Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Bill Robinson on October 11, 2005, 03:19:57 pm
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Just thinking of getting a web site. How many hits do you guys get who have web sites. How many email enquiries , quotes do you get per month average.
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think it all depends on how you advertise if you only advertise your site on your leaflets for instance then its gona depend how many leaflets you put out. If you want to make the most of your site you need to know how to make the search engines work for you i think dougs the man who knows his stuff best when it comes to this, if you look at my thread entitled (websites) you will see an offer from him regarding this service.
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Bill
We started or website in june, and have had over 6000 hits to date, and only 1 email enquiry.
most of them call..
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When you say 6000 hits do you mean its been found by a search engine 6000 times? because if you have had that many people look let me know your secret?
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According to the stats, thats what it says...not sure how it was found...or from where the searches come from. If you can fully understand the stat charts from the host, then youre cleverer than me. However, click stats from google adwords, which we use average at around 20 clicks a week.
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You have to be very careful when analysing 'hits' on a website as most people don't actually know what a 'hit' is.
In actual fact it is the total number of files viewed. Files include the main html page itself and also each image on each page. If you look at the top of this page you'll see there's the Cleanitup logo, a home button, a help button, a search button, etc, etc. Every time someone opens a page each one of those that are displayed counts as 1 'hit'.
On average I'd say each page that is displayed on this forum generates about 25 'hits'. So, if you worked backwards from 6000 'hits' and divided it by 25 you'd get an approximate number of pages viewed (=240)
If you then assume each visitor looks at 5 pages it brings the number of individual visitors down to 48. You can also assume that some visitors are actually 'spiders' crawling the web for search engines so not all of those will be genuine visitors. It's easy to assume that a website isn't working if you think you're getting 6000 visitors when you may only be getting 30 odd.
So, if you know how many 'hits' your website is getting you first need to divide it by the average number of images per page, then divide it by the average number of pages viewed (actually I think I read it was an average of 3 pages viewed on a Service providers website) to give an indication of how many 'different' people have looked at it (and of course you have to remember that each time you look at your own site you are adding to the 'hits')
Regards
Mike
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If you have it on your stats look for how many sessions were established rather than hits
For example
Yesterday
Total Sessions Served 70
Total Hits 2038
Total Page Hits 103
Total Non Page Hits 1935
Total Session Duration 4920s
Total Transferred 7.52 MB
MSIE with 65 sessions (92.9% of all sessions)
Robot with 3 sessions (4.3% of all sessions)
Netscape Gecko with 1 sessions (1.4% of all sessions)
Unknown with 1 sessions (1.4% of all sessions)
But even that doesn't tell the whole story, as some of the sessions are servers caching the site
"getting" a website is the start of it, you have to market it as well.
Regards
Phil
www.valuevaleting.co.uk (http://www.valuevaleting.co.uk)
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Total Sessions Served 70
Total Hits 2038
Total Page Hits 103
Total Non Page Hits 1935
Total Session Duration 4920s
Total Transferred 7.52 MB
There you go: 2038 Hits = 103 Pages (avg 19 images per page) = 70 Users (1.5 average pages viewed)
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Hi Guys,
I don't get bogged down in the hits thing , just how many enquiries /jobs I get.
One of the problems with the internet is the perception that because so many people use it you will gets loads of interest.
Think how many potential customers are going to find your site.
Those that know its name e.g from leaflets etc
Those who search for carpet cleaners in a certain area will find the ones who top the rankings.
The reason people do not get any work from websites is that nobody can find them :o
Cheers,
Doug
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Hi Guys,
I don't get bogged down in the hits thing , just how many enquiries /jobs I get.
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The reason people do not get any work from websites is that nobody can find them :o
Cheers,
Doug
That is one of the points I was trying to make - marketing your website, You could compare it to getting thousands of flyers printed and then not handing them out.....
You can however get a much better success/conversion rate with a website, because people have actually been looking for that service
A (minor) problem is people can't read. I have had phone calls from Manchester, lincolnshire and Birmingham from people who have seen my site - It deffo says based in Brighton and Sussex on the site ;D
Phil
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Hi Guys,
I don't get bogged down in the hits thing , just how many enquiries /jobs I get.
....
The reason people do not get any work from websites is that nobody can find them :o
Cheers,
Doug
That is one of the points I was trying to make - marketing your website, You could compare it to getting thousands of flyers printed and then not handing them out.....
You can however get a much better success/conversion rate with a website, because people have actually been looking for that service
A (minor) problem is people can't read. I have had phone calls from Manchester, lincolnshire and Birmingham from people who have seen my site - It deffo says based in Brighton and Sussex on the site ;D
Phil
do you charge extra for going to manchester
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do you charge extra for going to manchester
Hell yeah!
I'd have gone too for £350 travelling expenses. Oh not forgetting the £20 bronze valet ;D ;)
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If you decide on a web site then you need to know your stats otherwise you have no way of knowing if its working apart from the occasional call or e-mail.
I can track my site for visits by the hour and its visits that count not hits, for instance in the same period June-September I've had 56000 hits but this is just like glancing in through a shop window on a busy high street as you walk by, you need people to come in browse and hopefully buy so knowing your numbers is vital.
Out of them 56000 hits I get on average 125 visits a week or around 500 a month and growing steadily. I know where they have been directed from to me, how many pages they looked at and for how long.
If your on the web you will get enquiries from all over the country,it is madness to turn visitors away they will never visit you again, take the details and pass them on by placing the enquiry on a site like this, some one will pick up the job and in the eyes of the customer your site will be deemed reliable and helpful. this will be passed on to others and so your site grows. Other cleaners who benefited from you job will reciprocate and you will benefit from them in the future.Visitors to your site will return and eventually use you themselves.
Your site is a glorified brochure that advertises you 24-7, so it will need constant updating.If not previous visitors will look in and then quickly move on as you have nothing new to offer.Another site is just a click away and you have just a few seconds to get them interested so your first page and headline better be good.You want your visitors to add your site to there 'Favourites'. They will not do this if its boring. Don't let anyone tell you 'all they want is a cleaner' . When you wife goes shopping does she go out in the frame of mind that 'all she wants is a skirt or blouse'. No (god help us :'() they visit shop after shop until they find the shop (usually the first one they went to as they used them before and trust them) they feel comfortable with, that probably has the same as the other shops, might be a little bit dearer but, it's the whole experience they enjoy and feeling of value for money. No different with online shopping and when I look at marketing my site I always keep the above in mind.
By the way I knew absolutely zero about web sites 8 months ago but took the plunge and I am glad I did, I now know a little more but learn something new every week.After all we are carpet cleaners not web masters so we all learn as we go along and as already mentioned, no good hiding it away when built, you have to get it out there or the only visits you get will be when you look in :(
Hope this helps
Happy web building ;D
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Tevour,
What the point having a Web Site if we cant nick the ideas.
I thought Value Valets was very good and learnt more about Car Valeting in 5 minutes looking at that than two years reading The Contract and General Cleaning section.
Phil, did you get the idea on Waterless Cleaning from Martin 606
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Tevour,
What the point having a Web Site if we cant nick the ideas.
I thought Value Valets was very good and learnt more about Car Valeting in 5 minutes looking at that than two years reading The Contract and General Cleaning section.
Phil, did you get the idea on Waterless Cleaning from Martin 606
No I only found out about Martins service in Brighton off this website. I just bumbled here by accident I think ;D
You have to be careful about "nicking" ideas off a website, a friend of mine totally by accident (he assures me ;D )built his website and then found it looked very similar to a competitors website - legal letters, removal of website, start from scratch
Knowing where you visitors came from is helpful as mentioned by Woodman. Just this week I noticed I was getting a lot of visits from a forum I have never used (someone posted my address as an example of competition for someone thinking of becoming a valeter) which enabled me to go on to the forum and help with some answers to some questions (oh and hopefully get a bit of work 8) )
Phil
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Trevor,
How many jobs have you had from your site in those 8 months?
Cheers,
Doug