What is the difference between hits and visitors?
 
It is a common mistake and in some cases, one which is used to misguide you into thinking that a website has more actual people looking on the website than there actually is.
 
There is a lot of terminologies that are quoted by the SEO Professional and sales people, trying to get you to place a listing on their website, and some unscrupulous people (and goodness knows, there's plenty of those around!) will be quite happy to take advantage of your ignorance of the terms they are using.
 
A clever (and dishonest) sales person or SEO specialist will proudly proclaim, "We will get you a thousand hits per day," trusting that you are unaware of what that actually means. A non-savvy website owner will think to himself, "Wow! A thousand visitors per day! That's a lot!"

But here's the trick. Let's say your home page has a header image, 5 menu images, a couple other pictures somewhere on the page, plus a style sheet that gets called by the page. That works out to a total of 10 hits per page: the page itself, the style sheet, and eight images.

Now let's suppose that your site is interesting and well designed, so every visitor who comes to it sticks around long enough to read five pages. That's a total of 50 hits per visitor.

So when the SEO company brags that they're going to get your 1000 hits per day, they really mean that they're going to give you 20 visitors per day.

All of a sudden their promises don't seem so golden, do they?
 
What is important

Simple... The number of visitors to the site, and to be pedantic, not just the visitor, but the  unique visitor.
 
What is a Hit, Visitor and the Unique Visitor?
 
A "hit" is counted every single time your website sends a page or graphic to a visitor. So, if one visitor looks at your homepage, that counts as one hit. If your homepage links to nine graphics - logos, photographs etc. - that counts as nine more "hits", giving a total of 10 hits overall. If your visitor leaves your site at this point without looking at any more pages, they have still registered 10 "hits" - this means that hits alone don't give you a very clear idea about how popular your website is. 

A visitor is every time a person (computer terminal) visits your website.
 
A unique visitor is how many times that person (computer terminal) visits your website.
 
Counters

The problem with using counters to track visitors is they are set up to measure page views, not unique visitors. Every time someone views your page, whether it's the first time or the twentieth, that visitor is counted. And if the page times out for some reason and they "Reload," it counts them again. And if someone just wants to have fun with your counter, they can exit and enter the site several times and are counted as a visitor each time... even if they never look at product.

So if you cannot count hits and you cannot use a counter, how do you track the traffic on your site?
 
Install visitor tracking code on your website, such as Google Analytics (see link in Resources at the bottom).
 
A web traffic analysis program will give you vital information about the traffic coming to your site, including where visitors are coming from, including which keywords they used, which search engines, what countries they are situated in, what paths your visitors are taking whilst on the website and which pages are the main exit points of your site... In fact it is full of all sorts of information... and for Google Analytics it is free.
 
This information is private and only available to you, the account owner. It is best to install the tracking code as soon as possible to start building history. If you are using Google Adwords (you pay to advertise your website) or Google Adsense (you place advertising on your website for profit) then you may already have access to Google Analytics.
 
How do I find out how many visitors a website gets if I am not the owner?
 
There are many cases where you may not be the website owner, but want to find out how well another website performs. However, since you do not own the site then you will not be able to see the full-blown traffic stats displayed by Google Analytics. Now it is time to do some investigation...
 
You may be curious about how much traffic any website generates, or you want to find out how well your competitor's website is performing. The first place to go is TrafficEstimate which is free (see link in Resources at the bottom). Search for a website address to see the estimated number of visitors to the site in the last 30 days, along with a simple graph. Keep in mind that the estimator tool is just that, an estimate, however at least you can get a ballpark figure. An interesting graph is shown for facebook.com which sees a steady climb in traffic and visitors, however more recently by comparing the two you can see that the visitors are spending a longer amount of time on the website.

SimilarWeb offers a free and easy way to check (not always upto date, however a good guide). See here for THE BIKER GUIDE

Alexa is another (now paid for through Amazon) for website ranks compared to all other websites in the world. 

You can search for any website address that you are interested in finding its traffic rank. Alexa also provides other neat graphs and handy info. Although it does not show you the exact number of visitors, you can get a general idea of the website's performance. By comparing the traffic rank of your website to your competitor's website, you can estimate who gets more traffic. For example, YouTube.com ranks higher than Weather.com. Please note, although this is another great tools to use they are sometimes a bit behind with keywords and the amount of links, linked in.
 
THE BIKER GUIDE summing up...
 
We hope this article will help understand the difference between hits and visitors and hopefully to help you choose wisely where you place any advertising or your business on the World Wide Web!
 
If you would like any further advise of hits, visitors and anything else included in this information, do not hesitate to ask.
 
If you already knew all of the above, please accept our apologies and welcoming you to our world of seo geekness!

• Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics
• Google Adwords www. Google.co.uk/ AdWords
• TrafficEstimate www.trafficestimate.com
• Alexa www.alexa.com
  
  Similar for THE BIKER GUIDE - www.similarweb.com/website/thebikerguide.co.uk#pro   

• 1. A customer said this to us - "After trying a few other websites that 'supposedly' advertise biker friendly places and getting virtually no response, I have recently signed up with THE BIKER GUIDE. I cannot believe it took me so long, as within 3 weeks the 12 months advert I placed has already been paid for (and more) with a booking for next June. I am going to be honest - the other websites I have tried were cheaper, but you know a waste of money, £25 quid here, £35 there - it all adds up!"

We would like to wish all our advertisers, visitors, customers, contributors and supporters a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2017!

During 2016 we attended many shows, events, Biker Friendly cafes and meeting places to promote THE BIKER GUIDE® brand, name and ethos, given away many prizes, cards, stickers and booklets, ran adverts in BMF and Stormin' the Castle magazines, had an on-going marketing campaign on Google, have grown the large facebook page and groups to enforce the brand and community spirit and continue to trademark THE BIKER GUIDE® to secure our brand, name and ethos!

In the year we have spent lots of time promoting THE BIKER GUIDE to gain new visitors and keep the ones we have, so we continue to be 'the' website where so many from the Motorcycle community come to find information.

We value our clients and work hard to maintain and grow the visitors to the website and readers of the printed booklet.

On the website we have popular pages for the ever growing Meeting Places and What's On sections, many articles in the News sections for Ace Café, Ducati, IAM, Safety, Superbikes, TT, Tourism & Travel and of course news from us @ THE BIKER GUIDE®, increased the size and amounts of photographes included in the listings for Biker Friendly Accommodation, Campsites, Pubs and Touring, along with many other new sections and so our daily visitors have now grown to over 3,450 a day...

In a survey we found that 89% of our visitors use only www.thebikerguide.co.uk when looking for anything Motorcycle related, which is mainly due to the large amount of information included, which is regularly updated and relevant.

THE BIKER GUIDE® would especially like to thank our advertisers for trusting us to promote your business to the Motorcycle community, for your many lovely comments on our service and products and for your continued involvement with us @ THE BIKER GUIDE® on the website and within the 6th edition of printed booklet.

A Merry Christmas from the team (Rockin' out for your pleasure) @ THE BIKER GUIDE®

A few of us have seen or know about the hit American TV programme Sons of Anarchy and while they make joining a motorcycle club seem exiting and exhilarating, most of the times its actually just about friends creating a community. So if you feel like changing something in your life, you may feel joining a community which may bring some prosperity into your life. Motorcycle communities can be the best groups to be with.  

There are thousands of different official motorcycle clubs which don’t tag as outlaws or what you see on TV. Joining a Motorcycle community is pretty simple really. You will usually be required to fill out a membership form and pay a small fee in order to join one of these communities. There are most often no other entry requirements, however each club will vary with rules and regulations. Clubs may also have additional benefits to its members; this may include special discounts that have been organised with companies such as insurance providers or motorcycle retailers.

Unofficial Communities

Some unofficial motorcycle communities contain an extremely larger number of motorcycle riders. These communities nowadays are mostly centred on internet groups, message boards and forums. These communities do not have any official legal standing in most situations and are most likely not have any official presidents or secretaries. It’s really simple in regards to joining these communities and may just take a simple message. In the majority of cases there are absolutely no fees associated with these communities. 

There are lots of events and tours, that are really interesting and worthwhile to attend and at THE BIKER GUIDE, there are various Motorcycle Tour companies such as:

-          H-C Travel: The longest established motorcycle touring company operating in the UK, with tours to countries such as Tibet, Australia, and New Zealand, etc...

-          EXtraMILe bike tours: With tours running through Northern Spain, Spain & Portugal and long weekends across various other locations in Europe.

-          Magellan Motorcyle tours: offering accessible and affordable motorcycle tours across Europe and further afield, some locations includes France, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia

As well as tours, clubs and communities offer good bonding activities, which include coffee stops at cafes, pub lunches and even get together’s at casinos where you can find the best casino deals, BBQ’s and social parties.

Joining a community is a really enjoyable thing to do, it will definitely make you feel your part of something and you will be well looked after.

Instead of sitting at home or having a pint on your own at the pub, if you have a motorcycle license, then join a community now, where you will be given some of the best days of your life and you will most certainly look back and cherish the memories you have created with these communities. 

Joint statement from the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA), the Amateur Motor Cycle Association (AMCA) and the Auto-Cycle Union (ACU)

British motorsport could end due to EU ruling

The outcome of a government consultation on a piece of EU insurance legislation could end motorsport in the UK.

Yesterday, the Government issued a document for public consultation, which gives an option of implementing the European Court decision known as the ‘Vnuk judgment’.  The ruling makes it compulsory for anyone using any form of motorised transport to have third party damage and injury insurance. This will affect all participants in all forms of motorsport.

The insurance industry has made it clear to government that third party risks for motorsport activities are uninsurable, not least because of the sheer number of potential vehicle damage claims that would arise. Therefore, if implemented, the Vnuk judgment would wipe out all legal motor and motorcycle sport activity.

In the UK, the motorsport industry employs over 50,000 people, generates a total of £11 billion of sales each year and is backed up by a world-leading high performance engineering industry.

Motorcycle competition is a popular UK Sport and generates much needed income in rural areas, with over 1.9 million spectators watching around 58,000 riders attend an average of over 4000 off-road and track events each year.   These range from junior motocross to the British Superbikes, which would all end without the required insurance under the ECJ ruling.* 

MCIA, ACU and AMCA call on the government to exempt motor and motorcycle sport from any changes to insurance law which arise from the ECJ judgement.  While the UK remains in the EU, even a temporary implementation of the ruling, as suggested by the Department for Transport in its consultation document, would be fatally damaging to what is an important industry and net contributor to the UK economy.

Speaking for the ACU, AMCA and MCIA, Steve Kenward, CEO of MCIA says: “At a stroke, this would wipe out a successful industry and all the jobs that go with it, as well as eliminating a popular leisure pursuit for 1.9 million people, along with the boost that this gives to both local and national economies. 

“If the government implements the Vnuk judgment un-amended, British motorcycle sport would end in the UK.  Given that we are coming out of the EU, we are astonished that the government is even considering an option to implement Vnuk.  We call on ministers to end uncertainty and put a stop to Vnuk in the UK.”

Background

The Vnuk judgment imposes compulsory third party injury and damage insurance to all vehicles of any kind when used on any type of land.  As well as affecting all motorsport vehicles, it could affect electric bicycles, sit-on lawnmowers, golf buggies, mobility scooters and even uninsured vehicles parked on private property under the Statutory Off-Road Notification scheme.  The ruling stems from a case involving a Slovenian farm worker, who was hurt falling from a ladder, which was hit by a reversing tractor.

For additional information please contact Steve Muir on 07989 378597 or email [email protected]

Grass roots events like the Skegness beach race (pictured) would end if Vnuk is implemented

Information

• You can read the consultation document here
• The original judgement arises from Damijan Vnuk v Zavarovalnica Triglav C-162/13.  See here
• *Figures come from MCIA industry commissioned report