# how many hits are you guys getting?



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

on a daily basis, how many hits do you guys get on your sites?

I never tracked my old crappy website but I track the new one. Now that's it's been out a few months, I see the numbers are lower because I am not sharing it and promoting it like I did in the beginning. 

Somedays I get 3-4 hits, some days 12-15. usually not over that. 
only the first week or so I had a lot of hits because i had it on facebook and launched it. everyone was checking it out. 

for you guys who live in rural areas, not near a big city, how many hits a day are you getting, and what is your bounce rate?


----------



## PowerWash (Mar 25, 2011)

I recently started tracking this info as well. My hits very alot as well. Anywhere between 5 - 40 hits. Seems to go down on the weekends and my best day is usually Monday or Friday. 

My bounce rate is 36.??%. I have read anything under 50% is fine and should not cause a concern.


----------



## festerized (May 19, 2007)

I get 15-50 per day.

What I noticed that that count is not true, I think it’s only half that value.
Spider’s maybe? I compare my phone calls and E-mail request to my web site data and its almost always ½


----------



## Tech Dawg (Dec 13, 2010)

I haven't been able to guage mine yet... before I was average of 4 a day but in the last few weeks I added my site to my CT profile and it skyrocketed. Ill probably resurvey it June 1st


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

When you say bounce rate are you referring to people who click on then click right off?


----------



## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

I just need to work on turning these into request for service calls. :thumbsup:


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

Do you guys ever get concerned tying to measure results knowing that it could be people from the forum? It seems to reason that the only real gauge of success is when the traffic is organic. If you could get 5 clicks a day 3 of them could be from the forum, 1 could be a spider, only 1 could be a real customer. The quantity of clicks may not be be a good measuring stick.

I'm just throwing this out there for discussion. It's like the YouTube channels. I went on a few of the peoples channels here and most of the subscribers are fellow CT buddies, that's cool and all but how many views are actual customers?

I'm working on my website right now and this has me a little puzzled. For me at least I would be really concerned about the percentage of natural traffic on Google.

Mike


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

JHC said:


> I just need to work on turning these into request for service calls. :thumbsup:


That's pretty dam good. What have you noticed with the increase in traffic? Did spam increase?


----------



## Sir Mixalot (Jan 6, 2008)

ApgarNJ said:


> on a daily basis, how many hits do you guys get on your sites?
> 
> I never tracked my old crappy website but I track the new one. Now that's it's been out a few months, I see the numbers are lower because I am not sharing it and promoting it like I did in the beginning.
> 
> ...


Dan, Do you have the Google Analytics code on every page of your site or just your main page? 
I really don't think the Google stats are very accurate anyway's.:no:
My Google stats said I had 170 visitors last month. But my Cpanel website stat's say differently. 
There is a difference between Visits and Unique visitors. The unique is what matters.

-Paul


----------



## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

Mike's Plumbing said:


> Do you guys ever get concerned tying to measure results knowing that it could be people from the forum? It seems to reason that the only real gauge of success is when the traffic is organic. If you could get 5 clicks a day 3 of them could be from the forum, 1 could be a spider, only 1 could be a real customer. The quantity of clicks may not be be a good measuring stick.
> 
> I'm just throwing this out there for discussion. It's like the YouTube channels. I went on a few of the peoples channels here and most of the subscribers are fellow CT buddies, that's cool and all but how many views are actual customers?
> 
> ...


I look at the referrer links as well to see where the traffic is coming from. Surprising not as many as I would have thought from forums.



Mike's Plumbing said:


> That's pretty dam good. What have you noticed with the increase in traffic? Did spam increase?


With the increase more requests for a bid/consultation. So far only two requests that I couldn't get a response from. I think the form I am using catches it.


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

Interesting.

What caused the big spike in traffic, it looks like you did something to spike the count up so high.

Mike


----------



## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

Footbridge Media.


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

JHC said:


> Footbridge Media.


That's cheating:laughing::laughing::laughing:


----------



## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

:1eye:


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

Mike's Plumbing said:


> When you say bounce rate are you referring to people who click on then click right off?


bounce rate is high if people only view ONE page and then go elsewhere.

having a link or thread on CT can also make a lot of us on here view it then we don't click much else and then that makes the bounce rate. 

mine was low 30s but I started not caring what the bounce rate was because so many things can mess it up. 

when someone searches "remodeling your kitchen" my site comes up on there and they might not be in my area so they click off right away etc.

I get some lurkers where I notice they check it out for a few days or weeks, then I get a phone call. I haven't gotten a new job yet off the website, but a few quotes out there from calls i got off the site.

i think if I average my bounce rate out over the last two months, it's probably 50%. it's been lower lately now that I'm getting real search engine results and direct links, less referring sites like CT.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

Sir Mixalot said:


> Dan, Do you have the Google Analytics code on every page of your site or just your main page?
> I really don't think the Google stats are very accurate anyway's.:no:
> My Google stats said I had 170 visitors last month. But my Cpanel website stat's say differently.
> There is a difference between Visits and Unique visitors. The unique is what matters.
> ...


I'm not sure if it's just on the first page or not. I'll have to ask my guy who designed the site. It shows me which page they went to. so I guess it's tracking it. 

Footbridge media is like 150 a month right? I really don't care about quantity as much as I do about quality.

if one quality lead comes in and they want a huge remodel or an addition built, that is better than 30 people who are price shopping for the lowest bathroom remodel out there.


----------



## BamBamm5144 (Jul 12, 2008)

I get between 8-13 a day average. I monitor where they come from and search terms used to find me. New leads from the website result in around 10 calls a week for various things.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

10 calls from 8-13 hits/day is pretty good ratio imo. I got a bunch of calls when it first launched. Since then I see people visiting but some people wait until they call for a few weeks.

one guy wanted a finished basement quote. I called him back, left a msg, he never called me back, I called a second time a week later left another msg. still no call back.
then a week or so later, he calls but never leaves a msg. Not sure what his deal is.

I'll make some adjustments to the site to see where I can improve.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

6 hits today just from this THREAD. bounce rate 100% lol thanks guys!!!
it was a bad day for the site. I guess I can't complain too much. Im busy even if the work isn't all coming directly from the web.


----------



## Tech Dawg (Dec 13, 2010)

ApgarNJ said:


> 6 hits today just from this THREAD. bounce rate 100% lol thanks guys!!!
> it was a bad day for the site. I guess I can't complain too much. Im busy even if the work isn't all coming directly from the web.


That's kind of my theory... if you have to rely on web advertisement for business then your failure rate as a company may become higher. Your always better off to have all the word of mouth/referral business in your lap or you will suffer. Internet business is a high risk bonus if you get the job.


----------



## festerized (May 19, 2007)

2 calls today, 1 drive by and 1 referral call

I expect 5 -20 calls in by Wednesday, happens every week. Kind of scares me

I wonder if on the weekend they called contractors, got est. and wanted another opinion?


----------



## Tech Dawg (Dec 13, 2010)

festerized said:


> 2 calls today, 1 drive by and 1 referral call
> 
> I expect 5 -20 calls in by Wednesday, happens every week. Kind of scares me
> 
> I wonder if on the weekend they called contractors, got est. and wanted another opinion?


Maybe it will be like the other thread where the guy shows up and there's 5 other contractors there at the same time :laughing:


----------



## festerized (May 19, 2007)

I hope not, it’s getting real bad here. Customers want everything for nothing this year. Lot of wasted time doing est, this year


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

That's why I'm qualifying people before I even go to their house. No need to waste their time and mine if they are just looking for the lowest possible price.


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

Dan

Have you tried to put a strong headline on the front that direct people? Kind of a continuous improvement type of thing. As long as you have a steady stream of clicks you should be able to direct traffic, or at least try and make the traffic click more.

You have a nice website, I bet with some creative effort with some decent headlines you could really do well. 

If I had to start somewhere I would tabulate the data and determine which pages are the most popular and try and determine why. If it's something you can expand on do it. If you have pages people don't click on then eliminate or shrink them in favor of the ones people visit.

Mike


----------



## PowerWash (Mar 25, 2011)

That is why I love wordpress. I can track how people found might site; search terms or referal site, right from my website. I have new site and I am trying different combinations of long tail keywords all the time. I think my content is eventually going to make no sense wording wise with all the testing I am doing on longtail keywords.:whistling

Knowing how people are finding my site is probably the most valuable tool I can have right now.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

I'm using wordpress but still use google analytics to track everything.


----------



## Paulie (Feb 11, 2009)

My count also goes way down on weekends. It took me awhile to realize most people do their searching on company time. :laughing:


----------



## PowerWash (Mar 25, 2011)

ApgarNJ said:


> I'm using wordpress but still use google analytics to track everything.


Do you actually use the "site stats" info?

I am curious if this is on all wordpress pages. 

I added the "all in one seo pack" plugin and then a few days later noticed the site stats on the toolbar at the top of my webpage when viewing it. I do not remember seeing it before. 

It seems to be way more accurate than google analytics or webmasters.


----------



## Sir Mixalot (Jan 6, 2008)

ApgarNJ said:


> 10 calls from 8-13 hits/day is pretty good ratio imo. I got a bunch of calls when it first launched. Since then I see people visiting but some people wait until they call for a few weeks.
> 
> one guy wanted a finished basement quote. I called him back, left a msg, he never called me back, I called a second time a week later left another msg. still no call back.
> then a week or so later, he calls but never leaves a msg. Not sure what his deal is.
> ...


Dan, do you have your website address on your business cards, truck, proposals/invoices and yard signs? That can help in getting more local activity going to your website. Which in turn leads to more business.:thumbup:

-Paul


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

Paul

I went on your youtube channel and listened to the video of all the frogs, my kids loved it.:thumbsup:


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

Sir Mixalot said:


> Dan, do you have your website address on your business cards, truck, proposals/invoices and yard signs? That can help in getting more local activity going to your website. Which in turn leads to more business.:thumbup:
> 
> -Paul


yes to all of the above. and its on my tailgate of the truck below my company logo/name.

i don't even have my phone number on the truck, only the name, logo, website. and the town I live in.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

oh, it's on my company tshirts too, on the back!


----------



## Sir Mixalot (Jan 6, 2008)

ApgarNJ said:


> yes to all of the above. and its on my tailgate of the truck below my company logo/name.
> 
> i don't even have my phone number on the truck, only the name, logo, website. and the town I live in.


Dan, You do know the links in your signature aren't clickable anymore right?

-Paul


----------



## Sir Mixalot (Jan 6, 2008)

Mike's Plumbing said:


> Paul
> 
> I went on your youtube channel and listened to the video of all the frogs, my kids loved it.:thumbsup:


Mike, That's great. :clap:
Tell the kids to close thier eyes and listen. It feels like your in a Florida swamp.

-Paul


----------



## karunnt (Aug 27, 2008)

There is a service called Reinvigorate (http://www.reinvigorate.net/) that shows people visiting your site in real time. It is a paid service that I use and it works pretty well. When someone visits my site I see everything about them about a second later.

There is also a free program that you can add to your site called Piwik (http://piwik.org/) that does something similar. I want to use this for my customers as it is free and in continuous development.

If you are getting some visitors but they are not filling out a contact form or signing up for a newsletter or downloading your free book then you should look at the pages they visit, their search parameters and find out exactly why they left. If they visited your site after searching for 'kitchen remodel' and then left after 2 minutes without making some type of contact then something must be influencing their decision.

PS. The problem with Google Analytics is that it goes though Google's servers and so Google knows your web stats too (if that matters to you). Also it is not 100% accurate AND it is not real time so you have to wait until the data propagates through Google's servers.


----------



## rosethornva (Aug 15, 2010)

*Yay!*

I've read time and time again that the secret to building traffic at websites is to blog FREQUENTLY. 

I've been blogging my little fingers to the bone, and finally - after a YEAR of daily blogging and posting photos, I'm getting steady (and good) traffic. 

And now - with the floods threatening Cairo, Illinois - visitors to my site have hit crazy new highs. I'm getting hundreds of hits _per day_.

I've written a dozen blogs about Cairo (where Sears had a mill in the early 1900s) and no one was reading them UNTIL THIS WEEK. 

Frankly, if I didn't love writing, this would not be a profitable venture. I spend an hour a day fiddling with that website. How many people really have the energy (or desire) to do that?

Rose


----------



## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

I still have yet to get any content on my blog. I installed it, and it has sat for months now. I don't mind writing but I have been working so much lately that the few days I have free that is the last thing I want to think about.


----------



## coolflatroof (Jan 26, 2008)

dude - u have 4000+ posts - put ur website in the signature and your site hits will go way up very soon

PS ... one of the best indicators of site hits is site visitors, as well as unique visitors - use google analytics to track it.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

Sir Mixalot said:


> Dan, You do know the links in your signature aren't clickable anymore right?
> 
> -Paul


yeah. i changed that. if a customer finds me through this forum, they can just type my web address in if they want to.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

coolflatroof said:


> dude - u have 4000+ posts - put ur website in the signature and your site hits will go way up very soon
> 
> PS ... one of the best indicators of site hits is site visitors, as well as unique visitors - use google analytics to track it.


my website was at the bottom of the posts in a clickable link. that doesn't mean that everyone is going to find the site through Contractor talk. the only referrals I got from here, were members clicking on it and checking it out.


----------



## karunnt (Aug 27, 2008)

ApgarNJ said:


> the only referrals I got from here, were members clicking on it and checking it out.



Try article marketing - write articles and post them to article submission sites. You need to write a lot of these to make any progress but what else are you going to do.

You can also give these to other related business owners in return for a link.

There is no easy way to beat Google.


----------



## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

Why would you want to beat Google? That's not the goal.

Produce quality.......and lots of it. Google is looking for real, genuine, and customer focused content nothing tricky about it.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

karunnt said:


> Try article marketing - write articles and post them to article submission sites. You need to write a lot of these to make any progress but what else are you going to do.
> 
> You can also give these to other related business owners in return for a link.
> 
> There is no easy way to beat Google.


I don't have enough time in a day to write articles. I'll be tweaking the content on some pages to try and get located better than we already are. 
for my county searches, I do very well. Not sure which people search for more, by town, or by county. I guess depends on how big the towns are. Towns near me are pretty small.


----------



## ChrWright (Jul 17, 2007)

Dan, you should re-activate those links. 

Generating backlinks from pages with content related to your site is huge for SEO. Google likes CT--and pages here index very quickly. Bounce rate is important--but I would only look at the bounce rate for LOCAL traffic as a gauge of how sticky your site is. 

Also, you never know when a local visitor might happen upon a thread here--and through your comments want to check you out. Make it easy to get to you. If they have to cut and paste or type your link in, there's probably a 50/50 chance they'll move on. Remember that the online shopper has an incredibly short attention span. Little things can make a big difference. 

While forums aren't the end-all-be-all of backlink quality--if they relate to your content, and are popular, they will definitely help. Especially if you have thousands of posts worth of links!


----------



## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

ApgarNJ said:


> I don't have enough time in a day to write articles. I'll be tweaking the content on some pages to try and get located better than we already are.
> for my county searches, I do very well. Not sure which people search for more, by town, or by county. I guess depends on how big the towns are. Towns near me are pretty small.


I don't either especially now. I could probably write at least two a week if I was motivated. I am a decent writer, but I am considering getting someone to write for me. Maybe pay a family member, like my niece who is a freshman in college next year.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

ChrWright said:


> Dan, you should re-activate those links.
> 
> Generating backlinks from pages with content related to your site is huge for SEO. Google likes CT--and pages here index very quickly. Bounce rate is important--but I would only look at the bounce rate for LOCAL traffic as a gauge of how sticky your site is.
> 
> ...


Chris, I hear you, but the only people clicking on those links are from this site's members and they are all out of state, it's throwing off my data. So i wanted to test out results without those live links. I had them off, turned them on, now put them back off.

I guess it's hard to gauge hits, some guys in larger populated areas might have a lot more people searching for keywords that people in my area might not be doing. It's pretty rural around here. some days this week I only got 3-4 hits but the bounce rate was low and they stayed on the site. Like I said before that's better than 30 hits where they all clicked away right away.

I have some big proposals to work on, then it's back to changing/adding content.


----------



## ChrWright (Jul 17, 2007)

ApgarNJ said:


> Chris, I hear you, but the only people clicking on those links are from this site's members and they are all out of state, it's throwing off my data. So i wanted to test out results without those live links. I had them off, turned them on, now put them back off.
> 
> I guess it's hard to gauge hits, some guys in larger populated areas might have a lot more people searching for keywords that people in my area might not be doing. It's pretty rural around here. some days this week I only got 3-4 hits but the bounce rate was low and they stayed on the site. Like I said before that's better than 30 hits where they all clicked away right away.
> 
> I have some big proposals to work on, then it's back to changing/adding content.


It doesn't necessary matter who, if anyone, is clicking on those (although any traffic to your sight is of some benefit). Non-local stats shouldn't be your primary concern. I could care less what my bounce rate is for traffic generated from the forum. 

What matters is that Google spiders find links to you online from keyword related sites. The more links back to you, the more relevant you appear to their algorithms. That means you will rank better in SERPs. 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but your post makes it sound like you view signature links as just a traffic source. That's really not their primary purpose and benefit. The point is to build link popularity to support your SEO. 

Focus on your local traffic stats. Unless your overall bounce rate goes north of 50 to 60 %, I wouldn't worry about it.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

depends on the day, sometimes the bounce rate is 10% or lower, sometimes it's 75%. 

day by day is hard to judge BR. I like to see the keyword searches more than anything and what % is SE and what is Referral.


----------



## BRAVI (Jun 3, 2010)

Bounce rate only matters with traffic coming from your local area. You need to also evaluate your unique visitors.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

can you narrow down local traffic only? I haven't tried to do that. I will look into it. 
I can see each visit, but I didn't try to see if i could look at local bounce rate only.


----------



## BRAVI (Jun 3, 2010)

I use have an app that takes google analytics data and allows me to sort it that way. Not sure if you can do it normally from the analytic portal. 

Yesterday I had 138 unique vistors and only 96 were from my local area. 7 were from this forum.

Of couse weekends suck for traffic but you can see the disconnect even more during the week.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

and you have how many people in your area? local hits are all about how big the population is. San Antonio has 2 plus million people. It's all relative to your surroundings. Still good that you are getting 100 local visitors in a day.


----------



## BRAVI (Jun 3, 2010)

Yea I can't complain. We usually do 3 to 4 times that on weekdays. 

We are set to start a hgtv weekend schedule in a few weeks that will hopefully increase weekend traffic and calls.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

you are going to be on HGTV or advertising on the weekends locally?


----------



## BRAVI (Jun 3, 2010)

Cable advertising locally. 30 sec commercials rotated from 6am to 7pm Saturday and Sunday. If it goes well we will go ahead and advertise all week long.


----------



## Grumpy (Oct 8, 2003)

ChrWright said:


> Also, you never know when a local visitor might happen upon a thread here--and through your comments want to check you out. Make it easy to get to you. If they have to cut and paste or type your link in, there's probably a 50/50 chance they'll move on. Remember that the online shopper has an incredibly short attention span. Little things can make a big difference.


Last year I got nearly 100 leads from CT and its' sister sites. Defiently worth having links. It's always funny when someone calls... "Umm this is going to sound silly, but can I speak with someone named Grumpy?" How do I know they came from CT, I always ask how they heard about me and I track that in a database when getting the customer data.


----------



## seattlepainting (Nov 23, 2010)

*Paul is correct it is the uniques per month*

contractor talk 2,0 is a nice upgarde


----------



## J L (Nov 16, 2009)

With google analytics I can see what city folks are accessing my site from, how long they stayed, what keywords they searched to find the site, what browser they are using, who their ISP is, how they clicked around my site, etc. 

I was very interested to see how people clicked around and what page they were leaving the site from. If it was from the quote request page - great, but primarily it wasn't, so I made changes to the page they were leaving from and got the percentages down. Wait a few months and look at the numbers again, see what other page(s) need changing. 

Also make some changes to see what works to convert a higher percentage of unique visitors to requests for quotes.

Websites are not a "build it and forget it" type of marketing. You can do that, but with programs like google analytics, there's so much information presented to you that you can easily tweak the information there to cater to your audience.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

I am still learning how to process the info. There is a newer version of GA and I'm not sure I like it as much. 

I click on keywords that were searched for, but that doesn't tell me where the person is from. I can click on the map and narrow it down to what state/city/town people came from, but I don't see where it shows which search those people entered to get to the site.


----------



## BrandConst (May 9, 2011)

What are you guys using to track where your hits are coming from? I'm having FB redo my ugly site now and want to know how to track the hits.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

I use google analytics but I don't think it's accurate at all. I have people tell me they went to my site, or they go there all the time etc. and my numbers according to GA, are low.

I am busy so I can't complain too much.


----------



## BrandConst (May 9, 2011)

Are you getting most of your leads from your site?


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

No, some of them lately, but a lot of my jobs are word of mouth/referrals.

The last week or so, I have gotten about 4 leads for decent sized jobs in my area. they all found me on google and visited the site, emailed me using the contact form.


----------



## RhodesHardwood (Jun 28, 2010)

We get 150-200 hits per day.


----------



## BrandConst (May 9, 2011)

RhodesHardwood said:


> We get 150-200 hits per day.


And how are you doing on getting website leads?


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

RhodesHardwood said:


> We get 150-200 hits per day.


how many are local and how many actually generate leads. that sounds like a lot of hits but you are in a major city. it's hard to compare. I live in a rural area where there aren't millions of peoples around me.


----------



## BrandConst (May 9, 2011)

ApgarNJ said:


> how many are local and how many actually generate leads. that sounds like a lot of hits but you are in a major city. it's hard to compare. I live in a rural area where there aren't millions of peoples around me.


Hits don't mean anything to me. What I count are the leads. That's what makes the difference.

Apgar...how are your website leads coming?


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

I'm getting about one lead a week from the website, but they aren't always turning into real jobs. mostly people looking for a free estimate and they are really shopping prices.

i have a lot of work lined up now, and several decent sized ones that are in the planning/bidding phase, but not sure which ones will land.


----------



## MERL LARSON (Jul 5, 2011)

Launched my website January 2011. 

Received on average 3500 hits per month January,February and March. 

Redesigned it in April,added content and big name manufacturer. Hits in April were 7000,May 8000 June 8000 and July it is getting 400 hits per day,could end up at 13,000.
Its being looked at all over the world with Malaysia being the largest increase.

I am convinced that the content and the SEO has increased the traffic.

In my opinion hits are not the important part,it is the visitors and the length of time that they stay on 

If you have something important to say and your site is easy to navigate and look at they will certainly contact you.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

merl, you are in a totally different kind of business than us contractors. People all over the world can search and buy your products. People locally usually search for contractors near them. It's very hard to compare numbers like that. you look like have a lot of traffic to your site, that is great. 

i'd rather get 5 hits a day and have 2 of them call me for work than 100 a day and then too many price shoppers just looking for a deal.


----------



## MERL LARSON (Jul 5, 2011)

*Merl Larson Washroom Accessory Specialist*



ApgarNJ said:


> merl, you are in a totally different kind of business than us contractors. People all over the world can search and buy your products. People locally usually search for contractors near them. It's very hard to compare numbers like that. you look like have a lot of traffic to your site, that is great.
> 
> i'd rather get 5 hits a day and have 2 of them call me for work than 100 a day and then too many price shoppers just looking for a deal.


Dan, we know that most new house buyers rennovate them considerably within the first 5 years of their construction.

If you were to obtain the number of new home completions in your area over the last 5 years and project them,you should be able to get an idea of how many potential rennovations and home upgrades there might be. 

If you divide that out by the number of competitive contractors that you have you would get a fair idea of how many hits you could be part of.

That would let you know if you are receiving your share of hits. 

If not the next thing would be to develop those key words as to what those customers will look for on a site. 

With the like of older homes requiring new windows ,hot water tanks etc, these figures would not apply

Someone mentioned the word "Trust" the other day and said they put it in their website. I think that is great and I am going to add that to mine as I believe electronic shoppers have to be able to feel who you are electronically before they go further and give you an order.


----------



## ApgarNJ (Apr 16, 2006)

I don't live in an area with a lot of brand new homes. Land is expensive and when the market tanked, builders were left holding spec homes in their hands for years and eventually sold at a great loss.

It's hard to calculate the number of existing homes that need or have already had renovations. I don't enough time in the day to run these kinds of numbers. I don't have 10 guys working for me, we basically do 1-2 jobs at a time and use a small crew to get the job done close to perfect because they are usually higher end customers. I honestly don't want huge volume at this point because most of the time that means sacrificing the really high quality, and you are competing with a different kind of contractor. I'd be happy to see 10-25 hits a day that are local and the bounce rate is low. Most of my hits from NJ are all very low bounce rates and people spend several minutes on the site. The out of state people, and guys from this site offset the real numbers so I don't even look at overall bounce rate anymore, only local BR.


----------



## FlatworkGuy (Jul 25, 2010)

My traffic numbers for June 2011:

unique visitors 344
total visits 969
page views 4401
total hits 28798
data transfer 698.46 MB
bookmark rate 115.7 %

I don't usually pay any attention to "hits" because they don't mean anything.

The uniques are the ones I pay the most attention to as a rule.

I'm on a dedicated ip, use an independent domain, and don't use any online internet promtions or lead schemes.

My site, directly, was responsible for only $36,000 in the past 24 months .. not a large number in and of itself, but when combined with my targeted local and regional advertising, it carries it's own quite nicely.

My biggest selling points over the past couple of years here in Texas has been the actual work/finished product. Stuff these guys have never seen before .. technique and talent have pushed my overall verbal referrals off the charts.

Most of my visitors come in on Saturdays and Sundays .. Homeowners that upon after getting a day off from their Monday thru Friday grind, sit down and shop for concrete finishing services for the home .. I usually hear from those people on a Tuesday after they get off work.

I give people time .. Dealing with homeowners often involves bidding on something that is 4 to 6 weeks out .. they are waiting on their tax return, bigger payday, or vacation time, to do the project they intend to do .. so I'm fairly lax about the bidding and the timetable involved.

I only lock-in a start time with commercial entities and reseve the right to change the terms or price of the bid if they choose to hold me up on my scheduling.

Though I focus mostly on local and regional, I'm still not above going into Wyoming, Washington, or Oregon if the price for the job is right .. 

My website also has a blog, and a building contractor keyword search engine .. The search engine was added because though I'm in the building industry. There are a great deal of things related to the building industry that I don't do .. I get a lot of questions from clients about drywall, plumbing, electrical and so on .. it only stood to reason that by adding the search engine, I would be assisting others who might be curious about trades other than flatwork concrete finishing.

I also get quite a few that would visit my concrete or mix design calculators .. I may never be able to make any sales directly for services from those pages, but being remembered for being helpful usually pays off in the long run anyway, so I don't worry about it.

I use social networking only marginally .. IMO, the use of social networking is a fail when it comes to full blown marketing in relation to services, so I keep it all to a dull roar .. never pushing or giving any reason for folks to think that I'm just another social networking spammer.

Overall though, the internet is, to me, just one tool of the many added to the toolbox .. it works well when used with discretion .. just like all of my other tools.


----------

