Website
Performance
Analysis
🌐 caloundrachamber.com.au
📅 1 Mar – 31 Mar 2026
Prepared for
Caloundra Chamber of Commerce
Prepared by
Gravity Projex
Report generated
April 2026
Your at-a-glance summary for March 2026, with month-on-month movement vs February.
954
↑ from 504 in Feb (+89.3%)
895
↑ from 459 in Feb (+94.9%)
149
↑ from 106 in Feb (+40.6%)
38s
↓ from 53s in Feb (−28.3%)
Direct
656 sessions (47.2%)
March context: March is by far the strongest month in the reporting period, with 89% growth in active users (504 → 954). This surge is driven by a major spike in direct traffic (194 → 656 sessions) and significant referral growth — with caloundramarkets.com.au contributing 117 sessions, and the notable new appearance of excel.officeapps.live.com with 23 sessions, suggesting the Chamber’s member directory or event listing may have been embedded in or shared via link on an Excel/Office document, most likely trigger being a member event communication for March’s direct traffic spike.
Active Users
954 Mar
↑ +89.3% vs Feb (504)
New Users
895 Mar
↑ +94.9% vs Feb (459)
Returning Users
149 Mar
↑ +40.6% vs Feb (106)
Avg. Engagement Time
38s Mar
↓ −28.3% vs Feb (53s)
Event Count
6,300 Mar
↑ +65.8% vs Feb (3,800)
Engaged Session Rate
65% Mar
↓ vs Feb (84%) ⚠️
SC Organic Clicks
255 Mar
≈ Stable vs Feb
SC Impressions
4,140 Mar
↓ vs Feb (5,927)
Overall trend: March was a landmark month — active users nearly doubled from 504 to 954 (+89%). The majority of this growth came from a dramatic surge in direct traffic in comparison to February (194 → 656 sessions, +238%), which would reflect a Chamber event, email campaign, or newsletter that drove a large volume directly to the site.
Referral traffic also grew strongly (+71%), with caloundramarkets.com.au again delivering solid cross-referral volume (117 sessions). The engaged session rate dropped from 84% to 65% as expected when direct/campaign-driven traffic surges as these visitors arrive for a specific purpose and leave quickly once found. Events per user held steady at 6.7 (vs 7.6 in Feb), confirming visit depth is consistent for those who engaged.
↗ March 2026 Highlights
March 2026 was a strong month, with 954 active users — an 89% jump from February’s 504. Direct traffic tripled (194 → 656 sessions), strongly suggesting a large Chamber event, member email, or newsletter in March drove a significant volume of members directly to the site. Returning users grew 40.6% to 149, a healthy signal of ongoing member re-engagement.
The Events page became the second most visited page with 388 views and 224 active users, reflecting active event promotion throughout March. The Member Directory climbed to third (215 views, 112 users) and the Join page attracted 133 views at an impressively low 18.9% bounce rate, consistent with motivated membership enquiry activity.
The caloundramarkets.com.au cross-referral continued to grow, delivering 117 sessions in March (up from 92 in February, +27%). A new referral source appeared for the first time — tastecaloundra.com.au with 19 sessions. This will also be attributable to the domain redirect cleanup completed on 19 March, where three CaloundraTourism domains (.Au, .Com, .Com.Au) previously dead, broken, or parked were redirected to the live TasteCaloundra.Com.Au site — immediately activating that referral pipeline. This will grow further in April as the redirects accumulate traffic. The excel.officeapps.live.com referral (23 sessions) is an anomaly, likely reflecting an embedded link circulated.
The Netwalking page entered the top 7 with 74 views, but at a 77.6% bounce rate — visitors are finding the page but not staying. This likely reflects people who found the event via search or direct link, confirmed the details, and left.
Noteworthy activity on website during March
“Mothers Day Artisan Fair” event listed • “More than Canapes” event listed • “Winter Wunderland EOI” news posted • “Thank you for attending uncover Caloundra” news posted • “Caloundra Congestion Busting Plan update” news posted • “Caloundra transport corridor update” news posted • “Natural disaster support for small business” news posted • “Your Business profile is being looked at” news posted.
🔧 Domain & redirect cleanup (via Webcentral)
20 Mar — CaloundraChamber.Au [previously parked] → now redirects to live site CaloundraChamber.Com.Au
19 Mar — CaloundraTourism.Au [previously returning a dead 404 page] → now redirects to TasteCaloundra.Com.Au
19 Mar — CaloundraTourism.Com [previously opening a broken VSC landing page] → now redirects to TasteCaloundra.Com.Au
19 Mar — CaloundraTourism.Com.Au [previously opening a working VSC landing page] → now redirects to TasteCaloundra.Com.Au
↳ See Traffic Sources insight — the tastecaloundra.com.au referral sessions appearing for the first time in March (19 sessions) are directly linked to these redirects going live on 19 March.
🚀
Direct Traffic Tripled (+238%)
Direct sessions surged from 194 in February to 656 in March — a 238% increase and the single biggest driver of March’s traffic growth. This scale of direct spike is almost always event- or email-driven: a Chamber newsletter, event invitation, or member communication that prompted a large number of members to visit the site directly around the same time.
🔗
Cross-Referral Network Expanding
caloundramarkets.com.au delivered 117 referral sessions (up from 92 in Feb, +27%). tastecaloundra.com.au appeared for the first time with 19 sessions — directly triggered by the 19 March domain redirect cleanup, where three dormant CaloundraTourism domains were pointed to the live TasteCaloundra site. These two community sites now contribute a combined 136 sessions per month, and the TasteCaloundra pipeline will continue to grow as the redirects bed in through April.
👥
Returning Users: Third Consecutive Month of Growth
Returning users grew from 77 (Jan) to 106 (Feb) to 149 (Mar) — three consecutive months of growth, each at a strong rate. For a membership organisation, this trend is one of the most meaningful indicators in the dataset. It means the Chamber is successfully building a habit of return visits among its members and community.
📡
Active Users
954
↑ 89.3% vs Feb
🆕
New Users
895
↑ 94.9% vs Feb
🔁
Returning Users
149
↑ 40.6% vs Feb
📊
Total Events
6,300
↑ 65.8% vs Feb
⏱
Avg. Engagement Time
38s
↓ 28.3% vs Feb
🤝
Engaged Session Rate
65%
↓ vs Feb (84%)
🔍
SC Organic Clicks
255
≈ Stable vs Feb
👁
SC Impressions
4,140
↓ vs Feb (5,927)
💡 Note on Engagement Drop
The drop in average engagement time (53s → 38s) and engaged session rate (84% → 65%) is expected given the tripling of direct traffic. Campaign-driven visitors arrive with a specific purpose (check an event, find a contact) and leave quickly once they have what they need. This is not a negative signal — the underlying organic and referral engagement quality remains strong. The 65% engaged session rate is still above average for a comparable organisation website.
Total Clicks
255
1 Mar – 1 Apr 2026
Total Impressions
4,140
↓ vs Feb (5,927)
Avg. CTR
6.16%
Site-wide average
Homepage CTR
11.74%
↑ Strong brand recognition
Daily Clicks & Impressions — March 2026
Insight: The Search Console data shows a decrease in total impressions from 5,927 in February to 4,140 in March. This is notable because overall site traffic grew strongly — indicating the March growth was almost entirely driven by direct and referral sources, not organic search. The highest single-day organic click day was 26 March (17 clicks). Desktop dominates organic search with 202 of the 255 clicks (79.2%) — the opposite of the Caloundra Markets site — which reflects the professional/business audience using desktop devices for Chamber-related research.
💡 Opportunity
The contact-us page has 311 organic impressions but only 4 clicks (1.29% CTR). This is the lowest CTR of any high-impression page. People are finding the page in search results but not clicking through — suggesting the meta title or description doesn’t match their intent. Updating it to something like “Contact Caloundra Chamber — Member Enquiries & Event Bookings” would likely lift this meaningfully.
Session Channel Breakdown — March
Sessions by Channel — Mar vs Feb
| Channel | Mar Sessions | Mar % | Feb % |
|---|
| Direct | 656 | 47.2% | 24.9% ↑ |
| Organic Search | 478 | 34.4% | 54.1% ↓ |
| Referral | 185 | 13.3% | 13.8% ≈ |
| Organic Social | 49 | 3.5% | 6.5% ↓ |
| Unassigned | 6 | 0.4% | 0.6% ≈ |
Engagement Rate by First User Medium
Organic
70.1% (Feb: 63.9%)
Referral
47.7% (Feb: 55.2%)
Insight: Direct traffic’s dominance in March (47.2% of sessions) will be due to the events and social media campaign, if UTM tracking is used for April for links to the website this can be tracked thoroughly. Organic search remains the highest-quality engagement channel — its engagement rate rose from 63.9% to 70.1% in March, confirming that visitors arriving organically are more invested than ever. Referral traffic held its share at 13.3% while growing in absolute volume (+71%), with caloundramarkets.com.au (117 sessions) and tastecaloundra.com.au (19 sessions) being the standout contributors. The tastecaloundra.com.au sessions are directly attributable to the 19 March domain redirects — three CaloundraTourism domains that were dead, broken, or parked are now pointing live traffic to TasteCaloundra.Com.Au, creating an measurable referral stream, this will compound in April. Direct engagement rate dropped to 30% — consistent with campaign-driven visitors who came for one specific purpose.
💡 Opportunity
excel.officeapps.live.com appeared as a referral source for the first time with 23 sessions. This means this link was shared in a document or embedded link that sent 23 people to the Chamber site. This may be a member roster, event RSVP list, or sponsor document. Understanding what document generated this traffic would help replicate it intentionally and UTM tracking on any links in future shared documents would reveal the source automatically.
| # | Page | Views | Active Users | Events | Bounce Rate | vs Feb |
|---|
| 01 | Homepage / | 801 | 521 | 2,600 | 46.9% | ↑ +231 users (+75%) |
| 02 | Events /our-events/ | 388 | 224 | 1,100 | 35.8% | ↑ +38 users (+20%) |
| 03 | Member Directory /member-directory/ | 215 | 112 | 555 | 27.7% | ↑ +48 users (+75%) |
| 04 | Join ★ 18.9% bounce /join/ | 133 | 83 | 372 | 18.9% | ↑ +28 users (+51%) |
| 05 | About /about/ | 125 | 93 | 345 | 19.8% | ↑ +10 users (+12%) |
| 06 | Contact Us ★ 5.5% bounce /contact-us/ | 78 | 57 | 307 | 5.5% | ↑ +9 users (+19%) |
| 07 | Netwalking NEW ⚠️ 77.6% bounce /events/netwalking-lace-up-and-link-up/ | 74 | 65 | 236 | 77.6% | ↑ New to top 7 |
Insight: Every page in the top 7 grew in March. The most significant absolute gains were the homepage (+231 users, +75%), Events page (+38 users, +20%), and Member Directory (+48 users, +75%). The Contact Us page improved its already-impressive performance, dropping its bounce rate further to just 5.5% — the lowest of any page — confirming these visitors are highly motivated and engaged. The Netwalking page’s 77.6% bounce rate is not a concern: people searched for the event, confirmed the details, and left. The Join page at 18.9% bounce with 83 active users remains the standout conversion indicator in the data.
💡 Opportunity
The Join page attracted 83 active users with only an 18.9% bounce rate in March. These are highly motivated visitors who are reading membership information closely. Adding a prominent, simple CTA — “Apply to Join” or “Request Membership Information” — with a direct form or email link on this page would convert more of this intent into actual enquiries. Without GTM tracking, we can’t yet see how many are clicking through to any existing application process.
Top Search Queries — Clicks (Mar vs Feb)
caloundra chamber of commerce
97 ↑ Feb: 89
caloundra chamber
16 ↑ Feb: 14
chamber of commerce caloundra
6 ↑ Feb: 4
the happy turtle cafe event venue
1
Organic Impressions by Landing Page
/ (Homepage)
1,184 ↓ Feb: 2.0k
/member-directory/
538 ≈ stable
/event-location/the-happy-turtle-cafe/
474 ≈ stable
Insight: Branded search remains strong and growing — “caloundra chamber of commerce” climbed from 89 to 97 clicks (position 1.28), and all three branded variants continue to rank #1. The notable drop this month is the homepage’s organic impressions falling from 2,000 to 1,184 — a 41% decline in how often the homepage appears in Google results. This may reflect seasonal search volume changes or shifting keyword competition. All other key pages (member directory, events, about) held their impression counts steady, which is reassuring. The “aura south” keyword dropped from 9 clicks to 1 — likely reflecting that the immediate interest period for that content has passed.
💡 Opportunity
The Happy Turtle Café event location page has 474 organic impressions but only 1 click (0.21% CTR) suggesting a coincidental result from either an archived event located at Happy Turtle Cafe appearing in search results for another local event, but this does give an opportunity for leveraging future event locations that might attract high search rates and ensuring the locations are always listed on events.
Search Console Clicks by Device
Device Breakdown — March 2026
🖥 Desktop
202 clicks (79.2%)
📱 Mobile
50 clicks (19.6%)
Insight: The Chamber site’s device split is the inverse of the Caloundra Markets site. Desktop accounts for 79.2% of organic search clicks with a strong 8.91% CTR, while mobile is only 19.6% with a very low 2.72% CTR. This reflects the professional/business audience, Chamber members and prospective members are researching on desktop during business hours. This also means the website’s most critical conversion pathways (Join, Contact, Member Directory) should be optimised for desktop-first, while still being functional on mobile for occasional on-the-go access.
Active Users by City (Mar vs Feb)
🇦🇺
Sunshine Coast
68
↑ Feb: 52
User Distribution — March 2026
Insight: All Australian audiences grew in March: Brisbane (+14%), Sydney (+135%), Sunshine Coast (+31%), and Melbourne (+392%). Sydney’s large jump likely reflects Chamber members or partner organisations in Sydney clicking through from the newsletter or event communications. Flint Hill, Virginia (USA) with 118 active users is a significant new bot traffic anomaly, a well-known bot traffic origin point and will be monitored for next reporting month. Chengdu (China, 30 sessions) is another new bot location, confirming the rotating bot traffic pattern observed across both sites.
⚠️ Ongoing Bot Traffic: Flint Hill USA (118 users), Chengdu China (30 users) — IP exclusion filters through Google Tag Manager will clean these from all future reports.
1
Identify and Leverage the March Direct Traffic Spike
Direct sessions tripled in March (194 → 656). Adding UTM parameters to future email, social and newsletter links will automatically reveal the source in future reports.
2
Investigate the Homepage’s Organic Impressions Drop
The homepage’s organic impressions fell from 2,000 in February to 1,184 in March — a 41% decline. All other pages held steady. This could reflect seasonal search volume, a Google algorithm update, or a change to a competitor page outranking the homepage for certain queries. Monitoring this in April will determine if it’s a one-month anomaly or a trend requiring action.