’s been your favorite content piece so far? Let’s see if you guessed what was our top content right!
Our website traffic is an accurate reflection of the pandemic evolution: if last year most blog posts were about food and things you could do from home (like listening to music), this year there’s still some “staycation” subjects, but the interest for “in person” travel is back.
#1 and #2 repeat at the top of the list: the Saints that protect you in the Cathedral of Barcelona is the undeniable leader, with more than 6 times more visitors than the second post in our ranking. And this second most loved post continues to be the one about Spanish Soups. There’s two more post that repeat this year, but they are at the end of the list and losing rankings. I’ts the posts about Alcoholic Drinks and the one about Restaurants in La Rambla.
The rest of our Top-10 posts are new in the rankings, although not all of them were published this year. You can tell our efforts to update old posts and improve their content are giving fruit!
- Saints that protect you in the Cathedral of Barcelona
- Favorite Spanish soups
- Spain Vs Mexico Travel
- Documentaries about Spain
- Things to do on Sunday in Barcelona
- Itinerary for 5 days in Barcelona
- Spanish shoe brands
- Barcelona restaurants for New Years Eve
- Catalan and Spanish alcoholic drinks
- Good restaurants in Las Ramblas
2
Most opened newsletters
Did you know we’ve been posting weekly since 2012? When you sign up to our newsletters, you receive the post punctually every Wednesday. I like checking out what posts attracted the most attention from our readers. Because when I write, I do it with you in mind. And in 2021 I sent you no less than 51 blog posts! The difference between our newsletters ranking and our website ranking is that the newsletters ranking strictly counts the posts published (and therefore sent to you) in 2021, while the website ranking includes all the posts published in our blog since the very beginning.
As for making the rankings, I’ve looked at the email open rates to see which subjects sounded most interesting to you. There’s another interesting statistic I’ve looked at: the click rate. As you know, in our newsletters I only send you the beginning of the post and you need to click to read the rest. The percentage of people clicking to continue reading it tells me if the beginning of the post was compelling enough.
And high open rates doesn’t always mean high click rates. In fact, there three newsletters in the Top-10 open rank that are also in our Top-10 click-through rank: the one about Barcelona for young adults, the one about December in Barcelona and the one about the Women of Picasso (the two last ones are quite recent posts, by the way).
I’ll give you only my Top-10 open posts, but I also want to mention that there’s 3 posts on the Top-15 open rank that are in the Top-10 click-through rank: July in Barcelona, Where to Stay in Barcelona and Famous Barcelona Foods. BTW, this last one is our most clicked newsletter of the year! Instead, the #10 most open newsletter seems to have been the most disappointing, with our lowest click-through rate of the year. The post about Gaudi’s collaborator Antoni Jujol. Ouch… will you give him a second chance?
3
Most visited tours
People are slowing going back to traveling, but I must say that things aren’t unfortunately back to normal yet. Our tour traffic is still around 60% of what used to be. But… we have doubled the tours traffic compared to last year, so that’s a start!
Our Top-1 and Top-2 tours have continued to be the same: our beloved Gaudi Tour and the most popular day trip out of town: Montserrat. Surprisingly, our Shopping tour has humped to third position (even if more people check it than book it – we have some homework to do here).
There’s been some new tours showing in the rank (the Sagrada Familia tour and our mini-tours are somehow recently added to our tour portfolio). And I’ve seen some movement with ups and downs around the Top-15.
The only drastic change has been our Full Day Tour of Barcelona dropping from #6 to #44! Either people aren’t interested in long tours anymore (budget? social contact?) or it’s a SEO issue that needs to be addressed. So what about you? Is your favorite tour one of our Top-10 this year?
What do you want us to write about in 2022?
We are planning our content calendar for next year. Our plan is to finish the “Barcelona month by month” series, that we started in July. So we have several months to write about yet. We are also happy with our idea of comparing Barcelona with other destinations. But what would you love to read about? Architecture? Food? Travel tips? Barcelona-related items you can buy online? Recipes? Books?
Send us your ideas by replying to this email (if you are reading our newsletters) or leaving a comment below (if you are reading the post in our website) and we’ll love to take them into account!
Marta
Marta is the founder of ForeverBarcelona. She is a passionate tour guide that loves Barcelona and loves writing too. She is the main author of our Blog, and is committed to sharing her knowledge about Barcelona and her best tips with our readers.
RESEARCHING FOR A TRIP IS TIME-CONSUMING…
Need more inspiration?
Our 100% FREE Barcelona Collection will give you everything you need to organize the trip of your lifetime to Barcelona.
BEST INSIDER TIPS FROM THE PROS!
