18.
Re: Need Help advertising Dec 4, 2008 4:48 PM
Expert,
When you say the number of "hits" has decreased by 10%, do you really mean the number of "visits"? Those two terms are not synonymous. All images and media embedded on a page can have their own hits, so a Web page will average almost 25 hits on a server, when in fact only one visit was actually made. You're almost always better off measuring visits over hits.
A good way to keep track of your Web traffic is Google Analytics. It's free and it will help you track interesting statistics such as most common pages viewed, number of visits, number of unique visitors, common keywords, average time spent on site, number of pages viewed, etc. You can generate reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. This can be very helpful when trying to assess the impact of any promotions you've made regarding your Web site. Regular monitoring from these reports will also help you pinpoint specific periods when your traffic has gone down, helping you to diagnose the cause.
Once you have this Web analytics tool in place, you can try different ways to promote your site, and if you notice a lift in your traffic shortly after, you will get a good idea for which promotional tactics are most effective for building and/or restoring your web traffic.
Let me know if I can provide further information.
Good luck.
Alex