Hit rate for Web site?

This has probably been asked before, but maybe someone can steer me in
the right direction. Are there are statistics on how many contacts
someone should get, as a percentage of hits on a business Web site.

My situation is this. I've put up a business Web site,
www.OpComm.com, for my tech writing services. I'm advertising mainly
through google, and getting about 30 hits per day on the splash page.
About 50% of those hits enter the site, and get to the page which
describes my services in more detail. But only about 8% of my initial
hits -- or 16% of the hits that reach the Services page -- find their
way to my Contact page, providing info for actually getting in touch
with me. And so far, after a couple of weeks, no actual e-mails or
phone calls in response.

Possibly this is not unusual, to get only about 10% of the people who
first check out my page to then dig deep enough to reach the contact
page. In other words, maybe this is the norm for Web marketing. It's
hard for me to know without some comparative statistics. So, any
leads to appropriate stats would be appreciated. If anyone wants to
visit the site and provide feedback, of course I'd appreciate that as
well.

Thanks in advance for all replies.

Steve O.

Steven AATT Domain DDOOTT com
To send an e-mail, substitute @ for AATT, a . for DDOOTT, and OpComm for Domain

Standard Antiflame Disclaimer: Please don't flame me. I may actually *be* an
idiot, but even idiots have feelings.

Hi Steven

Quick Question, are you tracking on "Hits" or "Individual User Sessions/Page
Requests"?

Tracking on Hits will skew your metrics because a Hit does not represent an
individual user or a page request. A "HIT" is the request of any HTML Object
from the server such as the page, a graphic, a script etc... But dont take
my word for it.

NetLingo.com defines a "HIT" as
The request for and delivery of a file (such as a Web page) on a server.
Each element of a requested page (including graphics, multimedia, and the
HTML file itself) is counted as an individual hit. So, if a Web page
contains five graphics, then accessing that page will generate six hits.
Hits were originally used to determine the amount of traffic a Web site
received, but since businesses eventually needed to isolate the exact number
of times a Web page was requested (in order to charge for ad banners), the
method of counting hits was tossed aside. Instead, businesses count the
actual HTML page requests.

Steven, my suggestion to you is to start tracking on Individual Page
Requests, or more specifically User Sessions/Page Requests.

For instance on my own site www.bluestarlearning.com I see an average of
5400 users per week requesting 22,000 pages for a session length of 38
seconds per user. Of those user requests we typically see upwards of 60,000
HITS from the page requests.

I think you can see how my ROI can be dramatically skewed if I track on
HITS, PAGE REQUESTS, or USER SESSIONS.


Also Maybe just a quick suggestion, since the bulk of your traffic is
comming to your landing page, why dont you put your contact information
and/or the ability to purchase on that landing page. I have over 40 Google
ad-words campaigns running, and all of my ad-word campaigns drop onto a
landing page with the ability to contact me, the ability to buy, and all the
information they need.

Food for thought. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Cheers,
Casey
Make the obvious change to reply directly


"Steven O." <null@null.com> wrote in message
news:c5qd1902pdf@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> This has probably been asked before, but maybe someone can steer me in
> the right direction. Are there are statistics on how many contacts
> someone should get, as a percentage of hits on a business Web site.
>
> My situation is this. I've put up a business Web site,
> www.OpComm.com, for my tech writing services. I'm advertising mainly
> through google, and getting about 30 hits per day on the splash page.
> About 50% of those hits enter the site, and get to the page which
> describes my services in more detail. But only about 8% of my initial
> hits -- or 16% of the hits that reach the Services page -- find their
> way to my Contact page, providing info for actually getting in touch
> with me. And so far, after a couple of weeks, no actual e-mails or
> phone calls in response.
>
> Possibly this is not unusual, to get only about 10% of the people who
> first check out my page to then dig deep enough to reach the contact
> page. In other words, maybe this is the norm for Web marketing. It's
> hard for me to know without some comparative statistics. So, any
> leads to appropriate stats would be appreciated. If anyone wants to
> visit the site and provide feedback, of course I'd appreciate that as
> well.
>
> Thanks in advance for all replies.
>
> Steve O.
>
> Steven AATT Domain DDOOTT com
> To send an e-mail, substitute @ for AATT, a . for DDOOTT, and OpComm for
Domain
>
> Standard Antiflame Disclaimer: Please don't flame me. I may actually
*be* an
> idiot, but even idiots have feelings.

"Steven O." <null@null.com> wrote in message
news:c5qd1902pdf@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> This has probably been asked before, but maybe someone can steer me in
> the right direction. Are there are statistics on how many contacts
> someone should get, as a percentage of hits on a business Web site.

Hi Steven,

I think a lot of people in startup businesses think they can put up a web
site, maybe advertise on yahoo or google, and bring in the big bucks. (Or at
least a few bucks.) Unfortunately that rarely, if ever, works.

There are some really good books on marketing and sales out there. The
Guerilla Marketing Handbook (gmarketing.com), and Getting Sales to Come to
You (by Paul and Sara Edwards) are my two top recommendations. There is also
a book out there you should read called, The E-myth Revisited. (These books
are all a bit dated, if you find books, or classes, that are more to your
liking, more power to you.)

Starting a business is not an event, its a process. You have to tweak your
services to meet market demands, and you have to make *personal* contacts
with people if you want to get the ball rolling.

It sounds like you've already taken the first few steps in starting a
business by defining what you do and, hopefully, you've defined your market.
From here, its largely a matter of perseverance, together with just a little
bit of luck.

I know this isn't exactly what you wanted to here, but I hope it helps
anyway. Good luck!

Mike Turco

What a surprise, Steven take note of Mike's comments.

Those two books (guerilla & gbtcty) are absolutely brilliant and will steer
you in the right direction.


--

Keith Boynton
Collectibles Top 25
http://www.collectiblestop25.com

"Mike Turco" <miketurco@yahoo-nospam4me.com> wrote in message
news:c7ug6e02l1i@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
>
> "Steven O." <null@null.com> wrote in message
> news:c5qd1902pdf@enews3.newsguy.com...
> >
> > This has probably been asked before, but maybe someone can steer me in
> > the right direction. Are there are statistics on how many contacts
> > someone should get, as a percentage of hits on a business Web site.
>
> Hi Steven,
>
> I think a lot of people in startup businesses think they can put up a web
> site, maybe advertise on yahoo or google, and bring in the big bucks. (Or
at
> least a few bucks.) Unfortunately that rarely, if ever, works.
>
> There are some really good books on marketing and sales out there. The
> Guerilla Marketing Handbook (gmarketing.com), and Getting Sales to Come to
> You (by Paul and Sara Edwards) are my two top recommendations. There is
also
> a book out there you should read called, The E-myth Revisited. (These
books
> are all a bit dated, if you find books, or classes, that are more to your
> liking, more power to you.)
>
> Starting a business is not an event, its a process. You have to tweak your
> services to meet market demands, and you have to make *personal* contacts
> with people if you want to get the ball rolling.
>
> It sounds like you've already taken the first few steps in starting a
> business by defining what you do and, hopefully, you've defined your
market.
> From here, its largely a matter of perseverance, together with just a
little
> bit of luck.
>
> I know this isn't exactly what you wanted to here, but I hope it helps
> anyway. Good luck!
>
> Mike Turco
>