First, a few updates:
After being locked out a year ago, Banksia Journal is back on Instagram! Go follow @banksiajournal
Submissions will open on Wednesday, 1 July. That’s about two and a half weeks from now. Save the date!
Now, onto the topic at hand…
Overview: who reads Banksia Journal?
Based on data from Google Analytics over the last three months, it seems Banksia Journal’s readers are predominantly people from Australia and the USA using Windows computers. Many are on Facebook.
This is a change from February – May last year, when our readers were predominantly Australians with iPhones.
Most importantly, overall more people are visiting Banksia Journal than this time-ish last year.
Why three months?
Look, the three month period was a fairly arbitrary decision I made last year. I believe it was because three months was just enough time to give me significant looking numbers.
I have stuck with it so my numbers will be relatively comparable.
Data from Google Analytics
9 March – 9 June, 2026
Top 5 countries & cities
This time-ish last year, the vast majority of people visiting Banksia Journal were from Australia (down to 44 from 59), with the USA barely getting a look in (up to 37 from 4). There has apparently been a significant uptick in American readers.
Aotearoa New Zealand has also fallen out of our top 5 countries. This is unfortunate, given readers and writers from Aotearoa New Zealand are among our target audience.
We are seeing more readers from Melbourne (up to 13 from 6) and a few more from Canberra (top 5 debut at 3) compared to this time-ish last year. All other Australian cities—including our home in Perth (down to 10 from 17)—have seen a decrease.
Given the increase in international visitors, I decided to look at cities outside Australia as well—something I didn’t do last year.
As far as I can tell, Boardman and Prineville are both in Oregon, USA. We appear to be getting more traffic from Oregon than at home in Western Australia. Again, this is a significant increase; this time-ish last year we had four total visitors from the USA.
Data from Google Analytics
9 March – 9 June, 2026
Top 5 operating systems
Compared to this time-ish last year, we’ve seen a significant decrease in visitors using iOS (that is, iPhones) (down to 16 from 41), which was the top operating system. And, the one person using Linux has gone. I just kept the label there so I could stick to the top 5 format.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen an increase in Android (up to 29 from 12) and, most notably, Windows users (up to 45 from 11). Overall, we’re now getting more laptop and/or desktop users (58) compared to phone users (45).
Data from Google Analytics
9 March – 9 June, 2026
Top 5 web traffic sources
Direct traffic has dropped (down to 56 from 63) though it is still clearly our largest traffic source.
The Submission Grinder has also dropped (down to 5 from 11), and Instagram has fallen out of the top 5. Given submissions are closed, and Banksia Journal has not been on Instagram, these make perfect sense.
Meanwhile we are getting more traffic from Google (up to 37 from 20), Facebook (up to 35 from 21), and Bing (top 5 debut at 13).
Source
The source of our web traffic is the website visited directly before Banksia Journal.
For example, if you are scrolling Facebook, see a link to Banksia Journal, and click that link, Facebook is the source.
Direct
If web traffic is direct, Google has no information on the site visited before Banksia Journal; https://banksiajournal.com may have been typed directly into an address bar.
Facebook
Facebook redirects links through several different sources, including l.facebook.com, and m.facebook.com; I have given an aggregate number.
Google
Google Analytics says 37 visitors found Banksia Journal via Google between 9 March and 9 June.
Meanwhile, Google Search Console says Banksia Journal received 175 clicks between 9 March and 9 June: an even bigger discrepancy than last year (20 vs 94).
For a few reasons, including whether visitors accept cookies or use an ad blocker, not all clicks are counted as web traffic. Getty Images Head of SEO Helen Pollitt gets into it in Search Engine Journal.
Still, it may be best to treat all these numbers with a grain of salt.
The Submission Grinder
The Submission Grinder is a database of literary journals; writers can use it to find places to submit their work. Similar databases include Duotrope, and Chill Subs.
Chatbots?
Not quite making the top 5 web traffic sources is ChatGPT: the source of two whole visitors. This was not even on my radar as a source of web traffic last year.
I am not sure how I feel about having a chatbot crawling around Banksia Journal. We ask writers not to submit Large Language Model (LLM) generated text to Banksia Journal as we want to highlight the work of, well, people. And, in my experience, many writers do not want their work used as LLM training data. I would prefer not to force that on Banksia Journal’s writers. Though I suppose for those already published, it is a bit late to be worrying about that.
Practically, though, I do not know how to block LLM web crawlers without blocking all web crawlers, and I still want search engines to find Banksia Journal. After all, Google is our second largest source of traffic.
So, no matter my personal feelings, I guess ChatGPT is hanging around.
Data from Google Analytics
9 March – 9 June, 2026
Google’s top 5 pages in Banksia Journal
| Page | No. clicks |
|---|---|
| Home | 72 |
| About Us | 21 |
| Crafting a Literary Journal | 16 |
| The Shape of Albany | 9 |
| Stories | 8 |
It is nice to see all these numbers are bigger than last year. Our home page is still leading the pack (up to 72 from 44). Given it is designed to be the first page readers visit, this is good to see.
Our stable pages such as home and about are the ones getting the most clicks, rather than the more transient monthly stories and blog posts. Just one recent blog post made Google’s top 5 most clicked: Lauren’s piece on Albany as a fictional setting. Last year, we had two recent stories in this top 5: “For the Sake of the Octopus Cousins”, and “Mock Turtle Soup”.
Submissions has also fallen out of our most clicked pages. Again, as submissions have been closed, this makes sense.
| Page | No. impressions |
|---|---|
| Crafting a Literary Journal | 2,814 |
| Do you want to feast on fantasy foods? | 2,759 |
| Hermatia | 1,281 |
| About Us | 1,136 |
| FWD: RE: epistolary fiction | 822 |
As with clicks, all these numbers are bigger this year, which is good to see. Last year, the most impressions we had on any single page (Submissions) was 640, which wouldn’t even make the top five this year.
“Do you want to feast on fantasy foods?” (up to 2,759 from 542) has, remarkably, clung to second place. But it has gotten, uh, two clicks. So I wouldn’t call its performance great.
Our about page (up to 1,136 from 450) has, despite increased impressions, dropped from third to fourth place. As our second most clicked page, it is performing better than “Fantasy Foods”.
The rest are making their top five debut. “Hermatia” and “FWD: RE: epistolary fiction” are recent pieces, but “Crafting a Literary Journal” has been here from the start. It is interesting to see the growth in impressions.
Impressions
When you search for something on Google, a list of links will come up. When Banksia Journal appears in this list, Google counts it as an impression.
Clicks
If Banksia Journal appears in Google’s list of links, and you then click the link and visit this website, Google counts that as a click.
These numbers don’t add up
As I said above, not all clicks counted by Google Search Console are counted as web traffic by Google Analytics. Getty Images Head of SEO Helen Pollitt gets into it in Search Engine Journal.
It may be best to treat all these numbers with a grain of salt.
January 15, 2024
What Google searches does Banksia Journal show up in?
| Query | No. impressions |
|---|---|
| hermatia | 1,185 |
| fantasy foods | 494 |
| fantasy food | 228 |
| “i would not want to eat” australia chef | 158 |
| “i would not want to eat” “australia” “chef” | 138 |
| meethj | 120 |
| australian pony | 108 |
| “would not want to eat” australia chef | 97 |
| “i would not want to eat” “australia” chef | 84 |
| speculative fiction | 83 |
Yeah … you can see all those impressions for “Do you want to feast on fantasy foods?”
Sorry to the people struggling to find whatever it is someone would not want to eat involving an Australian chef.
| Query | No. impressions |
|---|---|
| hermatia | 1,185 |
| meethj | 120 |
| australian pony | 108 |
| speculative fiction | 83 |
| how to start a literary magazine | 79 |
| banksia journal | 58 |
| site:banksiajournal.com | 48 |
| “delivery” “short story” “online literary magazine” “2023” | 45 |
| how to start an online literary magazine | 43 |
| “short story” delivery” “online literary magazine” “2023” | 43 |
Firstly: People are actually typing Banksia Journal into Google! We are being sought out!
By and large this list of search terms makes sense: “hermatia” clearly brings up “Hermatia”; “how to start a literary magazine” presumably brings up “Crafting a Literary Journal”; and I would assume “australian pony” brings up “The year of the horse is almost out the gate”.
Not quite making the top ten non-food queries were
“merriam-webster epistolary definition letters” with 40 impressions, and simply “epistolary” with 39 impressions, which presumably bring up “FWD: RE: epistolary fiction”.
And that’s a wrap!
How well does this describe you? Are you in Melbourne, reading this blog post on a Windows computer after clicking a link on Facebook? Or maybe you’re in Boardman, Oregon, and found us though Google? Let me know in the comments, or through Banksia Journal’s contact page! You could even go and comment on our fresh new Instagram account!
And, you should check out my blog post from last year if you want to read more about literary journal readers.
Brittany Lee is the co-founder, and editor of Banksia Journal. She is a writer from Perth, Western Australia, with a BA in Linguistics, and Postgrad Diploma in Journalism. Her work has appeared in AntipodeanSF, Dusty Attic Publishing, and Perth’s Raine Square Story Dispenser. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, knitting, and taking photos of flowers (such as banksias).
You can find her online at brittanyerinlee.com.