Website Traffic... How much?

dawssvt · January 27, 2011

I just set up a Google Analytics account, so I am finally tracking how many hits my site gets per day. So...

How many hits does your website get per day?

My average is 53.4 over the past 5 days. The high is 77 and the low is 20 for my website.

My blog has gotten much more traffic. The average is 102.75 per day for the last 8 days. The high is 188 and the low is 29.

Tell me about your traffic!

Fishead · January 27, 2011

A normal day for my "not for sale" galleries is about three hundred views. This month due to an unusual weather event (snow) in my resort town my snow gallery went nuts with 2,614,100 views. Same thing happened last year when we had snow in January but to a lesser degree. Never hit the "buy" button last year till the views were on the decline, this year had it on. Sold a few hundred prints........visits to my other galleries increased also but the next busiest gallery had only 12,250 views. I really enjoyed all the comments and e mails from all over the world from visitors who enjoyed seeing the Ocean City Boardwalk covered in drifts. It has been suggested from nice folks here that failure to limit viewing size, no watermark, and low prices probably kept me from realizing the full potential of this market. Next snowstorm I will try things differently.

*AJ* · January 27, 2011

I'm curious what steps you are taking to drive people to your site?

I have key worded my galleries, filled in homepage meta description and the homepage meta keywords along with checking "yes" for Hello World and Hello Smuggers and and still only get about 15 hits a day.

Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

AJ Witt
www.AJWittPhotography.com
www.Facebook.com/AJWittPhotography

philsphotography · January 28, 2011

I have just gotten started. My website does not show up on Google searches yet, unless you search the domain name. Google Analytics has me at 60 most from Facebook. I can't wait until those bots hit my site!

www.philsphoto.com

philsphotography · January 28, 2011

AJ I am in the same boat as you are. I've been working to be found in Google for 2 weeks now. Did you get logged into Google webmaster tools, did you submit your domain?

www.philsphoto.com

Hikin' Mike · January 28, 2011

philsphotography wrote: »

AJ I am in the same boat as you are. I've been working to be found in Google for 2 weeks now. Did you get logged into Google webmaster tools, did you submit your domain?

www.philsphoto.com

Your website is listed in both Google and Yahoo/Bing.

Hikin' Mike · January 28, 2011

*AJ* wrote: »

I'm curious what steps you are taking to drive people to your site?

I have key worded my galleries, filled in homepage meta description and the homepage meta keywords along with checking "yes" for Hello World and Hello Smuggers and and still only get about 15 hits a day.

Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

AJ Witt
www.AJWittPhotography.com
www.Facebook.com/AJWittPhotography

You need a better <title> tag then 'AJ Witt Photography'. Who is going to search for YOUR website to find what you do and your location, by the way....I can't find your location (hint, hint).

Read my SEO for the Photographer link in my sig. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/thumb.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Hikin' Mike · January 28, 2011

My Smugmug site has only been tracking for about a month. I got 270 unique visitors this first month.

My regular website has been tracking for a few years. I got 3500 unique visitors this month.

philsphotography · February 12, 2011

Being listed vs being crawled

Hikin' Mike wrote: »

Your website is listed in both Google and Yahoo/Bing.

Thanks Mike, is being listed the same as being crawled? I have had the same trouble others are posting about. For a month now, I have been workig on content, key words, back links, analytics, webmaster tools. You still can't find me in the top 20 pages unless you enter my name.

philsphotography · February 12, 2011

By the way.....

FANTASTIC Website and galleries Mike! I am very impressed!

Hikin' Mike · February 12, 2011

philsphotography wrote: »

Thanks Mike, is being listed the same as being crawled? I have had the same trouble others are posting about. For a month now, I have been workig on content, key words, back links, analytics, webmaster tools. You still can't find me in the top 20 pages unless you enter my name.

Not really. Your already listed in Google. Crawled is an on going process. The spiders are always crawling for new content.

What are you typing, besides your name, to see if you're found in Google?

Thanks for the compliment, BTW.

philsphotography · February 13, 2011

I think my problem is that I am typing very common keywords. So I'll search for; San Antonio, Wedding, Photographer, Professional, Christian...

And I'll get pages of links. Links that are more relevant or links that are longer established?

http: //www.philsphoto.com

Hikin' Mike · February 13, 2011

philsphotography wrote: »

I think my problem is that I am typing very common keywords. So I'll search for; San Antonio, Wedding, Photographer, Professional, Christian...

And I'll get pages of links. Links that are more relevant or links that are longer established?

http: //www.philsphoto.com

One of the most important things to have is a good <title> tag. Right now you have a very poor title tag: <title>San Antonio, Texas Photographer - Beautiful pictures at very affordable prices!</title> I would remove 'Beautiful pictures at very affordable prices!'. They may be, but nobody is going to Google that. If I were looking for a wedding photographer in your area, I would type 'San Antonio Wedding Photographer'...or something like that.

You REALLY need to read my SEO for the Photographer link in my sig. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/thumb.gif" border="0" alt="" >

CWSkopec · February 13, 2011

philsphotography wrote: »

By the way.....

FANTASTIC Website and galleries Mike! I am very impressed!

Absolutely agree! I'm not sure when you made the change, Mike, but I know I clicked through a little while ago and was amazed. Great work!

And thank you for the link to your SEO article, it's something I really need to work on for my own site!

Tas67 · February 14, 2011

I'm in the same boat as Phil. I have Webmaster tools, Google Analytics, reworked my site. I did move up from page 11 to page 7 in Google when searching "Cleveland Wedding Photographer."

Hikin' Mike...can you check out my site real quick? I *think* I'm doing everything right but any info would be great.

Thanks!

zoomer · February 14, 2011

I have two websites, one for boudoir and one for weddings and portraits, and a blog.
I average 10,000 visitors a month and 150,000 views/hits, depending on how many new galleries I post those numbers will go up.

I get a lot of traffic from websites and from organic internet searches.
Locally any searches to do with photography my site is in the mix usually in the first couple pages, so that drives a lot of traffic.

I don't know much about SEO. I will say that it is important to get the key search terms you want your site to show up for, up into the titles of your photos and gallerys, use your keywords whenever and whereever you can.

Make sure your site is registered with all the search engines.

It sounds like you are getting decent traffic for a new site. It takes a while to get your name out there and develop a fan base.

Hikin' I am going to go read your SEO page and see if I can pick up any tidbits, thanks for putting that link on there.
Just Read it: Really important info on the title page you provided. Changing my title and putting in more info into the title really helped me to show up better on searches.
I don't know if you mentioned it but also put that info in your Bio page here on Smugmug.
Also helped putting my websites into my signature when I post on internet forums. If you are active in a lot of internet forums that can drive a lot of people to your site.

Hikin' Mike · February 14, 2011

Thanks Chris!

Tanya - Looks like you're on the right track. Like a newspaper headline, adding a

tag can help in readability and search engines use that tag for "ranking". Adding more content on your home page can also help, because search engines like text, or at least listing your (or some) of your Galleries.

Zoomer - I originally wrote it because I got tired of typing the same suggestions on the photography forums I frequent, so I can just say, "Read my SEO for the Photography link"...

! Having listing your Galleries is probably helping you a lot too.

philsphotography · February 14, 2011

Thank you, will be reading it tonight

http: //www.philsphoto.com

philsphotography · February 14, 2011

Thanks Mike, I made the change and see what happens in a week or two.

http: //www.philsphoto.com

Cygnus Studios · February 14, 2011

dawssvt wrote: »

so I am finally tracking how many hits my site gets per day. So...

Do you simply want people viewing the website or people buying from the website? Because they are really two different things.

I realize that a whole ton of people are worried about getting the best google ranking or tons of random visitors but to what end?

If you are focusing on getting your site visited by people local to you the approach is different than simply getting a ton of people looking through your site.

I get quite a few people everyday from this forum visiting the site simply by clicking the gear link in my signature. Yet, that traffic is irrelevant to our needs. Get involved in the more "heated" topics on this forum and you can get hundreds of people clicking on your site. Again, this does nothing for our needs.

Same goes for making comments on popular blogs like the Strobist or some others. If your comments go against the trend, it will drive traffic in droves to your site.

If you want to really rock your site, get a story about you in the news. Be it newspaper or tv, an article will send so many people to your site that you will begin wondering why you don't do that everyday.

Times change. The same people who were preaching SEO a couple of years ago are now on the social networking bandwagon. The right kind of post on facebook can send stupid amounts of people to your site.

The right image posted on flickr might end up on Yahoo which ends up being picked up by the Associated Press which again sends stupid amounts of people to your site.

If you want people booking your services through your site, concentrate on them and don't spend so much time worrying about the numbers.

philsphotography · February 14, 2011

Thank you for your comment Steve. What I am looking for is to be found by a targeted customer base. Brides for Weddings, Mom's for portraits.

I've done quite a bit of work, and have some jobs on the books. They are all word of mouth, which is fantastic. But according to Google Analytics; not a sole has visited my site through search results. They have all been direct links (social networks, or business cards).

It is the searching customer that I cannot reach yet. I'm going to read Mike's SEO stuff again - and get this right!

You guys are a Blessing and a valuable resource for the new guy, thanks!

philsphotography · February 15, 2011

Mike,

Thank you for taking so much time helping myself and others with our websites. I have redone much of my title, descriptions, keywording, headlining and comments. I'll wait a few weeks for the crawl, and see if I move from page 192 to at least page 6! Hahaha. Really, thanks!

Hikin' Mike · February 15, 2011

Looks good Phil! Glad to help.

FedererPhoto · February 15, 2011

Cygnus Studios wrote: »

Do you simply want people viewing the website or people buying from the website? Because they are really two different things.
.... snip ....
If you want people booking your services through your site, concentrate on them and don't spend so much time worrying about the numbers.

Agreed, very much. Unless you are selling online ads, you shouldn't really concern yourself with raw numbers. What matters is how many 'convert' (a good barometer being inquiries). (I learned this at another forum (link in sig) )

For personal examples - I use to blog much more often (I do about once every 2 weeks now) ... I had 2000 unique visitors (40,000 hits) per month roughly 2 years ago. I now very consistently average around 1000 unique visitors (half what I did 2 years ago) a month yet the number of inquiries is hirer (as is the rate I command). I tweaked my keywords and focus such that rather than getting lots of hits for "Inside the D3 Box" (which drove traffic, but not sales) ... I now get all of my search engine traffic from words that someone looking to BUY my services would use.

Sometimes it's so easy for us photographers to forget the point of business -- some people 'shoot for the portfolio' way too long, others focus on number of bookings rather than profits, yet others focus on secondary indicators (web hits) -- all those things are great to have good 'stats' in, but those stats don't pay the bills.

Tas67 · February 15, 2011

Thanks Hikin' Mike! I'll look into adding the h1 and h2 tags. Thanks again

Kevin Daly · February 15, 2011

Thanks - Very good points
These are great points that you all bring up. I'm hoping this will help generate more interest in my site and eventually more employment.

Kevin Daly
www.kevindalyphotography.ca

Cygnus Studios · February 15, 2011

philsphotography wrote: »

But according to Google Analytics; not a sole has visited my site through search results. They have all been direct links (social networks, or business cards).

How many people do you honestly believe are using a basic google search to find a wedding photographer?

How many random services have you searched for on google?

If you were going to spend $5000 on a new deck for your house, would you use google or begin looking through the people you know?

There is a huge difference between customers and website visitors. If you want wedding clients, focus on them. Make contact with every florist, limousine company, caterer, videographer, wedding dress, tuxedo rental, and anyone else in your area who are regularly dealing with weddings.

philsphotography · February 16, 2011

Very good point Cygnus. I rarely, if ever, do a Google search to find a service. I think working the hair salons, nail shops, flower shops, and cake shops would be well with my time and effort.

http: //www.philsphoto.com

JBHotShots · February 22, 2011

I guess this fits in this thread:

So this past weekend I took a little 3hr trip to take some racing pictures. 2 of the 3 nights were fogged out. I posted the pictures from the one race yesterday and had 4,005 visits with 4,001 unique visitors. Honestly it's nice to know that people are looking at my pictures but looking isn't paying for future trips.

I used several racing boards to post links but most of my traffic was direct and not referals. So with that said, how do I close the deal or are people really just interested in looking and not buying?

FWIW, I really catch flack for my pricing, which is comparable to my area, but had I sold $1 worth of pictures to 1/2 of those visitors, well you get the picture.

Cygnus Studios · February 22, 2011

LouDoggsRuca wrote: »

So with that said, how do I close the deal or are people really just interested in looking and not buying?

The biggest issue that I noticed was that your standard sizes have to be cropped too tightly on many of the images. If I wanted an 8x10 it would cut off the nose of the car or the rear of the car, and both on some.

Most people think in standard sizes. You can't pick up an 8x12 frame everywhere like you can an 8x10.

When we moved to 4 standard sizes, our print sales tripled. Nothing gets cropped by the client, so there is nothing to mess up what we intend to be printed.

Other than that, it is simply getting the right image in front of the right buyer.

JBHotShots · February 22, 2011

First, thank you for your reply and input, for that I am very appreciative.

Cygnus Studios wrote: »

The biggest issue that I noticed was that your standard sizes have to be cropped too tightly on many of the images. If I wanted an 8x10 it would cut off the nose of the car or the rear of the car, and both on some.

Most people think in standard sizes. You can't pick up an 8x12 frame everywhere like you can an 8x10.

It's funny you should bring that up. I am very particular about trying not to crop too close nor leave too much space around the car. It's been since November since I took competitive racing pictures so I went and checked several of the action shots. I picked 5 or 6 images that looked close and all would fit by adjusting the crop box.

When we moved to 4 standard sizes, our print sales tripled. Nothing gets cropped by the client, so there is nothing to mess up what we intend to be printed.

So did you make available severable copies of each print for those sizes in each gallery?

Other than that, it is simply getting the right image in front of the right buyer.

By picking particular boards, and appropriate secions, I thought I was very specific about my "target group". What I mean is I didn't go to a landscape board or some other artsy forum to try to get views.

I know confidence is the first thing you need in order to be successful but I'm really questioning my ability now.

Website Traffic... How much?

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