Free Popularity Metrics: The Real Deal in Web Site Assesment	1.0/5.0 (1 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Pete Prestipino June 04, 2004

With millions of domains in existence and more added every day, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the established business from the start up. This is why using popularity metric services can come in handy. Use of this information can provide a wealth of data about your online promotions and overall popularity (when understood contextually).

Keep in Mind: The Proof is in the Sample
The quality of information offered in metrics depends greatly on the sample. The larger and more diverse the sample, the more representative the data.

What You're Looking for with Popularity Metrics Services
While the information provided by these services should never be used a means to determine your overall success, the information that many provide can be extremely useful in the overall marketing and business development of your online business and its web site.

Benchmarking:
A great way to use metric services is to gauge where you rank online against your competitors. Knowing that a related company has more links, traffic or page views than your site will prove invaluable. By knowing more about your competitors than they do about you, you'll be better positioned to top your business category in the long run.

List Building:
Monitoring information from traffic metric services over a period of time will also prove useful when expanding your business. Companies utilizing affiliate programs know at a glance if a company is worth investing their time with. Webmasters seeking out reciprocal links can use the data to determine which web site should be contacted. Sales staff can use the information when prospecting. Since many of these services provide contact information, you can even contact from the convenience of the metric companies sites'.

Who's the Big Winner?
There are not too many online services that provide their data for free. Since many small and medium sized businesses can't afford the several thousand dollar reports available from larger companies, sites such as Ranking.com offer important insights into the business landscape your site is operating within.

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