iWhat is the difference between page views and hits within my website analytics?

It has come to my attention that many people do not understand the difference between a website “HIT” vs. a website “Page View”. Everyday your website will receive both hits and page views. What do millions of hits per month versus thousands of page views mean when you look at your traffic logs? It's all about the graphics on a webpage vs the user viewering the page.

Here’s some information you should understand before we proceed:

1.      1 graphic/image equals 1 hit

2.      1 webpage equals 1 page view

3.      A page view is sometimes referred to as a request. This is because you are requesting a page be loaded when you click on a website or any of the sub pages.

4.      Loading means the webpage appears on your browser.

5.      The terms visit or visitors have no precise meaning unless the site is tracking its users. The term page view is the basic agreed upon standard

Information about a website's traffic is kept in the log file, a kind of general record. For more direct identification of the user , many websites use cookies. Similar to knowing what apartment house someone lives in, but not the specific apartment.

The number of graphics displayed on the webpage equals the number of hits. The display of the webpage is a constant number. Number of hits equals number of graphics plus 1 hit for the page.

For example:

 1 graphic + 1 webpage ( 1 hit + 1 page view ) = 2 hits
10 graphics + 1 webpage (10 hits + 1 page view) = 11 hits
100 graphics + 1 webpage ( 100 hits + 1 page view ) = 101 hits
1000 graphics + 1 webpage (1000 hits + 1 page view ) = 1001 hits
10,000 graphics + 1 webpage (10,000 hits + 1 page view) = 10,001 hits
100,000 graphics + 1 webpage (100,000 hits + 1 page view) = 100,001 hits

I hope this helps everyone understand why the hit count is so great vs. the page views.

Regards,

Matt your SEO Blogmaster

SEO Consultant for Rioforma.com

        

The Alexa Traffic History Graph allows you to create a traffic history graph for any site. Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users.

What is Traffic Rank?
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users. It is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). The three-month change is determined by comparing the site's current rank with its rank from three months ago.

What is Reach?
Reach measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. Alexa expresses reach as the number of users per million. The three-month changes are determined by comparing a site's current reach with its values from three month ago.

Please use the FREE Alexa Rank Checker below to view your ranking changes.


 

Alexa Rank Comparison Tool © SEO Chat™ Domains Enter a one or more domain names (domain.com or www.domain.com) up to 10 domains. Width Width of the chart Height Height of the chart Graph Type Select Alexa Graph Type Daily Reach Rank Time Span Select Time Span 3 Months 6 Months 1 Year 2 Year Enter Captcha To Continue To prevent spamming, please enter in the numbers and letters in the box below Report Problem with Tool.

Regards,

Matt the Blogmaster

FREE SEO Website Review

        

There are many ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. That said,, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of rankings well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a  less reputable page.

If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying Text Links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:

1)     Create and issuing press releases with a link back to your site

2)     Submitting to reputable business directories such as DMOZ

3)     Start participating on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas

4)     Ask clients with web sites, if they would add your link to their "partners" section

5)     Participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature

6)     Get involved in social media and bookmarking websites

Regards,

SEO Blogmaster Matt

        

Hello all,

A friend of mine sent me this article and I thought it was perfect for the website!!!! Now on with the show.

Many brick and mortar companies that are catering to their local clientele find it hard to SEO for local markets despite targeting the best keywords. Quite naturally this is not a surprising matter as many of them, although efficient in running their off line businesses, typically stumble over two critical blocks.

Stumbling Blocks and SEO for Local Markets

When local businesses set to do SEO for local markets, many of them invariably ignore the need to think rationally because they are advised by SEO experts to target the big three search engine users and sometimes get confused and tackle this feat on a global level resulting in global traffic. The direct fall out of this step is exposing your business offers, products or services to the world at large only to dilute all other local online SEO efforts. If your product is not global you are in trouble.

So here is the stumbling block number one.

1. Not using localized target keywords, however good they are, will leave your new websites way down the SERP's locally. Actual localized keywords you should be targeting in which will bring you a steady stream of natural traffic.

The second block where you might probably stumble, especially if you are new to web and optimization is wrongfully assuming internet marketing techniques as something radically different and for removed from the earthly- worldly affairs that we all do by trial and errors over and again. The crux of the matter here is SEO for local markets is only a small part of larger marketing exercises, with certain twists, to get exposure with local locations.

Here is the second stumbling point in SEO for local markets.

2. SEO for local markets is not a marketing technique but a sophisticated local technique of optimizing websites on a local basis. Obviously, the one who knows the pulse of the market is not the SEO expert but can contribute his knowledge to SEO expert.

So, What Is Actually SEO For Local Markets?

Let me dash you through steps involved in SEO for local markets in short.

1. Localize your target keywords. This includes prefixing or suffixing local terms, names, and names of areas, cities or zip codes with target keywords. Example: "remodeling contractors Orange County", not "remodeling contractors".

2. Submit to local search engines (find one, if you don't know already), directories and web based yellow pages.

3. Display your mailing address with street address, zip code and complete. Once your site is indexed, these words gain prominence as a part of content.

4. Submit to local listing sections of Yahoo and DMOZ which is in addition to generalized listing.

5. Don't leave out general SEO techniques because you want to SEO for local markets which the power of link building which can be done globally as there might not be enough local sites to beat you competition.

6. Get on the local maps of Google, Yahoo, as this generally puts you on front of the local search engines.

7. Exchange links and banners with local businesses as the local traffic exchange will bring you new business. Avoid changing banners or links with competitors but exchange them with businesses that will complement you. Verify their traffic so it's an almost even exchange.

Dominating local SEO can be done fairly easily, you just have to either hire a professional with a proven track record or take time to learn local SEO. The main concern is to be patient as it takes at least 3 months to start seeing results.

Thanks Michael for the use of the article.

Regards,

Matt your SEO Blogmaster

About the Author: Michael S. Francis the author is a seasoned local SEO expert. Michael S. Francis is the owner of www.seovida.com 

        

Ask your partners and wholesalers for content

If you have
a product-based website, your suppliers can be a terrific source of content. For
example, if you are a reseller of hand woven rugs, ask your manufacturer’s permission
reprint promotional material that details the weaving and hooking the rugs.
This content or copy is usually well written by a professional copywriter and has
been loaded with pertinent keywords. Additionally, it is usually supplied in
digital format so that adding to content to the website is so easy. Also add
some product photos along-side the content to help keep ...<< MORE >>

Hello faithful patrons,

So sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've just been crushed with business. With that said, every week I get some prospect who tells me that they are going to use some fantastic technique to boost their websites rank or popularity within the search engines. The conversation always starts out something like this, quote "I only need you to help me  market my website, my cousin showed me how to SEO my website using keywords and by building other websites to double my traffic."

What they are really saying is they have no clue what they are doing and just because the great "Google Gods" have indexed a page or two they are now SEO experts........ So to make sure you all end up to be real SEO experts please do not use any of the techniques listed below!

 Keyword Stuffing:

One major "no-no" in meta-tags is stuffing as many keywords as possible into your meta tags and website with the sole intent of boosting your ranking in the search engines as opposed to creating quality content. Another common stuffing and "black-hat" technique entails creating keywords that match the background color of your web page, with the intent of hiding it from the human eye, but still allowing search engine robots to index them.

Although once popular, keyword spamming techniques can have a severe negative impact for your website. If the web indexing robots are able to detect keyword spamming, your site may be penalized with a lower ranking, or simply be removed from their index.

Doorway Pages:

Auto generated pages that are produced only for search engines to index and have no other value to the site. Doorway creation software can create hundreds of additional pages for your site in very little time, with the intent of having many pages for web robots to index. Auto created doorway pages are looked at as spam and if detected by the search engine spiders, your site will be penalized or be removed from their database.

 In some instances a website such as full on flash website may not have any choice but to create a limited number anchor pages/ doorway pages since their entire site is in a format that can not be spidered. Care should be taken in how this is rolled out.

Baiting:

Also known as cloaking. Is the use of custom scripts that detect when a particular spider is crawling/visiting your website, and auto loads preset meta tags and or content built specifically for that spider and is different content then that which actual users will see. This technique is considered search engine spam and can have a severe negative impact for your website ranking. 

Duplicating Web-Pages:

Another big "no-no" is creating multiple identical webpages or websites with identical content but different domain names. Essentially an advanced version of doorway pages. Often the websites are database driven and share the same database. Although once popular and still done by some , if web indexing robots detect duplicate sites, then both websites may be removed from their index.  

Closing Thoughts:

If you find a new hot "magic" technique for getting that #1 ranking, chances are it is a form of spam. If you get caught spamming the search engines you will likely damage your ranking or be removed from their database! The top search engine companies have some of the best minds in the business who's full time job it is to continually make their search engine better. One of the ways this is done is by improving the relevancy and quality of the database by removing sites that spam their databases. Remember most search engines such as Google have a place where people can report sites they think are spamming the search engine.   As rule of thumb, if you find a technique that attempts to artificially boost your ranking in the engines by circumventing or exploiting an algorithm that the search engines use, then it is SPAM.  

        

Many search engines such as Google base their search results upon relevancy to the content provided. So basically if the page isn’t relevant, it won’t appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

If your web page contains too much HTML code, that could prevent a search engine spider from crawling the page in its entirety. Some search engine crawlers will check the amount of code there is on a page and compare it to the amount of text as part of its algorithm. If the page is too big, the spider may only be allowed to capture portions of the page, leaving out possible vital and relevant content.

Basically the ...

<< MORE >>

Can the Search Engines Index the Pages and Content on Your Website?

Probably the biggest surprise to most people is that search engines are unable to either navigate or read most of the content on their website. If the search engine can't read your copy (text), then it's not surprising that you're not getting the rankings or traffic to your website that you aspire to.

The only thing a search engine can read is words. Sites that are dynamic, or created in other technology platforms such as Flash or Java, often cannot be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, many times search engine cannot navigate your website properly because there are no specific links or sitemap to tell the proper sequence of pages or where to go next.

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to Google and type in: site:www.yourdomainname.com .

This will show you the title and description of the pages of your website that the search engines have indexed. If they are all the same or they don't have a title or description listed, chances are very good that your site is invisible to your target market. Make sure you have basic meta-tags and content of 100 to 500 words per-page preferably in straight HTML.....

Have a great day....

Matt your SEO expert and blogmaster.....

        

Below you will find some interesting statistics for Search Engine traffic and keywords searches for December, 2008.


Top Search Engine Traffic - Dec. 2008



Top Shopping & Classifieds Search Terms for Dec., 2008




Top Wedding related searches for Dec., 2008



Top Fashion related searches for Dec., 2008



For more information about search engine statistics go to hitwise.com

Regards,

Matt - Your SEO Blogmaster..........

        

Hello fellow Bloggers and Happy new year!

Sorry for the delay but I have about 5 SEO and SEM projects going right now. So it looks like 2008, is starting off as a great year for me. With that said, let's get on with a great question one of my clients asked me today.

The question was this:

When you do a search on Google, sometimes you see some of the search results with additions links to pages within that website.

What is this? Can you pay for this service? Or how do you optimize for it?



Here's my response and a little information as to what this is.

Sitelinks are extra links that appear below some search results in Google. They serve as shortcuts to help users quickly navigate to the important pages on your site.

Selecting pages to appear as sitelinks is a completely automated process. Our algorithms parse the structure and content of websites and identify pages that provide fast navigation and relevant information for the user's query. Since our algorithms consider several factors to generate sitelinks, not all websites have them.

Now, Google's Webmaster Tools let you view potential sitelinks for your site and block the ones you don't want to appear in Google search results. Because sitelinks are extremely useful in helping users navigate your site, we don't typically recommend blocking them. However, occasionally you might want to exclude a page from your sitelinks, for example: a page that has become outdated or unavailable, or a page that contains information you don't want emphasized to users. Once you block a page, it won't appear as a sitelink for 90 days unless you choose to unblock it sooner. It may take a week or so to remove a page from your sitelinks, but we are working on making this process faster.

To view and manage your sitelinks, go to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard and click the site you want. In the left menu click Links, then click Sitelinks.

To summerize,

The links shown below some sites in the Google search results, called sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Google's systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for.
Google only shows sitelinks for results "when they" think they'll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn't allow Google's algorithms to find good sitelinks, or Google doesn't think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user's query, they won't show them.

At the moment, sitelinks are completely automated. We're always working to improve our sitelinks algorithms, but there can be no guarantee that your indexed page or pages will have these additional sitelinks. Also not that sitelinks are usually associated with heavier traffic-sites.

Have a great day!

Regards,

Matt your SEO blogmaster.............