The State of the Site

I’ve been doing Siteline for over five years now, and I never take for granted that anyone will read it—so thank you. And that goes double for the people that choose to advertise here.

Traffic continues to grow. In 2025, the website had a monthly average of 194,000 page views from 65,000 users (up from 175,000 and 53,000 in 2024); the email newsletter held steady at 7,000 subscribers; and there are now 16,700 followers on Instagram (up from 14,100). I’d be lying if I said I was content to see the email list plateau, and I suspect there’s fatigue from the marketing emails—which obliges me to remind everyone that this business needs to make money somehow. (And if you unsubscribe from a marketing email, you’ll stop receiving the newsletter, too.) Unlike Noozhawk, Edhat, and the Santa Barbara News-Press, Siteline does not solicit donations; unlike the Independent, Siteline has no paywall; unlike the Montecito Journal, Siteline is not funded by a pool of investors.

Back when I managed people besides my husband—that was a joke, he’s not involved in Siteline—I used to have to do performance reviews. My standard line for constructive criticism was to frame it as that person’s challenge. If I were to give myself a review now, I’d say that the quality of content remains stable, and with the broader institutional knowledge that comes with time, there’s more authority to the site. My main challenge, meanwhile, is to work harder at keeping it fresh, both for me and for you. Editorially, the site is coasting, which isn’t the end of the world, and I could create the same type of content for years to come. But I think it would be nice to not always know what you’ll find when you visit the site; it would certainly be good for me to exercise my creative muscles a bit more. What exactly that means, I have no idea. As for the business side, I’m not sure the website can handle more advertising, and I believe that the email blasts and newsletter remain a terrific value, particularly when you factor in the demographics and dedication of the audience. The best opportunity to grow revenue is to create an ancillary product, which I hope to unveil in the next few months.

I love what I do—the community connection, digging up info and keeping abreast of things, the opportunity to visit so many amazing properties, and so on—and I’m lucky to be able to do it. But will I want to be doing it in ten years? Or even five? I don’t know. (Make me an offer.) I work on Siteline constantly—the above photo is me moderating a comment while hiking in the Dolomites—which can be a grind. Recently, when a friend of a friend asked how my “little website thing” was going, I wanted to throttle him. Siteline is a minor endeavor in many ways, but the effort involved is substantial.

If I’m being honest, however, I’m happier with a big workload than I would be having too little to do. But I do look forward to a time when people aren’t so wary of me. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said she would invite me over but she’s afraid I’ll mock her home (I’m not an animal!), or how someone will stop himself from saying something because he thinks I’m a gossip (you can’t do what I do without being able to keep a secret), or how often the listing agent flinches when I set foot in an open house (which might be fair). With Siteline, I have chosen to apply the seriousness of hard journalism to relatively unimportant matters, and I did not foresee the consequences of that, especially in a small town. In trying to treat everyone equally, I have disappointed people, including friends. While I stand by my editorial decisions, I do wish I had gone about some of them more gently.

I hope you find this candidness interesting—I know I prefer it, from both my news sources and people in general. Suggestions and questions are welcome, either as comments on this post (anonymous is fine), by replying to the email newsletter, or via email or text. (Answers to some frequently asked questions about Siteline can be found here.)

P.S. I’ve met a lot of people since moving to town, which has been fantastic, but I get the sense that most of them have no idea how to say my last name. Torkells is pronounced tor-kells, kind of like doorbells, but with the emphasis on the second syllable.

Sincerely,

Erik Torkells
917-209-6473
[email protected]

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