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It's all about the CLICK.

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with R & D Art

When I started in blogging a year ago, I was happy just to be networking. The more that I do this, the more I realize that it is an applied science. There is so much that goes into a post that one has to think about what they are saying, how they say it, who it will appeal to, and why. Then they have to wonder if the search engines will like it.

Well, I wanted to add another piece to the puzzle. Over the last few months, I have been studing the value of "page impressions" versus "clicks". The reason that I want to give you this tip is so that it can help you grow as I do. When you look at your stat page, it will help you gauge what works and what does not work. So, let me break the two down for a minute.

Page Impressions: Google list it as "A page impression is generated every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will count one page impression regardless of the number of ads displayed on that page. For example, if you have a page displaying three ad units and it is viewed twice, you will generate two page impressions and six ad unit impressions." Webopida list it as: The exact number of times a specific Web site has been accessed or viewed by a user. A page impression acts as a counter for Web pages, informing site owners how many times their sites were visited. Page impressions are also referred to as hits.

Clicks: When someone actually clicks through to the actual story.

OK, so now that you know the difference, why are they so important. Well, it is quite simple really. I will give you something to reference it by. When you go shopping, it is the difference in "Window" shopping and actually entereing the store. Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Alexa all look at these in the same thought pattern. The more people that actually come to visit a site, the better the site. The more people that come to visit an article, the better the article. 

 

About the Author

If you are in the market to purchase a home or even refinance an existing loan and you want a loan officer that will walk with you every step of the way, then contact Danny or Rich of the Thornton Team at Home America Mortgage today. We can have you pre-approval in as little as 4 hours. You can visit our website or send an email to or call us @ 865-951-0522.

Comments (15)

Randall Schrader
Competitive Insurance of Dundee - Dundee, FL

Why don't they time how long a person stays at the given site?   

Sep 18, 2008 02:36 AM
Danny Thornton
R & D Art - Knoxville, TN
WordPress Guru

Randall, there are a lot of stat counters that do just that. Google Analytics does it as well.

Sep 18, 2008 02:38 AM
Thomas Tolbert
Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate Legacy - Savannah, GA

Thanks for the info.

Sep 18, 2008 02:47 AM
Christine Donovan
Donovan Blatt Realty - Costa Mesa, CA
Broker/Attorney 714-319-9751 DRE01267479 - Costa M

The more I read this type of information, the more I realize how important Google Analytics is.

Sep 18, 2008 02:54 AM
Danny Thornton
R & D Art - Knoxville, TN
WordPress Guru

Thomas, you bet.

Christinie, when you get into Analytics, it opens and entirely new world for you.

Sep 18, 2008 03:03 AM
Rich Dansereau
Positive Real Estate Professionals - Knoxville, TN

While I think the page impressions are great, I really want surfers to get the full experience. By providing quality content with interesting and/or catchy titles I hopefully get them to click on an article. Once they do click, I love that Google Analytics can tell me how they got there and how long they stayed. Question, if you don't have Google AdSense but do have Google Analytics do you still get impressions or are impressions only tied to AdSense? This is a great post!

Sep 18, 2008 05:15 AM
Bo Hussung
Bell Title /Triserv LLC - Nashvle, TN

Danny, you have been very helpful and this makes sense of the Google analytics that I would not have know. So thanks

Bo

Sep 18, 2008 05:23 AM
Danny Thornton
R & D Art - Knoxville, TN
WordPress Guru

Rich, Analytics and Adsense or two seperate programs. If you install Analytics to track your blog, it will not be tracking the information of AdSense.

Bo, it is a great tool to use.

Sep 18, 2008 05:29 AM
Carol Smith
Casmi Photography - Mebane, NC

Great info, Danny!  Thanks!

I am just beginning to get a grasp on all this SEO stuff and what all the lingo actually means.  Hopefully it won't be long before I am part of the "cutting edge" that I so adore!

Sep 18, 2008 12:07 PM
Danny Thornton
R & D Art - Knoxville, TN
WordPress Guru

Carol, I am sure that there are things that you could teach me. I am still grasping ahold of knowledge daily.

Sep 19, 2008 12:59 AM
Scott Mazza
Stewart Title of California - Ventura, CA

Good info Danny. That would be great if it would time how long someone was looking at my site.

Sep 19, 2008 01:08 AM
Cindy Marchant
Keller Williams Indy NE 317-290-7775 www.marchantteam.com - Carmel, IN
"Cindy in Indy" , Realtor, Fishers Real Estate

I have looked at my statistics fairly frequently and what is amazing to me is that my local posts about a house or the market report get three times as many "Views" as my real estate posts.  I get more clicks on my real estate though...tells me that the general public is looking at these posts more than we probably think.

Sep 19, 2008 01:17 AM
Danny Thornton
R & D Art - Knoxville, TN
WordPress Guru

Scott, once Anayltics is installed, you can get that information. A lot of the "site meter" programs also have that available.

Cindy, it is amazing on what you can learn from the numbers.

Sep 19, 2008 02:01 AM
Benjamin Clark
Homebuyer Representation, Inc. - Salt Lake City, UT
Buyer's Agent - Certified Negotiation Expert

Analytics has already helped me even though I only have it installed on about 10% of my active pages... Working on getting it onto all my pages... Do you know of a batch installer? If I had only used CSS the first time!!! Now implementing it so I can make changes like this sitewide in small text documents!

Sep 19, 2008 09:54 AM
Danny Thornton
R & D Art - Knoxville, TN
WordPress Guru

Benjamin, I have installed it where it runs on all my pages, but it is typically input per page. I have not yet encountered a batch installer.

Sep 19, 2008 12:13 PM