It’s just turned April. That means we have already completed the first quarter in a year that seems to be absolutely flying by. So I want to take this opportunity to look back at a bit of a roller coaster first three months and try and decide if it was a good three months, average or poor!

General feel of business

I think we can all agree that the first three months of 2015 was not on the same level as the first three months of 2014. But then again I think the first half of last year was a crazy fluke that we can’t always expect to have. So we’re judging these first three months against a one-off period during last year.

Realistically, I think we can start to see 2015 as a year of consolidation. We may have started the year with ideas that this year was going to blow 2014 away, but that’s probably not going to happen. The first priority for all businesses is to at least match what we all achieved in 2014. If we get there before the end of the year and go a little further then that’s a bonus.

So whilst I think 2015 isn’t going to be a breeze, it’s by no means going to be a bummer year. The general feel of 2015 so far feels steady, nothing too strenuous, nothing terribly subdued. Of course come the result of the General Election that could all change, one way or another!

Good economy, but election might spoil that

The first three months of this year in the UK economy were fairly stable, so that meant good trading conditions for our industry. A quiet January was followed by a busy February which was then followed by a distinctly average March. There is a small hint that seasonal trends might be coming back.

But going forward, the next quarter, and even the one after that, could be all over the place as we get nearer the General Election. It’s almost certain that it’s going to be another hung Parliament, with no outright winner. That means a probably second coalition. The make up of that coalition though is so undecided that there is a distinct possibility that chaos could ensue in the weeks after the result is announced. In the world of business, this would be terrible. Uncertainty is the worst thing for any business, and the general public too. This could throw the UK economy into deep trouble, mucking things up for us too. Hopefully this won’t happen.

On DGB

The year on DGB started with a more concerted effort to improve the quality of the content throughout 2015. I was disappointed with some of the stuff I was putting out on this site last year, so I made a conscious effort to start the new year off to a much better start.

This new emphasis on content seems to be paying off, with the number of visitors and page views up slightly on the same period in 2014. The number of unique visitors is down just a couple of percent, but plenty of time to turn that round during the course of the year. So that means DGB has gone into it’s sixth year with another year of growth. It’s going to be tough to keep that up throughout the year as the last few months of 2014 were very strong, but I’ll be making a big effort to keep that growing trend going!

In this second quarter, DGB is going to be hitting two massive milestones. Firstly, I’m due to publish my 2000th post on this site. An unbelievable amount of posts and huge back catalogue of content. It’s hard to believe that so many posts have been published. The second milestone is comments. I’m just a handful away from having 5000 published comments on DGB. Is there any other UK fenestration site that can claim such a high level of blog engagement?

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