Tracking Online Success of Web Pages
by Steve Demarest 360 378 5848
exclusively for B&B Magazine July 1998
Measuring marketing success has always been based on some formula mixing known facts with suppositions, predispositions and just a little whole cloth. More than one innkeeper has invested in a marketing campaign upon seeing a competitor already there - only to later learn that the competitor gets the ad free as a trade out for lodging with the ad salesman!
Innkeepers have similarly been following the perceived industry leaders and getting home pages online. But in this medium, there is a more scientific way of measuring success. And, somewhat surprisingly, innkeepers are proudly showing their numbers. Almost every web site for a bed and breakfast can be found to have a web counter on it.
A web counter counts the number of visitors to the page and registers the total 'hit count' in a visible display typically found on the bottom of a web page. One B&B might have 667 visitors while another might show 5,000 visits. This information, however, is only marginally useful to another innkeeper looking to emulate success. Web counters can be preset to start at a high number. As such, they are as reliable as using a guests check number to determine credit worthiness (presumably check number 5021 is more reliable than check number 004). Web counters are also dependent on how long they have been counting, a fact not often noted on the web site. So a count of 400 may actually reflect a higher traffic level than a count of 1,200 if the former was active for 2 weeks while the later was a cumulative total for two years. Web counters do have value, but it is mostly to the owner of the page.
The next level of sophistication in measuring online success for a web
site is the server logs. In general, server logs are password protected
and need to be interpreted by a software program. One innkeeper can not
access another's server logs without a password. Even the host innkeeper
might find interpretation of the server logs more hassle then value. 
There are a number of software programs available for
purchase to better track the success of a web page. But why pay for the
information when is it available for free? There is a company in the Netherlands
with a product called the Extreme Tracker that offers, by far, the best
analysis of site traffic at an unbeatable price - free. And, it opens the
door wide for one innkeeper to see darn near exactly how another innkeeper's
home page is doing.
Trent Blizzard of Blizzard B&B Internet Marketing, with several dozen B&B clients is a huge fan of the Extreme Tracker and puts it onto all the sites he manages: "We rely on the Extreme Tracker to tell how traffic is coming to our customer's websites. Just as importantly, we determine where the traffic is not coming from. For example, we regularly check all our websites to see if Yahoo is sending any traffic to them. (If it is I celebrate with a yahoo of my own) If Yahoo isn't sending any traffic, we know that we have to re-submit that website to Yahoo again. We also use Extreme Tracker to determine which online B&B directories are the greatest values--I have found bbonline, triple1, and dallasadmall to be the most reliable sources of traffic to my customer's websites."
A summary page lists the cumulative
visits much like a web counter. But, it levels the playing field by showing
daily, weekly and monthly averages. It also reports on the busiest day of
the week - probably a good indicator of when not to take a day off.
The Extreme Tracker notes your time zone and will report on which time periods are the most active. If your web site promotes online visitors to telephone for reservations, this tool will help you plan your day. At Friday's Historical Inn, the busiest time of day is the lunch hour, suggesting people are using their office computers.
The Extreme Tracker takes the guesswork out of knowing which computer
the prospective guest is using. Now you know what operating system, which
browser and how large a screen the users have. Knowledge of the operating
system (Mac vs PC) may not be as important to innkeepers as to someone offering
a Windows only version of a reservation software program. But knowledge
of screen resolution is critical in determining how to design a page layout.
For the Hummingbird Inn in Goshen Virginia, 23% of the visitors are using
the relatively small 640 x 800 screen resolutions.
A web site that looks great on a 1024 x 1280 screen
might overwhelm the smaller screen. Knowledge of who is winning the browser
war between Netscape and Microsoft is more then trivia - it signals which
cutting edge design techniques to avoid if not compatible with the browser
used by a majority of your visitors. It would be a poor business decision
to open a corner service station offering only diesel fuel if all the cars
driving by used unleaded gasoline.
In plain english, the Extreme Tracker registers the source for each visitor. Innkeepers are hearing all the time from callers who say they found it "on the web." That is like saying they found it in a guide book. Yes, but which guide book? The Extreme Tracker reports where the visitor was immediately before coming to the home page. Initially, this is broken down between other web sites and search engines. 91% of the visitors to Annie's B&B in Madison Wisconsin come from a web site referral. Unless Annie's is paying for a banner ad on some web site, this statistic suggests a need to focus on search engine submissions. At the other extreme, 93% of the visitors to the Edgewater B&B in Poulsbo, Washington come via search engines. Hopefully, the Edgewater is not paying for many web site links.
The resource analysis goes deeper. On the web site site of the equation, the Extreme Tracker reveals each web site that was linked from. A paid listing with First Travelers Choice would not show up because that guide does not offer links to home pages. But a listing with BB Online would show up due to the inclusion of links to innkeeper web sites. For the Burgundy House Country Inn in Calistoga, California one can see 70% of the web site referrals come directly from BB Online. Numbers like that speak for themselves.
On the search engine side, the numbers
are broken down to show the relative percentages of each search engine used
to find the B&B. For the Edgewater, 80% of the search engine success
is direct from Yahoo! The number one search site on the web. Yahoo! Is notoriously
difficult to get listed with, but the results are worth it. Friday's Historical
Inn in Friday Harbor, Washington shows traffic from a dozen search engines
and Yahoo! Accounts for more then twice the next best search engine.
Probably the coolest, and most useful, feature of the Extreme Tracker is the reporting of key words and key phrases used by the visitor arriving via search engine. The most frequent key words for Friday's Historical Inn is "Friday Harbor." The most frequent key words for the San Juan Island Bed & Breakfast Association is "San Juan Island." The domain names for those two sites are www.friday-harbor.com and www.san-juan island.net respectively. Proof enough that natural words inside a domain name are considered super key words by search engines. A popular key word in searches leading to the Hummingbird Inn is 'hummingbirds." Whether people searching for information about hummingbirds are good candidates to become guests of the Hummingbird Inn is a fair question. The Tower House in Friday Harbor, Washington is a 'Queen Anne style adult oriented" B&B. It may surprise you how many people search for 'adult oriented' web sites. Then again, it might not. Owners, Chris and Joe Luma, might consider rephrasing their policy to say 'children excluded.'
At least one of the online guides is using the Extreme Tracker. Triple 1 has the tracker on its entry page and offers it to all the inns who pay for a listing.
The Extreme Tracker is well worth recommending to the complimentary businesses in your community. If the local tour operator has a web site, you can link to one another and then accurately track the passing of customers. This would be especially valuable if the links come at a cost.
Why is this tool free? When first launched, the Extreme tracker was supported by banner ads that appear above and below the results tables. Several months ago, a private version of the tracker was offered at a monthly cost of $5. Hopefully, the revenue stream from banner ads and private trackers will support this tool for the freeloaders among us. If not, the day will come when continued use will cost money. At least by then we will clearly know whether the money would be well spent.
In sum, this tool is a huge value to each innkeeper with an aggressive
online marketing strategy. You can very accurately measure your own performance,
and you can compare it with others across the street and across the country.
To see the tracker in use go to http://www.friday-harbor.com
and click onto the globe at the bottom of the page. You will be amazed.