By: Glenn Hendry
Accurately tracking traffic to business websites has always been a bit of a sketchy enterprise, involving a lot of Google analytics mixed with best guess scenarios.
No longer, thanks to Search Engine People (SEP)and its newly unveiled SiteVisitorID software.
Launched November 24, the service – dubbed ‘caller ID for websites’ – is expected to be a big hit with business owners, allowing them to accurately pinpoint who is visiting their websites.
Until now, business owners have only been able to rely upon analytics services, such as Google, for insight into how much traffic their website is generating. They can determine what sources are driving that traffic, the keywords being used, the pages visited and the length of time spent on each page, even which links are being clicked. What these services have not been able to provide, however, is who the visitor was.
“It’s a valuable new tool for business because it’s caller ID,” noted SEP founder and CEO Jeff Quipp. “They can see who is visiting their website, and in real time.” The service can also compile a history of the company’s website visits, something in which the business-to-business market will be especially interested, Quipp added.
“This is valuable insight for B2B companies in terms of understanding which advertising is driving the type of clients they’re most interested in,” he said. “It provides critical information about where companies are in the purchase process, based on the types of information they’re looking at, providing a quality lead source for sales representatives.”
By determining which pages are being visited and which links are being clicked, business owners can better identify sales leads as well, he added.
The program is specifically designed for business-to-business, as the traffic has to originate from sites with large enough infrastructure – about 25 employees minimum – to be recognized.
The software can also glean information that may never lead to a sale but is interesting, nonetheless, he added.
There is similar software in the United States – Ultimate Lead Systems of Cleveland and Net Factor, based in the Denver area, have developed caller ID for websites, for example – but Quipp isn’t aware of any local competition. Those other programs can be expensive, he added.
“They can cost around $3,000 a year. Ours is 50 bucks a month or free to our clients. So it’s affordable as well.”
With a potential market that could include any B2B company in Canada, Quipp is hopeful SiteVisitorID could become a major revenue producer for Search Engine People, which was established a decade ago and quickly became a major player in the Canadian internet marketing industry.
“It could be a pretty good revenue generator, for sure,” he said. “It could be worth millions very quickly.”
Quipp gives most of the credit for SiteVisitorID to one man – Wisam Abdulaziz, his Vice-President of Technology, who he described succinctly as “brilliant.”
SiteVisitorID will be available January 2, 2012.