Thoughts 28 Nov 2007 11:34 am
Web sites and traffic
First Page Rank doesn’t mean much since the last Google update. They call it an update, but I believe that it was nothing more than an attempt to rein in the competition.
The competition sells links and Google sells links. —It must be nice to be able to adjust the marketplace to suit yourself.
Adjustments must be made for the reduced ranking most sites got. But I think a new metric needs to be found.
Personally I would recommend using traffic stats. Some blog or other I read recently has a comment to that effect, and they were right.
If I’m going to lease space in a shopping center I want to know how much traffic I can count on.
On the sites I own or manage, I have installed Google analytics. Since I work under the assumption that Google tracks pretty much every thing that gets done on the net, I don’t mind giving them a little more information.
Google analytics will tell you not only how many visitors you get, it will tell you where these visitors are coming from, and how long they stayed.
As an example:
Ashburn Va. visits all my sites. I goggled for Ashburn and found out that they are about 30mi from DC, they are the home of the Washington Redskins, MCI, AOL and a number of other tech firms.
This doesn’t tell me exactly who is visiting, but it does tell me that they are probably more comfortable around computers than most and probably have at least a high school education.
If I were marketing a product this information would be valuable. If you think about it, if you have a blog, or a websitem you are marketing product.
Even if you never sell a product or an ad, and all you’re marketing is your opinion, your beliefs or pictures of your grandkids, you’re still trying to get people to pay attention.
And don’t give up on SEO. Page rank may not be worth what it once was, but search engine placement is still king.