Site Visitor Quality - Marketing & SEO Discussion List

Written by Shaun Johnston
June 12, 2007

How Qualified are Your Site's Visitors?

> I'm not sure I understand why you claim traffic
> references from your site are worth less than
> directory traffic, but I would bet that bots aren't
> the cause.
- Mike Podanoffsky, LED Digest 2427

Mike, thank you for feedback. Here are issues involved in the quality ("how qualified") of Web site visitors.

HOW QUALIFIED ARE VISITORS FROM DIRECTORIES

Issue -- visitors from my travel directories show a page-view pattern on lodgings' web sites that indicates they are less qualified than visitors from other directories. Page-view pattern -- I select a "room-booking surrogate" page, such as room availability, or even "Contact us", a page that visitors only look at as they become more interested. When I compare the rate my visitors visit those pages with those from other directories, from analysis of logs of sites for lodgings I host, I find my visitors visit those pages less frequently.

In my directory log files I find very long visits of hundreds of page views, generating up to 60 visits to lodgings' sites. These skew my data, for example average visits-to-lodgings-sites per visitor to my site, and hence what I can afford to pay for sponsored search in search engines. Also, I charge lodgings PPC for visits I send them, and these visits are obviously not driven by interest in room bookings -- they are very poorly qualified. I assumed these must be due to bots researching pricing, data that is highly valued on the Internet. If I could identify them, and stop them visiting lodgings' sites, I could increase how qualified my other visitors were, on average. I asked for help here in identifying these "bots."

Will Bontrager very generously shared his expertise in identifying bots, and the conclusion was -- no bots! These are real people. To discourage them, weaken their interest in seeing more sites, and at the same get some visitor data (though they aren't typical of desired visitors, I understand), I plan to interrupt them every 12 visits to lodgings' sites with survey questions.

ABANDONING WEB METRICS

Because web metrics are so easily available I tend to use them and refer my clients to them. But researching afresh I find web metrics data hugely at variance with log data. Part of the reason for a difference, I had concluded, is that web metrics register many more duplicate calls. In my log analysis I eliminate adjacent duplicate calls. But my new research says, web metrics and log analysis cannot be reconciled. So I am abandoning web metrics. When I do, my directories come out as better qualified, ie more towards the average.

HOW QUALIFIED ARE VISITORS FROM SEARCH ENGINES

In an analysis of 5 months' log files for one of my directory customers I analyzed Google visits, dividing them between those that had the lodging's name in the search term, and the others. Those that have the search term in the lodging name are presumably from people using Google as a quick way of finding the lodgings' site. They already know about the lodging and qualify as "repeat visits." I found those visitors were three times as qualified as the others. When I eliminated those visitors, analyzing only those where Google is being used like a directory to research lodgings, Google become just another directory, third in terms of visits (below me) and below average qualified (below me). The other search engines show a similar pattern, and turn up way down among the minor directories.

In terms of paying for extra visits to lodgings' web sites, directories may be a better use of time and money than search engines. Also, if I consider only visits from Google without the lodging name in the search term, the return from SEO is only one-third as much, ie three times as costly in time and money per visit delivered.

JOINT ANALYSIS OF DIRECTORY AND CLIENT LOG FILES

PPC encourages visit analysis. To improve how qualified my visitors are I have combined one month's log entries for all my directories and four lodgings whose sites I host, nine sites altogether. Now I can track visitors from their entry into my family of guides, through those guides, into my lodging clients' sites, to visits to booking-surrogate pages, all as sessions. I can then divide those sessions into those that are well qualified, and those who aren't. Obviously I can use that to evaluate sources of visits to my guides. But I can also use that info to see how the paths the two groups take through my guides are different, and restructure my site to favor the more qualified visitors.

IS REFERER DATA BEING LOST

When I pay to sponsor terms in the search engines I tag the destination URL. If I select just those visits, with tags, from Google 20% of the visits have referrer of " - ". From Yahoo and MSN, 10%. If this is true for Web traffic general, then probably between 10-20% of my visits get recorded in my clients' log files as " - ". Since I charge PPC, this is an issue. Also, since Google and Yahoo differ in how many of their visitors appear as from " - ", is that true of other directories, that the rate they appear as referer will also vary? Is there a way I can make sure my visits always show up as from me?

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

I operate in a very narrow niche, as you can see, a tight community of non-chain getaway lodgings in a very small geographic area. I pay very little attention to SEO. I believe that the search engines have reproduced the web as communities of sites, and within each community they "know" us as individual members, in a cloudy multi-factorial way, almost as we know the personalities of people in our own real-world communities. I believe I will do better in the search engines as I become a better member of my "community" of directories and lodgings offline, as I sponsor group efforts, take on volunteer work with organizations, just be friendly and responsible, offline. I think Google can read that. I must stress this is just a personal, almost mystical, belief. To me, black hat / white hat works on the web as it does in real life. Eventually you get known for who you are -- by the search engines -- and succeed to the extent people respect you.

Cheers,
Shaun Johnston