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Breeders - what do you DO with the data from your website?

Sport Horse Breeding
#1

I had a fabulous web designer re-do my website and I couldnt be happier with how it is looking. Ive had so many people contact me, even out of the blue, to say what a huge improvement it is (It REALLY is! :D)

She sent this to me this afternoon:

March 28th 2012 - March 30 2012 (12:30 in the afternoon)

195 visitors
177 unique visitors
773 page views
3.96 pages per visit (per visitor)
up by 87.69% new visits

90.26% of the visits are North American (which is great, your demographic is BIG here), though there looks to be some from the UK, France, Poland, Denmark, and Finland.

8.72% are in the GTA, 7.18% are in Bakersfield, 4.10% are in Red Deer, 3.08% in Edmonton, 3.08% in Montreal, 3.08% in denver, 2.05% in Hamilton, etc.

Most popular pages (in order of most hits):

forsale page (125)
Guaranteed Gold Page (117)
News Section (97)
Panoramic Page (81)
Breeding Information Page (74)
Faux Finish Page (42)
Sold Horse Page (37)
Broodmare Page (30)
Salacious Page (20)

Search terms and their success:

“true colours farm” - 12 new visitors found your site using this term, goal conversion rate is 57. 14% success rate

“guaranteed gold thoroughbred stallion” - 12 new visitors found your site using this term, goal conversion rate is 83.33% success rate

“true colors farm” - 3 new visitors found your site using this term, goal conversion rate is 66.67% success rate

search terms: “buckskin thoroughbred” “custom foals in canada” “guaranteed gold” buckskin faux finish" buckskin thoroughbred mare" were all hits on the site, all of which had unique visitors equating to a 200% success rate.

Just some highlights of the information I’m seeing on the back-end!
Success!

So - as a breeder / seller / marketer of the product on this website - what do you now DO with this information as the savvy marketer to try and capitalize on the info provided?

Do you beef up marketing in strong areas? Or weak ones?

Do you target areas that you are pulling the most enquiries from or the ones that you arent?

Since the For Sale section has attracted the greatest amount of hits, should your intention be to focus on more internet “For Sale” sites to draw more people in from those venues?

My initial reaction was “Great! Super news! Im so pleased!” but what do you now do with this information to maintain and grow the interest?

What has worked for others when they are handed this data from their websites?

Would be very interested in hearing the game plans and results of others … :slight_smile:

#2

My first thought was that you need more babies to sell!

#3

I tweak my website to boost the stats. What else should I do with it? :smiley:

Seriously though, I don’t have anywhere near the stats or the volume to justify changing something in my day-to-day decisions. But I do try to improve my website’s stats as it is the main marketing tool; not that I need it all that much right now though!

#4

The most use I find is know where my hits have come from - I know that of the three sites I advertise on, dreamhorse, warmbloods-for-sale and equine now, the most hits I get are from the last one, and as it has flexible photo/video exchange (unlike dreamhorse) that’s my first choice for advertising.

And it’s also interesting to see which of the sales horses get the most hits (the ones under saddle!) but there’s not a lot I can do about that.

It’s also interesting to see which threads on Coth and other BB’s get me the most hits. Doesn’t do much for sales per se, but the more you post, especially if you say something controversial, the more hits you get. I suppose on the principle that no advertising is bad advertising though, I shall continue to post my opinion!

#5

My first thought was that you need more babies to sell!

:slight_smile:

THanks but no thanks - Im quite happy with the amount I have coming and have to sell each year … :slight_smile:

MM - I post on some regional specific boards as well - IL based ones, LI, NY based ones, Vancouver Island ones and I know there are some specific to San Francisco Bay, etc. I guess as well if I saw that the most hits are coming from those boards specifically, I would make a very concerted effort to post more on those boards and have more of a presence and recognition factor as well in those targetted areas

But I do try to improve my website’s stats as it is the main marketing tool; not that I need it all that much right now though!

And so glad to hear that things are going well! :slight_smile:

#6

[QUOTE=TrueColours;6229425]
:slight_smile:
And so glad to hear that things are going well! :)[/QUOTE]

Thank you, but I should’ve worded that properly. :lol: I meant that I don’t need the added marketing now because I don’t have anything to sell anyways! My gosh, it read so much like a brag. :lol: Sorry folks!:winkgrin:

#7

Wow, your website looks fantastic. We’ve been debating doing the same thing.

This^
We’ve used it to compare print vs. web advertising, fliers at shows, demonstration events, and to compare advertising on various sales web sites in order to figure out what is the most effective way to spend advertising dollars.

#8

Not a whole lot - take note of traffic sources, who/what generated the most interest and that’s about it. I do the same with the FB page, You Tube and the blog. Just mental notes of where/what and do a quick mental calculation of where advertising dollars should go/if changes are needed.

#9

Wow, your website looks fantastic. We’ve been debating doing the same thing.

Thanks so much! If you do, I’d recommend Natashya SO much! She goes above and beyond the call of duty - even when I dont ask, or dont KNOW what I am SUPPOSED to ask! :lol: And it helps immensely that she’s involved in horses as well so if I dont know how to word something, she’ll come up with the correct verbage that makes sense when a horse person is reading it, or if she doesnt agree with what Ive come up with - she’ll offer some great suggestions for me to consider as well. Absolutely invaluable … :slight_smile:

What Ive really appreciated as well is the suggestions, as in

“We really need to upgrade and update the graphics on your business FB pages so that they tie in cohesively with your new website and its a seamless transition from someone viewing one and then switching to the other”

No problem - here are my passwords. You are now an Admin on my FB pages :smiley: I dont even have to THINK about what to do next!

This was the new update sent to me this morning:

www.chronofhorse.com
66 new visits (referer being chronofhorse.com) 5.33 pages per visit, average visit duration 4 minutes, 92.42% were new visits (fresh eyes)

www.horsegroomingsupplies.com
24 visits, 3.42 pages per visit, average visit duration 2.5 minutes, yo.17% were new visitors

www.facebook.com
20 visits, 3.05 pages per visit, average visit duration 3.59 minutes, 90% were new visitors

www.equinenow.com
18 visits, 5.28 pages per visit, average visit duration 5.28 minutes, 100% were new visitors

www.pedigreequery.com
17 new visits, 2.35 pages per visit, average visit duration 1.5 minutes, 52% were new visitors

We’re getting referrals from other sites like forum.horsetopia.com, thoroughbredchampions.com, equiman.com, dreamhorse.com, horseforum.com, marestare.com, natashyabaydesign.com (my site is getting YOU hits), saucypiaffe.com, breeding-stallions.com, ewarmbloods.net, agalopar.com, drafthorsevillage.com, equinegenetics.blogspot.de and then we trail off down to about 1 hit per site on the others.

I absolutely LOVE it … and now Im off to see what the heck www.agalopar.com is and why I’d be getting hits from there! :smiley:

Cool - www.agalopar.com is a Spanish based Thoroughbred and racing website. Neat that Im pulling hits from there … :slight_smile:

#10

Disclaimer: I’m not a breeder, but I work every day with website statistics. :slight_smile:

These stats are invaluable if you really want your website to be a marketing tool! They tell you what people are interested in, and how they get to your site.

If this were my site, I would start by looking at the popular pages and search terms for things I can improve. Popular pages tells you what people are interested in when they come to your site. The top 3 pages on your site are:

[INDENT]forsale page (125)
Guaranteed Gold Page (117)
News Section (97)[/INDENT]

These are 3 pages that I would place priority on to keep up to date and current. Use Facebook to announce updates to these pages.

Search terms tell you how people find your site. They are key to improving your site’s search engine optimization. Books are written on SEO, so it is a much broader topic than can be discussed here. A few things to start with:
[LIST=1]

  • Use the top search terms as key words throughout the content of your site.
  • Pay attention to URLs. The URL for GG's stallion page is: http://www.truecoloursfarm.com/horsepage.php?id=1. It would be much more effective if the URL was http://www.truecoloursfarm.com/guaranteed-gold. Looks like only your horse pages have less than effective URLs. Your other pages look better.
  • Pay attention to page titles (the text you see on your browser tab). The page title for GG's page is the same as the URL. It should be "Guaranteed Gold", or "Guaranteed Gold | True Colours Farm". (quotes only used for clarity here).
  • Rename images as needed. You can see that people are getting to your site by searching for buckskin thoroughbred. Do you have a picture of a buckskin thoroughbred anywhere on your site? If so, the file name of the image should include the term. [/LIST]

    Now I’m guessing many of these things will need to be done by your webmaster. Hopefully this will give you an idea of some ways to use the information she has given you to improve your site and it’s marketing!

    • #11

    Puglet - thanks so much!

    You have brought to light some things I have thought of already and some I hadnt, for example the names of the pictures themselves. Instead of “Faux Finish-Warrenton-Sep07” I had “Chamois-Warrenton-Sep07”. Great for me - internally - I knew who Chamois was, but if anyone was searching anywhere throughout the web for pictures of Faux Finish, none of the ones on my website would pull up under that search term

    Just when us “mortals” think we have a decent handle on our websites and think we know how to put together an effective and professional looking one, you guys that live and breathe this stuff on a daily basis show up and run circles around us without even trying! :smiley:

    Thank you very much - you’ve indicated some areas that I need to work on myself when I categorize my pictures. And now I need to actually sit down for an hour or so and learn how to do some of these basic updates myself. Even if I can start to do a few of them, I’ll start to understand my website a whole lot better … :slight_smile:

    #12

    [QUOTE=Puglet;6231369]
    Disclaimer: I’m not a breeder, but I work every day with website statistics. :slight_smile:

    These stats are invaluable if you really want your website to be a marketing tool! They tell you what people are interested in, and how they get to your site.

    If this were my site, I would start by looking at the popular pages and search terms for things I can improve. Popular pages tells you what people are interested in when they come to your site. The top 3 pages on your site are:

    [INDENT]forsale page (125)
    Guaranteed Gold Page (117)
    News Section (97)[/INDENT]

    These are 3 pages that I would place priority on to keep up to date and current. Use Facebook to announce updates to these pages.

    Search terms tell you how people find your site. They are key to improving your site’s search engine optimization. Books are written on SEO, so it is a much broader topic than can be discussed here. A few things to start with:
    [LIST=1]

  • Use the top search terms as key words throughout the content of your site.
  • Pay attention to URLs. The URL for GG's stallion page is: http://www.truecoloursfarm.com/horsepage.php?id=1. It would be much more effective if the URL was http://www.truecoloursfarm.com/guaranteed-gold. Looks like only your horse pages have less than effective URLs. Your other pages look better.
  • Pay attention to page titles (the text you see on your browser tab). The page title for GG's page is the same as the URL. It should be "Guaranteed Gold", or "Guaranteed Gold | True Colours Farm". (quotes only used for clarity here).
  • Rename images as needed. You can see that people are getting to your site by searching for buckskin thoroughbred. Do you have a picture of a buckskin thoroughbred anywhere on your site? If so, the file name of the image should include the term. [/LIST]

    Now I’m guessing many of these things will need to be done by your webmaster. Hopefully this will give you an idea of some ways to use the information she has given you to improve your site and it’s marketing![/QUOTE]

    Thank you Puglet :slight_smile: I was wondering how would be best to use the top keywords and top pages… I was thinking along the lines of what you said. Great great advice!

    • #13

    Glad to help! Another way to look at the popular pages and search terms numbers is to see if your results are what you desire. Using TrueColors as an example (hope you don’t mind!), she may look at the data and hope to see the stats for Panoramic’s page higher. So think to yourself, what terms could people search for to lead them to his page? …sabino thoroughbred, overo thoroughbred (if he is indeed overo? pardon my ignorance).

    Google has a great free tool to check the search volume of a key word or phrase: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal You can use this to determine what key word may bring you more traffic over another key word.

    So back to the above example. Using the key word tool, I entered ‘sabino thoroughbred’. This term has approximately 140 monthly searches. Now, look at ‘overo thoroughbred’. It has approx 73 monthly searches. Looking at this, you can determine that focusing on using the term ‘sabino thoroughbred’ on your site’s pages may bring you more traffic.

    Now, don’t get overwhelmed with all of the things you are not doing! Optimizing websites can be a never ending task, but being aware of a few things you can do can help your breeding operation reach a broader audience :slight_smile:

    #14

    TC, I really do like your site redesign (yes, 2 stats will now be from me), lol.

    I don’t really have anything constructive to add, except that I hate clicking on a website and the for sales page is two years old.

    #15

    TC, I really do like your site redesign (yes, 2 stats will now be from me), lol.

    Thanks so much - so do I! :smiley:

    I don’t really have anything constructive to add, except that I hate clicking on a website and the for sales page is two years old.

    Agreed! Thats why we really try and keep everything as current and up to date as possible …

    And Puglet - thanks so much again. Your advice is terrific! :slight_smile:

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