Hits Blitz!
Those awful telemarketers seem to be at it again :( Don, Stephanie or Stephen are the only people from My Sunshine Coast who would ever contact a business on our behalf, we do not telemarket, so if you are contacted by a telemarketer asking you to advertise on their business directory and you are unsure who they really are, here are the top 3 tips you need to ensure it is legit...

1. Hits! I hate that word... If you are thinking of advertising it is 'Visitors' that count not 'hits'. It is an archaic Internet term and in most situations is actually a ridiculous indicator of how popular a site is. Hits on a page are actually all the graphics, video content etc on a page, so therefore, if a page has a heap of graphics on it, that could be like 20 hits, yet only '1' person looking at it... A good example is an average month of statistics on www.mysunshinecoast.com.au:
Hits: Average Month - 3.3 million hits
Visitors: Average Month - 70,000 Visitors
You don't have to be Einstein to see the difference there, but many marketers obviously prey on the limited knowledge of many people who are familiar with the term 'hits' and it obviously makes the site seem way more impressive, but is really a false statistic. If the first 'benefit' from a sales person is a 'hits' statistic, proceed with caution...

2. Verify Statistics. There are a few ways to double check information you are given by a Sales person in regard to statistics on a website. If you have a Web Developer, they have many tools to verify, so please always take the time to give them a call & ask their advice. If you don't have one, there are a few websites you can visit to check, they are not fully accurate, but will give you an indication of a sites popularity and visitor numbers, one quick easy one is www.trafficestimate.com just type in the website you want the stats on, if it can't give you any stats that generally means the site gets less then 10,000 visitors per month.

3. Who really runs this Site? Just like any other business, an Internet business in this country should still give correct contact details (not just a contact form). Look at their 'About Us', 'Profile' or 'Contact' page, do they look transparent? Can you see 'who' the owners are? Better yet, do they have an ABN or ACN displayed in one of those areas? Is the operating Business name displayed so that you can check it with ASIC? If they don't, or if the person on the phone can't supply that information to you for your verification, maybe give it the flick...

Like anything else you might spend money on, always do your homework first, ask questions, and spend wisely. In future we hope to have an area onsite where we can have questions submitted in relation to the Internet and have people in the Industry answer those questions for you, we will advise when that is live. In the meantime don't celebrate Christmas by being ripped off... :)

Best Wishes, Noely, Community Site Co-ordinator

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