Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum A Different Kind of Piano Ranking

<font size="+1">See How Piano World Ranks Compared to Other Piano Sites</font>
Additional stats later in this thread show how we rank for specific piano-related keywords and phrases

As some of you know, my day job is Internet Marketing, Ecommerce, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
SEO Experts To Go -- The Ecommerce Guru

I sometimes use a service called Quantcast www.quantcast.com to get demographics on web sites.

Quantcast visits billions of web pages, and currently has rankings available on over 20 million sites. Please note that Quantcast states that these are estimates based on data they have collected, and that they can get much more accurate if the site owner places Quantcast code on their site (as we have done).

So, I decided to do a little comparison of how Piano Manufacturers sites rank versus Piano World. Note that the LOWER the ranking number the better. For example, Piano World's current ranking is 8,249... which means we rank ahead of 20,079,870 of the total 20,088,119 sites they rank.

I've also included Quantcast's estimates of monthly unique visitors.
(for more info, see their FAQ )

(The listing is in no particular order, it's just how I looked them up as the brands came to mind.)

Because much of the support for Piano World comes from advertising, I'm hoping to someday convince the manufacturers to advertise with us.

Also see WHO VISITS PIANO WORLD??
<table border="1" bordercolor="#000000" width="550" cellpadding="2"><tr><td valign="top">Site</td><td valign="top">Rank on Quantcast</td><td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">Monthly Unique Visitors</td><td valign="top">
</td><td valign="top">Piano World Ranks
This Much Ahead
of These Sites</td></tr><tr>
<td valign="top">PianoWorld.com

masonhamlin.com

steinway.com

kawaius.com

samickusa.com

youngchang.com

baldwinpiano.com

bluthnerpiano.com

bosendorfer.com

estoniapiano.com

pianodisc.com

pealriverusa.com

ptg.org

qrsmusic.com

geneva-intl.com

bohemiapiano.cz

seiler-pianos.de

fazioli.com

petrof.cz

steigerman.com

NAMM.org
</td>
<td valign="top" align="right">8,249

836,831

150,330

175,793

605,131

442,909

842,089

3,908,057

6,588,216

2,122,002

412,898

945,105

100,587

164,916

1,075,263

1,072,040

949,722

1,987,823

4,096,372

2,917,222

172,482
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top" align="right">300,000+

Under 1000

Under 10,000

Under 10,000

Under 1000

About 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

About 2000

Under 1000

Under 10,000

Under 10,000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 1000

Under 10,000
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top" align="right">

828,582

142,081

167,544

596,882

434,660

833,840

3,899,808

6,579,967

2,113,753

404,649

936,856

92,338

156,667

1,067,014

1,063,791

941,473

1,979,574

4,088,123

2,908,973

164,233
</td>
</tr></table>

Based on these numbers, Piano World gets more unique visitors per month than all 20 other sites combined.

Some more semi-interesting data...
Our Google Rankings
<table cellpadding="2" border="1"><tr><td valign="top" colspan="3">Piano World's current rankings in Google for the following search terms:</td></tr><tr><td valign="top" align="center">Search Term</td> <td valign="top" align="center"> Our Google Ranking Position</td><td valign="top" align="center">Out of # sites returned</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Piano </td><td valign="top" align="right">1</td><td valign="top" align="right">183,000,000</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Piano Dealers</td><td valign="top" align="right"> 1</td><td valign="top" align="right">1,310,000</td></tr><tr>
</td><td valign="top">Piano Tuners</td><td valign="top" align="right"> 2 & 3</td><td valign="top" align="right">2,420,000</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Piano Movers</td><td valign="top" align="right">2</td><td valign="top" align="right">1,120,000</td></tr><tr>
</td><td valign="top">Piano Manufacturers </td><td valign="top" align="right">1</td><td valign="top" align="right">1,420,000</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Piano Forums</td><td valign="top" align="right">1 & 2</td><td valign="top" align="right">3,700,000</td></tr></table>
Of course, none of this means much in the grand scheme of things, unless you're trying to convince someone there's value in advertising on your site :-)
But it's still interesting, and a bit of an ego boost for me.

See Additional Ranking Results Further Down in This Thread

Interesting data, Frank! I think what grabbed my attention the most was the difference is monthly unique visitors. Clearly, there are a lot of people interested in pianos if you get 300,000 new folks coming to your site a month. But they're not looking at the manufacturers' websites, and I wonder why. Do they get all their questions answered here so don't bother? Do they take one look at the AB forum and decide to take up a more dignified instrument? Just seems very curious to me.

It would seem as though they'd be best served to advertise on the site, AND hire him as an SEO consultant. Unless they don't think they can afford the extra bandwidth they'll need. :p

I like youre thinking CTPianotech

You'd be amazed how many major players (not just in the piano business) don't know how to take advantage of the Internet.

Often times they employ huge advertising agencies who are experts at marketing/advertising offline, but haven't built the expertise for online yet.

I've spent 10 years learning how to market on the Internet, and I'm still learning.

Thanks Monica,

Exactly what I'm trying to explain to the manufacturers. We get some serious traffic, and it's all people interested in pianos and/or music.

And they don't just hit and run.
We average 3-4 MILLION page views a month.
That tells me people arrive at Piano World and spend some time looking.

Update 01/02/08 We are now averaging closer to 5 million page views a month (or over 166,000 page views a day)

Our average time on site (the time an individual spends looking at PW) is much higher than the industry averages.
Either we're doing something right and people are enjoying their visit, or we're doing something wrong and they're lost :-)

I think it's the former rather than the latter.
People not finding what they want just leave and go to the next site in their search results.

Plus, I can't tell you how many times I see posts from people thanking us for the help the forums gave them in their piano search.

It's funny, because I read articles in the trade magazines downplaying the Internet as a source for people looking for information about buying a piano. They obviously don't hang out around here :-)

Monica, are you referring to '1' thread in particular? LOL!

Frank, for sure you are doing something right!

"WE KNOW"!!!

A lot of what I do involves representing clients whose business is Internet marketing. You're right, Frank -- it is amazing how many otherwise solid businesses are just way behind in terms of understanding, and taking advantage of, the Internet. And it's really so easy to do these days. There are many, many young people out there, ready to take a job, at a very reasonable salary, helping companies move forward. I've seen it time and again, and it generally pays off in spades when they take the steps forward.

Search is definitely where it's at. A lot of these folks could benefit from some good website design, too. And some could reap huge rewards from affiliate marketing. The longer they wait, the harder it will be to catch up....

Frank, very interesting numbers. Does quantcast measure hits to any portion of the PW website or just the main page as the initial hit?

They are measuring "page views" as opposed to "hits". Two different animals.

A page view is counted when all the contents of a page loads. Hits count each item of a page as it loads (ex: each graphic would count as a "hit" to the server).

Page views are a more accurate representation of traffic (as are "unique" visitors as opposed to repeat visitors).

For example, our page views generally run between 3 and 4 million a month (as you can see from the forums stats, the forums alone account for over a million page views a month).

But our "hits" usually run in the 12-15 million a month range.

To answer your question :-)
They are counting page views for most, but not all of Piano World. I haven't had time to add the code to every section.

By the way, for those few of you who might care about getting more technical. There are ways of programming pages so only certain segments of the page get replaced with new content (ajax, css, and some asp applications).

This is done to make the pages load faster, because the server only has to pass what's different, but... it also means the newly loaded content doesn't count as a "page view".

If you use this technology, how do you tell if your site is doing better?
Unique visitor counts, time spent on the site, conversions rates (how many people take the action you wanted ... sign up, click something, buy something). You can also keep an eye on your referer logs. These show where your traffic is coming from, and how much.

LOL! You are good at your day job, sir! (Not to mention this is one of the best sites on the Internet...)

A whole hearted agreement with J.Mark here.
Piano World is one of the best sites on the Internet!

Mike

Hi Frank,

Where does Yamaha fit into this rank?

I couldn't find just a piano site for Yamaha, only their corporate site that encompasses everything (motorcycles, audio equipment, band instruments, drums, brass, strings,pianos, digitals, etc.).

Their corporate site does very well, as one would expect given it's size and audience reach.

I was trying to compare apples to apples (except the listing for NAMM, which I just tossed in because we've been discussing the NAMM show).

I did see that the sub directory music.yamaha.com gets about 20,000 unique visitors a month (but sub directories aren't ranked separately).

There was no separate directory or sub directory for just pianos.

Interestingly, the steinwaymusical.com (the parent company with Steinway, Conn-Selmer, etc.) site has a rank of 1,408,017 (meaning 1,408,016 sites rank higher) and shows less than 1000 unique visitors a month. I don't believe that's accurate, but it's likely because of the gratuitous Flash they use.

Forcing people to watch/listen to Flash is considered a big no-no in Internet Marketing, and can have a negative effect on search engine rankings/listings.

Don't make me keep clicking "Skip Intro", make it my choice to play the @$%# thing if I want to.
I'm always amazed at how many otherwise brilliant marketers fall down when it comes to marketing to the Internet crowd.

I'm always battling with people who want to use stuff on their web sites just because they can, or because someone in the company thinks it's cool, instead of giving their customers what they actually want.

That's why I like to do focus groups and usability studies with end users. You'd be surprised what you can learn by asking your customers!

Frank,

I think you're comparing apples and oranges. The comparison between this forum and a manufacturer's site is invalid given that the intent of the two is so different. What would be far more interesting would be a comparison with other venues for piano discussion. There are other piano related forums, including; ...Facts, ...street. and ...chat (a Yahoo group). Of those just mentioned this forum is undoubtedly the most populated. Each of these is different and what's more important is how compatible the individual users are with our chosen venue of discussion. I do lurk the ...facts forum on occasion, but geberally choose NOT to post there, especially in their political discussion arena (they'd never admit I was right).

Steve,

That would be true if I was basing my computations on just our forums, but I'm not.
The numbers are based on Piano World overall (there are over 1000 pages besides these forums).

My point was, we generate a lot of traffic from people who are interested in pianos (for any number of reasons), and therefore represent an opportunity for companies/individuals in a piano/music related business.

I chose the manufacturers sites because I'm hoping some of them will consider us as a possible advertising/marketing vehicle, and because I was curious.

Well in that regard I would agree completely. In fact I'm mystified by the absence of manufacturers. I understand the potential lightening rod effect, but the same would apply to dealers and they're here in great quantities. I think it would be less likely for non-US manufacturers to make the effort given that this forum is fairly USA centric. I do know Bosendorfer's USA distributor is a helpful presence. So to the folks at Mason and Hamlin and Charles Walter let me say you're conspicuous by your absence.

:-) Thanks Steve.

I can sort of understand them not wanting to get involved in the forums (in some cases, the matter how much you try, you can't win), but outright advertising (like some of the affiliate programs in our right hand column) would make sense.

Of course for dealers, tuners, movers, etc. it makes more sense to advertise under specific categories in our Classified section.

A dealer in NY doesn't care if we come up # 1 in Google for "Piano Dealers", but they would be interested to know how we rank for "Piano Dealers NY" (#1 and 2 at the moment), or Piano Tuners CA (# 1 and 2), or Piano Movers NC (#1).

It's the aggragate of our search results rankings that gives us value to any number of piano/music industry businesses.

Heck, sometimes we just rank well because of a forums post. For example, at the moment we rank # 1 in Google for Pramberger Piano because of a forums post.

From a users point of view... thanks Frank for a Great Website. Sure hope your time at NAMM is rewarded.

On another note, I was just curious, how will I know or will I be notified when my contribution anniversary date is up...when do I need to send more $$ and not just at ANYTIME lol...

Thanks Monster M&H,

Unfortunately I'm not very good at renewal reminders, have the same problem with the folks advertising in our classifieds.
There just aren't enough hours in the day (I have a friend writing scripts to automate the reminder process.).

To answer your question, if you mouse over your subscriber icon, it should tell you what date it expires. (the classified ads have an expiration date in small print at bottom of their ads).

Best,

Frank B.

Expires in Feb...what timing yeah?? just your luck...lol Thanks for your effort here at PW...although you might not hear it enough, THANKS

Les
cya in May. Although I am having a little conflict with the schedule, you see, Billy Joel is coming to the Palace here on the 4th of May.