Kool-aid-statsBlog Visitor Statistics - Don't Drink The Kool-Aid

At Bloggers Connect 2007, a woman from the audience during the panel I spoke on (Show Me The Leads) asked a great question.  A question that I hear everyday.  A question that I know every new and soon to be blogger is asking: “How many hits should I expect to get to my blog?”

I was surprised to hear the answer by one of the panelists: 
“After a couple of months, you should be getting a couple of thousand a day.”

As far as I know, based on most statistic metric counters, there are only a handful of blogs in the real estate blogosphere that can boast that they are generating visits in the thousands per day. 
Statements like these are reckless and misleading. 

There is a need for a common measure of traffic to a website, and that measure should be that of the “unique visitor”.  Where the (ahem) confusion lies is in the distinction of the following:

Visits – The instance of someone coming to your site.
Hits – The instance of anything visiting your site.
Page Views – The instance of someone clicking on a page in your site.
Impressions – The instance of your site appearing in a search result.
Unique Visits – The instance of someone coming to your site once, in a limited time frame.

Because all of the above represent some sort of traffic measure to your site, the answer to the question above can be leveraged by using any of them.  However, the question that the novice in the audience was hoping to have answered was “How many people can I expect to visit my blog?”  We all knew exactly what she was asking.

Let me show you an example:

Head on over to Real Estate Tomato to read the rest of this compelling article:
Real Estate Blog Traffic, How Many Hits Should I Expect ?

 

 
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59 Comments on Real Estate Blog Traffic, How Many Hits Should I Expect ?

20 Most Recent Comments Displayed Show All

AUG
10
2007
297,841 Points 110 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Jim,

I took your advice and submitted to Blogflux.   I have received a recent spike of activity and wondered about it until I saw the Blogflux results. 

The rankings are skewed because they only go back one week; mortgage blogs will get the traffic these past 10 days because of the problems in the market.  So, the rankings, in my opinion, are bunk.

The metrics, however, are a useful tool.  I'm curious to see my stats. 

11:14pm • #40
AUG
11
2007
129,532 Points 3 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Good post. Thanks for clarifying this. This crazy internet world changes almost daily...Thanks for keeping us straight!!

 

 
7:53am • #41
385,797 Points 75 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

I like the info I get from GetClicky.com.  It's a very user friendly free stats package with great info I was not getting from other sources.

But really all that matters to me is who calls me.  I don't care how many visit.  Its nice that other Realtors visit and comment.  I try to reciprocate.  My only concern is who hires me.   
9:08am • #42
715,635 Points 69 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog Called Shot Master

 Thank you, this was a helpful reminder...

There is a need for a common measure of traffic to a website, and that measure should be that of the "unique visitor".  Where the (ahem) confusion lies is in the distinction of the following:

Visits - The instance of someone coming to your site.
Hits - The instance of anything visiting your site.
Page Views - The instance of someone clicking on a page in your site.
Impressions - The instance of your site appearing in a search result.
Unique Visits - The instance of someone coming to your site once, in a limited time frame.
9:58am • #43
As a newbie at AR, I was wondering the same thing and wondering where I could find the data.  Thanks for the insight and the helpful link to learn more...
10:33am • #44
10 Featured Posts

hi all!

i go fishing and look what happens.......

at the end of the day, if i'm a real estate agent or mortgage broker who blogs for business, my goal should be to get real buyers and sellers to contact me. period.

now back to fishing...... 

blog on! 

-rudy.sellsius° 

p.s. i use getclicky.com for sh*ts and giggles........ 
11:55am • #45
118,208 Points 14 Featured Posts
There are great tools that can show other peoples metrics. So we don't have to take anyone's word for it. Does one blog get more traffic than another? Simply go to alexa.com and find out. Granted, it's not perfect and there are ways to "work the system" but it gives a great overview. 
3:15pm • #46
Thanks so much for this great post. I had never seen the breakdown of all the different ways people visit your website or blog broken down so clearly in each category. I will be bookmarking this for reference. 
3:17pm • #47
Thanks so much for this great post. I had never seen the breakdown of all the different ways people visit your website or blog broken down so clearly in each category. I will be bookmarking this for reference.  (sorry for the duplicate above - forgot to login). Also - thanks to those who mentioned getclicky.com - just went there and it seems like another great tool. 
3:22pm • #48

Hits? Unique vistors? It makes no difference to me if I don't get a client AND make a sale.  The only number that matters is the, as one person put it, how many checks I deposit at the of the week.  Popularity.....well I'd rather have targeted, focused traffic in low numbers with the highest amount of conversions from visitor to sale.

.02

Course, I could be wrong! ;) 
5:58pm • #49
763,803 Points 91 Featured Posts
Brad, I've found Alexa to be extremely inaccurate, personally. Since they only sample based on people who use the Alexa tool bar in their browser, it's highly suspect for sites that don't have a broad appeal. Example: Alexa only shows 121 sites linking into RealEstateShows.com. But our server logs show 46,967 different pages/urls that have links to RealEstateShows.com. Alexa also doesn't even attempt to indicate unique visits, which is the best number to use when looking at traffic, in my opinion. Hits and page views are nice, but unique visitor analysis allows me to really see how reach is growing. We almost never discuss hits or pages or just total visits. Our focus is on uniques. And there is a big difference in the numbers. Last month we had 898,907 visits, but only 562,353 of those were unique. 
6:22pm • #50
118,208 Points 14 Featured Posts
Jeff, I agree that Alexa is anything but an exact science! My only point in mentioning Alexa was to try to get a snapshot on comparing different websites. for example, it looks like Bloodhound Realty gets more exposure than Rain City Guide.
9:11pm • #51
AUG
12
2007
763,803 Points 91 Featured Posts

Brad... I hear you. There is probably a really good study buried in this discussion. I'd love to get a few people to agree to compare data from actual server logs with alexa rankings and see how far off they really are. Whatever came from it, I think it would be beneficial.

I've just learned from comparing actual visits of sites, that alexa can be completely off base. Back in January, one of the AR guys wrote a post that they had just hit an average of 10, 000 visits in a day, or something like that. I tried to find the post for reference, but can't find it. They then commented on their Alexa ranking. When I read it I thought, "how is that possible? we get almost twice as many visits a day as they do and our ranking was many, many thousands lower than their ranking. Now this probably indicates that they do a much better job of SEO than we do, and they do,  but it's not a true measure of actual visits. AR's alexa ranking was much higher than ours a long time before they passed us on the hitwise 100 real estate sites list. And the Hitwise list is based on much more accurate data directly from the ISP's. 

For the top websites, I think Alexa may be a very good way to compare, but if a site is getting fewer than 20,000 unique visits a day, their sampling methods can be very misleading. Again, this is my anecdotal experience. I wouldn't bet my house on any of this. :) 

2:30am • #52
183,992 Points 46 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp
Jeff: I would be willing to participate in your study with two sites--and think the information gleaned might be valuable to us all.
2:23pm • #53
AUG
13
2007
213,239 Points 5 Featured Posts

What a great post. I read your post after reading about it in the ActiveRain "the week in review". Great job and congrats on the feature in the week in review.

Brad
8:44am • #54
233,845 Points 32 Featured Posts Outside Blog

As promised, Jeff has gone ahead and given us some great fodder on the value of Alexa Rankings 

http://activerain.com/blogsview/172884/The-Problem-With-Alexa 
3:34pm • #55
763,803 Points 91 Featured Posts
Jim... I tried to paint as fair a picture as possible, with all data being pulled form the same sources.
3:41pm • #56
AUG
16
2007
159,048 Points 17 Featured Posts Outside Blog Called Shot Master

Jim,

I'm new to blogging and even though I had heard of "The Real Estate Tomato" this is my first visit to your blog. I'm impressed. You've got all the AR Superstars here with their hair down.

Very interesting.

I'm also glad to see that you are not anonymous. This has been an "issue" for me as several other members hide their identity.

I know nothing about "hits" or "visits" but I do understand "leads." I thought that this was what it was  all about.

All the metrics in the world don't make the phone ring.
One "visit" that turns into a lead is worth more than a million "hits."

Thanks for being here and sharing your knowledge.

Bill Roberts
11:05am • #57
233,845 Points 32 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Bill,

I am so glad to have your readership.  This topic was and is something that I think needs to be explained and debated.  Certainly, leads are where it's at... but without traffic there's none.  So how do we know how effective our sites are if we have no universal and objective metric?   See you around!

11:16am • #58
245,817 Points 56 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog
Tomato, good debate. Always a good idea to hash things out with an open mind. Of course, without the hits there can be no leads. And since leads are what we are all about, it's important to know what hits are all about. Thanks for the clarification.
11:57am • #59

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