Competition is vying to become better than others. It is good. It brings about innovation, superior products, and many other positive things. Online, websites compete for search engine page ranking. Whoever gets to the top of the search engine line has greater chances of getting more Internet users to visit their site.

Traffic is everything a website needs to thrive. But how do you know you’re getting enough in terms of traffic? The trick is to compare your site’s traffic to those of other sites’.

Comparing website traffic gives web marketers an edge over those who don’t do so. The conclusions you arrive at from comparing website traffic stats and patterns of different sites can give you an idea on how to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

To be able to compare site traffic, you need a tool designed for such purpose. The top guns offering this kind of service are Alexa, Compete, and Quamcast. How these tools gather data about different sites vary. However, the process of comparing website traffic is more or less the same. Basically, you will be asked to provide your web address and the web address of the site you want to compare stats with.

When comparing website traffic, you will find a variety of measurements offered by web analytics. Determining which measurements to use can be confusing. Of these measurements, the following types of data are most important when determining the degree of success of a website:

• Page views. You can tell how popular a site by looking at its page views. You can also tell if one has more chances of making money from transactions or advertisements. The more page views a website has, the more potential customers it has and more likely it is to attract advertisers.

• Unique users. Unique visitors are those who visit your website more than once. Web analytics are so sophisticated that they can tell the difference between unique visitors and one-time visitors. Comparing the number of unique users and page views can provide you a larger picture of the targeted traffic that a website receives.

• Time spent on site. The amount of time a user spends on site gives you a clue as to how effective a website’s content is. You then study the way content is written and presented, and see how you can incorporate the same techniques into the writing of your website content.

• Number of visits per user. If a user finds a website useful, they are more likely to visit it again in the future. You can learn a thing or two about writing your own content or designing your site from a website with many repeat users.

Comparing site traffic is a must for those who want to know where they stand in the general scheme of things and what they can do to improve their chances at online success.