Discover the Real Truth Guys…Size Really Doesn’t Matter. When it comes to “Hits” that is…

It seems that businesses are finally realizing how critical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to their bottom line. I think the light bulb has finally gone off and most now realize how being highly ranked in search engines is essential to their business. This is good news, but I find that there is still quite a bit of confusion when it comes to how to get ranked and how to measure results.

There are really good ways to measure results, but I’d like to address two ways that web analytics steers business owners into the wrong direction.

The number of hits you get are meaningless and an unreliable measure of your site’s popularity.

Your web analytics program registers a hit for any request for a file from a web server. The thing to understand is that one web page can result in many requests. This is because every image or file on the page results in a request.

When someone lands on your web page you get one hit. But you get additional hits on the page if your website includes…

CSS stylesheets = hit
Javacript = hit
Four images = hit, hit, hit, hit

The example above, which is a very simple web page, results in 5 hits. So you can see that hits are no way to calculate how much traffic your website is getting.

Unique Visitors is another way that web analytics novices tend to measure the success of their website. A unique visitor attempts to count the number of “new people” who visit your site by looking at things like IP addresses within a certain time-frame. The time-frame varies from one web analytics program to another and some are set at one day and some are set at one week. So, if someone visits your site one day and then again 5 days later and the site’s time-frame is set at one week, that person would be counted once. But, if the time-frame on your program is set to one day, the person would be counted twice.

I am not advocating that you abandon your web analytics programs. Not at all! Using the program can provide a lot of valuable information such as how users are finding your site and what pages on your site are most popular. But, it is common for someone new to web analytics to go right to the number of hits and visits because they are numbers. We understand numbers. If the numbers rise, that’s good. If the numbers fall, that’s bad. Unfortunately, it just isn’t that simple.

I am a passionate proponent of providing valuable content that your target market is seeking. Providing educational information is the best way to drive people to your site. But, there is a right way and a wrong way of doing that as well. I see so many business owners spend time writing content that will never result in visitors to their site because they are not presenting it in the right way. This problem is exacerbated by web analytics because they are mislead by them.

It is usually not my nature to provide information explaining a problem without providing solutions, but writing content the right way is an article in itself.  More soon, I promise.  But in the meantime, really dive into your web analytics program and understand the information it is providing you.  Just like a road map, you web analytics program will guide you in the right direction -- as long as you can read it!