Growth Stats for WordPress for Toastmasters and Toastmost.org

Here is a progress report on the growth of the WordPress for Toastmasters project, compiled partly so potential sponsors will consider what a great opportunity they have to connect with a growing community of innovative speakers and leaders.

The most telling statistic is the growth in users on toastmost.org. That’s the “software as a service in the cloud” version that is the easiest way for a club to get access. As of May 2018, there are almost 2000 user accounts registered for club members.

It’s also possible to set up an independent WordPress website with the same software. Since I released the software as open source on WordPress.org in late 2015, the plugin has been downloaded 2,246 times. However, I think that includes downloads of updated versions.

The Lectern theme, which makes it easy to add Toastmasters approved branding to a WordPress site, is active on more than 1000 websites.

On toastmost.org, the Toastmasters plugin and theme come pre-installed. You just register for the email list and fill out a form to get yourself an administrator’s account for a new club website.

Here’s the growth in the number of sites on toastmost.org:

This includes some inactive sites that members are still testing, but not the inactive sites that I purged from the web server under the “use it or lose it” policy I enforce for these sites. If you go many months without either making a site public or contacting me to help you over the hump, it will be archived and eventually deleted.

We’re at about 45 public websites as of today. Some of those sites are being used strictly for marketing. What interests me more is the number of sites actively using the agenda management tools I provide. The chart below tracks the number of signups for speeches and roles using the WordPress for Toastmasters software.

member activity — Member activity (interaction with the online agenda)

I’ve had trouble getting accurate traffic numbers for the network of toastmost.org sites, but here is what I see here on wp4toastmasters.com — an indication of interest in the platform and people coming to look up the documentation and the articles I’ve published on things like effective use of web and social media marketing for your club. Note the big spike around July 2017, presumably reflecting interest from incoming club officers in upgrading their websites. I hope to top that this year.