Have you heard of Sitemeter.com? It's a FREE and easy way to track important details about how many people are visiting your site, how they got there and how long they're staying. I heard about this site at the IAHSP Home Staging Convention back in July and I quickly signed up. I get an email every week with my current stats and it looks like this:

STAGE TO SELL - Los Angeles Home Staging
 
                    -- Site Summary ---                    
          Visits

            Total ........................ 1,761           
            Average per Day ................. 19           
            Average Visit Length .......... 3:43           
            This Week ...................... 131           

          Page Views

            Total ........................ 5,077           
            Average per Day ................. 67           
            Average per Visit .............. 3.6           
            This Week ...................... 470

OK I must admit that when I am busy I just file this weekly email away under my website email folder and don't give it a second glance. But today (in the spirit of a new year and new goals) I decided to do a little test. I opened up the last several emails I've received from SiteMeter to see if all my hard work blogging and tweeting is paying off.

Well I was thrilled to find out that my stats have been steadily increasing each week! Not only are the visits and page views going up, but also the average visit length! Want to know by how much?

In the last month:

• My total visits have increased by approximately 100-150 per week. Not bad. That means 14-21 new people per day have found me!

• My average page views have gone up by 400-500 per week.

• But perhaps most important, my average visit length has increased by 15-30 seconds each week.

That means that not only are more people finding me online, but they're staying on my site longer, which makes them more likely to call or hire me.

But I have saved the best for last...

To end my little research project, I decided to open up the very first SiteMeter report I received back on September 4th. Check it out:

STAGE TO SELL - Los Angeles Home Staging
 
                    -- Site Summary ---                    
          Visits

            Total ........................... 35           
            Average per Day .................. 5           
            Average Visit Length .......... 0:42           
            This Week ....................... 35           

          Page Views

            Total ........................... 51           
            Average per Day .................. 7           
            Average per Visit .............. 1.5           
            This Week ....................... 51      

All I can say is WOW! Whatever I'm doing must be working. In the 4 months since I signed up, my total visits have increased by over 5000% (someone help me out if my math is off on this one, but I'm pretty sure that's correct)!

Need more incentive to sign up for SiteMeter? Below is a screen shot of the page that shows me where my recent site visitors are coming from (their referral pages). I see many from Google, which is good. But I'd expect that since I still have a pesky Pay-Per-Click account. But there's one there from Active Rain, one from StagedHomes.com and one from a real estate company's website where my site is featured under Information for Sellers and Staging Your Home.

Take a closer look at the page below. You can also see what the exit page was (the page where the visitor was when s/he decided to stop looking at your site). Now that's an interesting thing to know! If it's your "Contact Me" page, that's good news. But if it's your portfolio page, consider whether you need to make some changes.

So apparently all this time spent on ActiveRain and Twitter is beginning to make a difference.

By the way, I was in no way compensated by SiteMeter for writing this blog! :)

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Annie Pinsker-Brown | Stage to Sell
Owner & Principal Designer
310-384-1084
www.stagetosell.biz

"We get you to SOLD so you can get on with your life!"

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Stage to Sell is the premier West Los Angeles Home Staging Company.

Owner & Principal Designer Annie Pinsker-Brown is an ASP Home Stager, a member of IAHSP (International Association of Home Staging Professionals), an affiliate member of the Beverly Hills/Greater Los Angeles Association of Realtors and a member of the Culver City and West LA Chambers of Commerce.

Annie has Staged LA homes for Bravo's hit show "Million Dollar Listing" and TLC's "Property Ladder." She has also been featured in recent articles on Home Staging in Los Angeles Magazine, The New York Times, Costco Connection and Frontiers Magazine.

If you would like to see more of our Home Staging work, visit our website. There is an extensive gallery of before & after photos, as well as a list of our Staged properties currently on the market.