We all need traffic, that goes without saying, but are your hard earned marketing dollars doing any good?
We know we should test our campaigns. You’ve read that statement about a hundred times or so, but has anyone told you how to tell if the traffic is real people or ‘Ghost’ traffic that just makes your counter spin and generates no results?
Here’s a very simple ‘Non-Existent Traffic Test’ to see if the program you are using is worth anything before spending a lot of money. Easy to do and all you need to create is 3 pages.
NOTE: Make sure you have a counter on EACH of these 3 pages.
For this example we are going to use: PetFood.htm, DogFood.htm and CatFood.htm
Let’s say you are using the keyword/phrase: “Pet Food”
And your description was: “A great place to buy discounted dog and cat food”
On your landing page (the page people are directed to (PetFood.htm in this example)) put a short statement about “Dog Food” and “Cat Food” with links to DogFood.htm and CatFood.htm.
If the counter on your landing page is climbing BUT you are not getting any hits on your “second” pages (DogFood.htm and CatFood.htm), rest assured these hits are NOT coming from people. They are coming from auto load programs/scripts.
After all, if a “PERSON” searched for ‘Pet Food’, saw your ad and read your description, they are at your site for a reason and would click to one of the ’second’ pages. (Not 100% of the time, but you get the drift.)
See the results I have (or have not) gotten since I started testing.
http://yorkinternetmarketing.com/TrafficReport.htm
About the author:
Michael York
Owner: York Instructional Services
http://YorkInstructionalServices.com
Has been developing and managing websites since early 1997
