This is the penultimate monthly review on DGB. How did we get here so soon? I guess time moves quickly when we’re all busy. No doubt that the Christmas trees are all going up at home, gift buying is in full swing and we’re all counting down the last couple of working weeks before we can all stop thinking about windows and doors just for a little bit.

But before we can start thinking about the hangovers and food comas, it’s time to take a look back at the last month in UK fenestration and see what December might hold for us. It was a pretty busy one.

Silly season

The period of time in the window industry where home owners have waited until the very last possible chance to have their windows and doors fitted. Yes, November is peak silly season. Always makes me laugh why people wait so long to sort their windows and doors out then get shirty when installers tell them they can’t have them before Christmas because they’re already full.

For us we were pretty much full in October. The jobs sold in November and booked in for fitting this year have been only the very small ones we could crowbar into the fitting schedules here and there. Orders of any significance have already been scheduled in for the New Year, including a bunch of conservatories and house fulls of windows and doors. It does look like we’re going to hit the ground running in January.

My sense is that across the industry November remained busy, for both installers are fabricators. This is the pinch point of the year of course, and must be an absolute nightmare for fabricators as they come under pressure from all sides as they seek to honour all orders in time.

I have also started to feel like attitudes are hardening towards 2018 prospects. It wasn’t too long ago that various industry reports predicted a slowdown for the window industry this year and in the coming couple of years. We’re a determined bunch us lot, and I think we’re all digging our heels in to make sure the 2018 is one of those years where we once again perform better than expected.

Awards season

This is also the time of year where awards season in our industry kicks up a gear.

First up it was the turn of the G Awards and the winners of the 2017 competition to be announced. I published a post showing all the winners from this year, which you can catch up on by clicking here.

The very end of the month was also the end of the 2017 National Fenestration Awards campaign. Actually it was extended by 1 day to December 1st, but you get the picture. If you’re reading this as it is published then you won’t know the winners just yet, that’s what Winners Week is for, to drip feed the #NFA17 winners over the course of a week to ramp up the suspense and excitement. If you’re reading this after Winners Week then you already know the winners!

Plans for #NFA18 are already taking shape, and we’re due to announce more specific details soon. But this will be the awards’ biggest ever expansion and will become something for the industry more than just awards. Watch this space.

DGB Business

How DGB did

As always, I do a break down of how this website did during the previous month, charting it’s progress to it’s yearly targets. November was very healthy…

I am very happy to have ticked off two of my three major site targets a full month early. Getting my page views and visitors targets done and dusted allows me to fill my boots up to the end of the year and create even higher targets for 2018. It will take a couple more weeks to get the unique visitors target done, but it will be before the end of the year.

I have a sniff of a chance of making the 250,000 page view mark for the very first time. This won’t be easy as traffic really does fall off a cliff at the end of the month so I’m not quite sure if this will be the year that happens. I am confident however that this will be the very best year the site has ever had. My best year for page views so far was in 2014 when it got 242,793 page views. I am fairly sure DGB will sail past that before the end of the year. If so it will officially be me best ever year.

Next year’s targets will be revised significantly higher. I am putting the foot down. I have in the works three additional DGB services which should attract a lot more traffic and help keep people on the site for longer. They will all be trial based first, just like DGB Jobs. But, if like that they do take off, they shall become permanent parts of the site. I’m not revealing anything yet, but they will all be going live at the start of 2018 to help hit the ground running.

Top 5 most read posts published in November

Here is my list of the top 5 most read posts published during the month of November:

  1. How Our Installers Get Paid Is Ridiculous

  2. G17 Winners Announced

  3. Fenestration Company Share Values Have Failed To Recover

  4. The Window Industry Might Have Much More To Worry About

  5. Do We Really Know What The Rules Are On Solid Roof Conversions?

It was a good month in November for industry topics. Plenty of meaty subject to approach.

A quiet December?

The final month of the year. People’s focus turns to Christmas and very much away from home improvements. Traditionally, this is the month where for many installers coming in to work can often mean just occupying an office.

Sometimes though, it’s a bit busier than you’d expect. It really is the time to push for those final few orders to make sure installers have busy fitting schedules for the New Year. The previous December at our place was unusually busy, which meant we have a cracking start to January.

Either way though it won’t be rip roaring as it would be in earlier months. Silly season draws to a close, and that final working week really does drag on.

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