Why numbers still mater in Thanet
Written by Matt B · first published 09/04/2010
In this article I want to revisit a topic that I last touched on in 2008. Why numbers matter in business online.
Numbers mater. If you want to know what the score is in a game of football you look at the scoreboard. If you want to know if you are winning or loosing at blogging you look at the numbers too.
Take things back further to the 3rd of April 2008 and you could read To get ahead in business - ask a blogger! and in that I showed how the leading sites of Thanet stack up in terms of valid visitors, quality of traffic and likely traction in the market place.
Part of that is down to SEO. I am strongly for quality SEO rather than snake oil, I'm all for taking Thanet beyond web design and that's all good but the one thing I want you to take away from this is that the numbers do not lie - you can tell who has understood and who has failed to understand from the numbers.
The 2008 article "Why numbers matter in business online" was basically a follow up to what might have been some surprise results from "To get ahead in business - ask a blogger". In that article I demonstrated that the blogging community was well ahead of the game and that the numbers showed this clearly.
In every case the same few sites came out best on each metric. Thanet Star led the way by a mile (and still does) while the only non blogging related site to do well was the council's own website. Aside from Page Rank (a measure used by Google) it was the blogs that dominated on reactions and human traffic.
Why was this?
In part I think this is because blogs are written for human beings. But more than that many web designers, SEOs and other "web site" creators have a weak grasp of the purpose of SEO and 5 Goals of a Business Website.
This numbers do not give you the whole picture, and it would sure be foolish to try and live your life by things that are crude measures. However when the numbers significantly indicate the success of one thing over another then your be foolish to ignore what the numbers are saying.
When you goal is only money then biggest indicator is how much you get. However you will still need to be looking at the number to ask how efficient and how much more you could be getting. When your goal is attention (say for a political party, blogger or PR) then rarely is money as a decent measure. So these other numbers start to mater even more than before.
In 2009 I showed you how the amount of traffic for key search terms relating to Thanet has not changed significantly in recent years. Anyone who is likely to look for things is already looking. However as "Local Search: More sites but the same traffic" says so clearly - there are a lot more sites around than there were a few years ago.
That's why the numbers matter. You can no longer afford to just put out a website and hope you get traffic. Hope that traffic becomes paying visitors and hope you make enough to cover hosting.
As far as I am aware I am the only one in Thanet qualified by demonstration to help you draw traffic, visitors and profit from a website in Thanet. It can be done and it can be done well. A business, charity, event or political party could easily increase their reach in Thanet with a well made and targeted website. If you want to reach Thanet online then talk to me before your competitors do.
If you want to go it alone then remember the numbers matter more than ever before.
Matt Bacak (another Matt B) explained more to end the post back in 2008, his words are still as relevant two years later.
Numbers mater. If you want to know what the score is in a game of football you look at the scoreboard. If you want to know if you are winning or loosing at blogging you look at the numbers too.
Take things back further to the 3rd of April 2008 and you could read To get ahead in business - ask a blogger! and in that I showed how the leading sites of Thanet stack up in terms of valid visitors, quality of traffic and likely traction in the market place.
Part of that is down to SEO. I am strongly for quality SEO rather than snake oil, I'm all for taking Thanet beyond web design and that's all good but the one thing I want you to take away from this is that the numbers do not lie - you can tell who has understood and who has failed to understand from the numbers.
The 2008 article "Why numbers matter in business online" was basically a follow up to what might have been some surprise results from "To get ahead in business - ask a blogger". In that article I demonstrated that the blogging community was well ahead of the game and that the numbers showed this clearly.
In every case the same few sites came out best on each metric. Thanet Star led the way by a mile (and still does) while the only non blogging related site to do well was the council's own website. Aside from Page Rank (a measure used by Google) it was the blogs that dominated on reactions and human traffic.
Why was this?
In part I think this is because blogs are written for human beings. But more than that many web designers, SEOs and other "web site" creators have a weak grasp of the purpose of SEO and 5 Goals of a Business Website.
This numbers do not give you the whole picture, and it would sure be foolish to try and live your life by things that are crude measures. However when the numbers significantly indicate the success of one thing over another then your be foolish to ignore what the numbers are saying.
When you goal is only money then biggest indicator is how much you get. However you will still need to be looking at the number to ask how efficient and how much more you could be getting. When your goal is attention (say for a political party, blogger or PR) then rarely is money as a decent measure. So these other numbers start to mater even more than before.
In 2009 I showed you how the amount of traffic for key search terms relating to Thanet has not changed significantly in recent years. Anyone who is likely to look for things is already looking. However as "Local Search: More sites but the same traffic" says so clearly - there are a lot more sites around than there were a few years ago.
That's why the numbers matter. You can no longer afford to just put out a website and hope you get traffic. Hope that traffic becomes paying visitors and hope you make enough to cover hosting.
As far as I am aware I am the only one in Thanet qualified by demonstration to help you draw traffic, visitors and profit from a website in Thanet. It can be done and it can be done well. A business, charity, event or political party could easily increase their reach in Thanet with a well made and targeted website. If you want to reach Thanet online then talk to me before your competitors do.
If you want to go it alone then remember the numbers matter more than ever before.
Matt Bacak (another Matt B) explained more to end the post back in 2008, his words are still as relevant two years later.
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