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Q. What is a Hit?
A. On the Internet, a hit is simply a
browser request to a web server.
Q. Whaaaat?
A. Let's say that I have a webpage with some
HTML text on it and one graphic....and
that's all.
When you go on the Internet and visit my
website, my server receives two (2) hits
(two browser requests ), one to download the text and
one for the graphic.
Q. I've seen an ad for a company that
promises to get my website more hits. Isn't
that a desirable thing?
A. I'm going to try to clear this up for you
using an example:
Let's suppose that you have a webpage with
18 different graphics on it, some text and a
little JavaScript script. When I go to visit
your webpage, your server receives twenty
hits (20 server requests), eighteen for the
graphics, one for the text and one for the
JavaScript. Now that is 20 hits for one
visit to your webpage where my webpage (in
the example above) got only two hits for one
visit.
You can quickly see that counting "HITS"
makes us unable to compare our traffic.
Q. So why do SEO companies continue to
advertise how they can increase the number
of hits I get?
A. Because the numbers are so big! If my
little webpage gets 100 visitors...I get 200
hits. If your webpage gets the same 100
visitors, you get 2,000 hits. This makes it
easy for you to make the mistake of thinking
that your website optimization efforts were
more effective than mine even though we both
got the same number of visitors.
It is our opinion that SEO companies who
still try to sell their services based upon
how they will increase your "number of
hits," are trying to deceive you and you
should run (or rather surf) away as fast as
you can.
If they are not being honest with you before
you sign up and pay them, how can you trust
them after you've given them your money?
Q. If HITS are meaningless, what should I
be counting?
A. What we should be interested in is
"number of visitors" and "number of unique
visitors" to a website. Keep in mind that
one visitor can visit many pages of your
website and give you hundreds of hits. All
of these hits, we now know, should be
counted solely as one visit.
Increasing the
number of visitors is easy...anyone can do
it. You can get a great amount of
people to "visit" your website. Once
there, many of them will quickly realize
that your site is not what they were looking
for so they quickly click off and go
someplace else. These visitors
increase your numbers but do nothing for
your business. What you desire is
targeted visitors. You want the people
who are looking for a website just like
yours to actually find your website.
This way, everybody's happy!
Website Submissions
Q. I've seen ads for companies that offer
to submit my website to 600,000 search
engines. Isn't that a good way to saturate
the Internet with my website so people can
find me no matter where they look?
A. Let me start off by saying that it is
difficult for me to even imagine that there
even are 600,000 search engines on the
Internet. But let's assume for a
moment that
there are.
We'll start off by asking you what search
engine you use? If you are like a little
over 46.2% of the Internet users in the entire
world, your answer will be "Google."
22.5% use
Yahoo, 12.6% use MSN Search.
AOL gets 5.4%, Ask Jeeves gets
1.6% and Netscape gets another 1.6%
Now, let's do the math:
Google= 46.2%
Yahoo = 22.5%
MSN = 12.6%
AOL = 5.4%
Ask =
1.6%
Netscape = 1.6%
Total =
89.9%
This leaves 9.1% of all Internet Searches to
be divided up among the other 599,995 search engines.
Where do you think we, as Internet
marketers, concentrate our marketing
efforts? On the 89.9% of web searchers, of
course.
Q. I don't use Google but it
seems that everything I read these days is
about Google. What's the importance of
Google?
A. The importance is to your bank balance.
Google is the biggest and the most used
search engine on the Internet. If people
can't find your website listed in Google,
then 46.2% of the searchers on the entire
Internet can't find what you are offering.
Here's an example using real numbers. Let us
assume you have a website that sells on-line
or offers on-line reservations for
accommodations.
Alta Vista used to be a major player in the
search engines. Today, it only serves .8% of
Internet searches. Still, that's 3 million
searches every day!
Now, we know that not everyone who uses a
search engine will be searching for what you
offer.
For the sake of argument, we'll say that
1/10 of 1% of the searchers are, in fact,
looking for a website like yours. (your
numbers may vary and it is probably less
than this).
On Alta Vista, 1% of 3 million searchers is
30,000, and 1/10 of that is 3,000.
Let us say further that, of all the
searchers looking for a website that offers
what you offer, only 1% actually click on
your link and visit your website. (1% of
1/10 of 1%)
That comes out to 30 visitors per day.
At a modest conversion rate of 10% (one sale
for every 10 visitors), this listing in Alta
Vista would bring you, on average, 3 sales
or reservations per day.
Next, we'll go through this same example
using Google's numbers. Google gets over
18,800,000 search requests everyday. Now if
1/10 of 1% of the searchers are looking for
a website that offers what you offer, that
computes to 18,800. The 1% who actually
click on your link brings you 188 visitors
per day. At the same conversion rate of 10%,
this listing in Google would bring you, on
average, 18.8 sales or reservations per day.
The difference to your bottom line is
undeniable!
Optimizing your website for optimum Google
placement is a time consuming and expensive
process. It should, however, be viewed as an
investment.
What would those extra sales or reservations
mean to your small business? What are they
worth to you?
Keep in mind that these searchers are
actually looking for a website like yours.
They will buy
and reserve from someone else if they can't
find you. It's that simple.
Q. I received an email offering to change
my META tags and to magically cause my
website to show up for every search term
listed. Is this true?
A. There are email (unsolicited) that offer
to make changes to special "hidden" files on
your website that will help search engines
find you and have unbelievable influence on
your website's performance and visibility.
First off, let me stress this point. You
should never, never, ever purchase anything
from someone who sends you an unsolicited
commercial email (spam). If you do, then
you are supporting spam...you are rewarding
the spammers and making it even more
difficult to make it stop. The only reason
why there is so much spam is because
spammers are making a lot of money doing it.
Next, this particular email (I've received
it a number of times) relies upon you not
knowing what a META tag is. Gone are the
days when you could load up the Meta tag
keywords with 50 or more keywords and have
your website place in the search engines for
each and every one. This process was so
abused by unethical webmasters, the search
engines have placed much less importance on
keywords. Google doesn't even look at your
META keywords at all! MSN and Yahoo,
however, do.
Customizing your META tags to work properly
with the search engine robots is a delicate
process that, if done wrong, can hurt more
than help your standings. This customization
must include concomitant changes in the text
of the corresponding web page so that the
text and the meta tags are consistent and
complimentary to each other.
The bottom line is meta tags have nothing to
do with "magic." They are meant as a preview
to the search engines what the webpage is
about. The search engine robots now "look"
at the webpage after having seen the meta
tags. If they find discrepancies...you will
be penalized.
Keyword
research and analysis is but one facet of
Internet Marketing. Our marketing
services utilize all of the currently
accepted practices for fair and safe search
engine placement. |