CBA website shows a 43% surge in visitors over Covid!

Over Covid, many industry-based non-profits have struggled to support their members. The Clay Brick Association of Southern Africa is not one of them.  

We are proud to announce that the CBA website performance statistics presented at the 2021 Annual General Meeting demonstrate:

• A 43% increase in visits during the past year.
• A 33% increase in users who visited an AVERAGE of 7 pages each. Visitors only behave like this when they find plenty of interesting and relevant content.  
• 4 000 guides and factsheets were downloaded – almost double the previous year.
• Over 19 000 emails were sent to members over the year.
• Almost 20 000 visitors click forward to visit Members’ websites.
• The Members contact and product information and maps were amongst the most popular pages.

CBA Members receive the ongoing benefit of all this interest.  Without any hacks or ongoing Search Engine advertising fees, the CBA naturally appears at the top of searches for brick buyers. Because it is genuinely the best place to go for information on bricks building and brick suppliers in South Africa.

How did we do it?

This isn’t an “overnight” success. For the past 10 years, the CBA has invested in over 2 000 pages of building guides, bricklaying manuals, inspirational galleries and informative articles.  

Our website has grown in popularity by an average 20% per year, EVERY year. We are still reaping the benefit from articles and books written a decade ago. But ROI on a website lasts for as long as your products and services exist. It just keeps building interest, and expanding your credibility.

Why this interest in bricks during Covid?

With people working from home, property owners had the time to identify DIY projects to improve their living conditions and lifestyle.

The CBA website offers free construction guides, bricklaying manuals and DIY project ideas. Bricks don’t require lots of equipment – Bricklaying Made Easy points out that for many DIY projects, all you need is a wheelbarrow, a towel and some string! Most people buy small quantities of brick from their local hardware store, which then needs to restock.

Popular Summer projects (based on our downloads) were barbeques, paved areas for outdoor seating and raised vegetable and flower beds. In winter, people downloaded information on building paths and garden walls.

For most of lockdown in South Africa (thanks to the lobbying of the CBA and its partners) construction companies were able to continue their usual projects with even fewer traffic interruptions.

That led to lots of demand for bricks and CBA members were busy, and achieving higher margins on better quality products, and more interest in “stocks”.