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Category: THE BIKER GUIDE®
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BikeSafe
We have had the BikeSafe unit from the police forces in Lancashire, North Wales, Yorkshire and Humberside with us for the last couple of years and each year their display gets better and better. This year we have just arranged for their fully liveried BikeSafe trailer and van be at the show on stand 369 along with the Ducati Multistrada’s provided by Highways England. You can’t miss the stand, just through into Hall 3.
Exhibitors List
The exhibitors list is now up on the website (see here) and shows 40 clubs who have already confirmed their stands.
Advance tickets
Advance tickets continue to sell incredibly well, staying 95% up on the same time last year, so we are confident of a record attendance at this year’s event.
Clubs
This week we have welcomed the following club stands Marshalls NW, The Trotter Collection, LCM racing, Early Stocks Racing Club all of whom will be in the ACU area plus The Manchester Eagle MCC who have been with us each year displaying a fabulous array of classic bikes. We are around two thirds there with regard to club entries so if you are intending to come get your forms back to us.
Private Enthusiasts
So last week we had two private entries from Oxon but we can eclipse that this week as David Hooper will be bringing his 1996 Honda CB500 all the way from Plymouth, a round trip of 600 miles! Trevor Bostock will be showing his 1936 Calthorpe Ivory Major that won bike of the show last year and Wilf Vokes will be bringing a 1959 Sun Overlander so we have a wide spectrum as always. We are about half way there with private entries so again get your space booked with us.
Trade Exhibitors
An impressive 84 individual trade exhibitors have booked in with us so far including nine alone since last week. Trade exhibitors who have confirmed this week including KCS Honda who will be bringing the Honda race truck with all the new 2017 models and you can meet the staff of the local Honda dealer, Hunts Honda who will be manning the stand along with staff from KCS. Bike Torque Ltd are coming up from Frome to exhibit performance parts and will be on site 403 just inside the main doors. A special mention for Jaws Motorcycles of Warrington who will be with us for the first time this year on stand 321. Returning exhibitors include Leather Genie, Birmingham (stand 455) Biker Tidy, Northampton (435 & 436), VMax bitz (420), Motus Bikewear, London (335 & 336) plus Bretton Motorcycles from Chester. A special mention for Boom Trikes from Chorley who always bring half a dozen top quality trikes which always attract a good deal of interest.
So there we are... I have just done an interview with Classic Bike Magazine to go on their diary pages for the next issue. We are looking forward to seeing what next week brings as the event moves closer.
Andrew Greenwood - Instantfocus Ltd
MANCHESTER BIKE SHOW 2017
SATURDAY 25TH & SUNDAY 26TH MARCH
9:30AM-5:00PM
EVENTCITY
www.manchesterbikeshow.com
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Back for its 6th year, giving the motorcycling community in the North West a major indoor motorcycle show to be proud be part of and attend... and in March, with the anticipation of a good summer to follow...
The event has various zones covering over 22,000 sq meters of space - about the size of four football pitches making the Manchester Bike Show the largest indoor motorcycle show in the North of England.
Attending will be a large variety of exhibitors and traders including Ducati, Honda, Indian, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, Victory, Moto Guzzi, Benelli, Herald, Bimota and Triumph, local and national dealers, clothing and helmets, parts and accessories, touring holiday companies, along with many other exhibitors that you would expect to see at a bike show of this size and stature, including THE BIKER GUIDE on stand 419.
Also see 100's of rare, exotic, modern, classic, custom and Streetfighter machines from clubs and private individuals, music and entertainment, stunt shows, DJ’s, special guest stars and much much more...
Lots of Motorcycle clubs attended last year, including Rainy City Harley-Davidson, Goldwing Misfits, Mid life Crisis MCC, North West Motorcycle Club, Vulcan Riders Association, West Yorks VJMC, Suzuki Owners Club, Chunky Tread Motorcycle Adventure Club and BMF. Clubs and individuals are welcome to display their bikes. Entry forms on the website.
venue: EventCity, Phoenix Way, off Barton Dock Road, Urmston, Manchester, M41 7TB. Free parking.
price: Pre-book: Adult: £14. Senior 65+: £12. Child (5-14): £4. Two adults & two children: £32.
OTD: Adult: £17. Senior 65+: £15. Child (5-14): £4. Two adults & two children: £37.
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On THE BIKER GUIDE facebook group people have been voting for their favourite Motorcycle event they attended in 2016. The winner is MT Heads Rally with 102 votes! 
In 2nd place is You've Been Nabbed 25 with 90 votes | 3rd place - Caveman Bash with 59 votes
Here follows the rest of the results...
The Underworld Rally - Avernus MCC - 54 votes
Rally with a Chalet - 41 votes
Tiger MCC Soggy Moggy Rally - 41 votes
One Aim Rally - 37 votes
Tees Riders Rusty Nut Rally - 36 votes
Perverts in Leather Rally - 26 votes
Drink Drop and Doss - 20 votes
Kamikaze Run Rally - Mobile Chaos MCC - 19 votes
Cumbria Custom Show - 18 votes
Stormin' the Castle - 18 votes
Big Barn Rally - 18 votes
Raganock - 17 votes
OGRI - 16 votes
Roughleys Bike Show - 15 votes
Bulldog Bash - 15 votes
Twisted Sprockets - 13 votes
Farmyard Bikers Party Helmsley - 13 votes
Woz Wolf - 10 votes
Isle of Man TT - 10 votes
Chase the Ace rally - 9 votes
Dead End Rally - 9 votes
Adventure before Dementia - 8 votes
Kent Chrome & Cruisers - 6 votes
The North Manchester Custom & Classic Bike Show - 6 votes
Bum in the Mud Rally - 6 votes
Rat & Survival Rally - 5 votes
Buttstock - 5 votes
Classic TT - 5 votes
Moddey Dhoo Mcc Xmas Party Isle of Man - 5 votes
Calne Bike Day - 5 votes
Dragon Rally - 5 votes
GPO Rally (Barrel Bikers Mcc) - 5 votes
Oddballs - 4 votes
Rat Pack Rally - Bridgerats MCC- 4 votes
Reading Toy Run - 4 votes
NW 200 - 4 votes
Prescott Bike Festival - 4 votes
Over The Edge Rally - 4 votes
Motorcycle Live - 4 votes
St Ives Festival of Motorcycles - 3 votes
Cernunnus MCC Mabon Rally - 3 votes
Oxleathers Summer nulls up - 3 votes
Pheasant plucker - 3 votes
Cowpat Rally - 3 votes
East Leeds Lions - 3 votes
Rock & Blues Custom Rally - 3 votes
Manchester Bike Show - 3 votes
Yorkshire Rock and Bike Show - 3 votes
Copdock Bike Show - 2 votes
Redskin Rally - 2 votes
Calstock Bike Show - 2 votes
End of the Road Rally - 2 votes
No Bull - 2 votes
Into the Valley - 2 votes
Barfly Rally - 2 votes
Billy Goat Rally - 2 votes
Kent Custom Bike Show - 2 votes
Matlock Bath Protest Ride - 2 votes
Twats Rally - 2 votes
Thunder in the Glens - 2 votes
Distinguished Gentlemans Ride - 2 votes
Also
Twister Iron The Happening
Scottish Road Rally (Ariel Owners Club)
Snowjoke
Fat Skeleton Blues and Bikes
The Archers Rally
Rorkes Drift rally
Norsemen mcc one day bike show
Medway Natives MCC Broken Arrow
Drove t drink
Cock Out Rally
Heart and Soul Rally
The Lee Rigby memorial ride
Firebird Rally
Blackpool mag rally
Penmarlam Caravan & Camping Park - Bike Weekend!
Wsm show bikers/trike
The Kilt Ride
TRF ICENI weekend
Wakinyan Rally
Ace Cafe Reunion, Brighton
Thanks to all that voted.
The above results are from a poll ran during November and December on THE BIKER GUIDE facebook group.
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What is the difference between hits and visitors?
It is a common mistake and in some cases, one which is used to misguide you into thinking that a website has more actual people looking on the website than there actually is.
There is a lot of terminologies that are quoted by the SEO Professional and sales people, trying to get you to place a listing on their website, and some unscrupulous people (and goodness knows, there's plenty of those around!) will be quite happy to take advantage of your ignorance of the terms they are using.
A clever (and dishonest) sales person or SEO specialist will proudly proclaim, "We will get you a thousand hits per day," trusting that you are unaware of what that actually means. A non-savvy website owner will think to himself, "Wow! A thousand visitors per day! That's a lot!"
But here's the trick. Let's say your home page has a header image, 5 menu images, a couple other pictures somewhere on the page, plus a style sheet that gets called by the page. That works out to a total of 10 hits per page: the page itself, the style sheet, and eight images.
Now let's suppose that your site is interesting and well designed, so every visitor who comes to it sticks around long enough to read five pages. That's a total of 50 hits per visitor.
So when the SEO company brags that they're going to get your 1000 hits per day, they really mean that they're going to give you 20 visitors per day.
All of a sudden their promises don't seem so golden, do they?
What is important
Simple... The number of visitors to the site, and to be pedantic, not just the visitor, but the unique visitor.
What is a Hit, Visitor and the Unique Visitor?
A "hit" is counted every single time your website sends a page or graphic to a visitor. So, if one visitor looks at your homepage, that counts as one hit. If your homepage links to nine graphics - logos, photographs etc. - that counts as nine more "hits", giving a total of 10 hits overall. If your visitor leaves your site at this point without looking at any more pages, they have still registered 10 "hits" - this means that hits alone don't give you a very clear idea about how popular your website is.
A visitor is every time a person (computer terminal) visits your website.
A unique visitor is how many times that person (computer terminal) visits your website.
Counters
The problem with using counters to track visitors is they are set up to measure page views, not unique visitors. Every time someone views your page, whether it's the first time or the twentieth, that visitor is counted. And if the page times out for some reason and they "Reload," it counts them again. And if someone just wants to have fun with your counter, they can exit and enter the site several times and are counted as a visitor each time... even if they never look at product.
So if you cannot count hits and you cannot use a counter, how do you track the traffic on your site?
Install visitor tracking code on your website, such as Google Analytics (see link in Resources at the bottom).
A web traffic analysis program will give you vital information about the traffic coming to your site, including where visitors are coming from, including which keywords they used, which search engines, what countries they are situated in, what paths your visitors are taking whilst on the website and which pages are the main exit points of your site... In fact it is full of all sorts of information... and for Google Analytics it is free.
This information is private and only available to you, the account owner. It is best to install the tracking code as soon as possible to start building history. If you are using Google Adwords (you pay to advertise your website) or Google Adsense (you place advertising on your website for profit) then you may already have access to Google Analytics.
How do I find out how many visitors a website gets if I am not the owner?
There are many cases where you may not be the website owner, but want to find out how well another website performs. However, since you do not own the site then you will not be able to see the full-blown traffic stats displayed by Google Analytics. Now it is time to do some investigation...
You may be curious about how much traffic any website generates, or you want to find out how well your competitor's website is performing. The first place to go is TrafficEstimate which is free (see link in Resources at the bottom). Search for a website address to see the estimated number of visitors to the site in the last 30 days, along with a simple graph. Keep in mind that the estimator tool is just that, an estimate, however at least you can get a ballpark figure. An interesting graph is shown for facebook.com which sees a steady climb in traffic and visitors, however more recently by comparing the two you can see that the visitors are spending a longer amount of time on the website.
SimilarWeb offers a free and easy way to check (not always upto date, however a good guide). See here for THE BIKER GUIDE
Alexa is another (now paid for through Amazon) for website ranks compared to all other websites in the world.
You can search for any website address that you are interested in finding its traffic rank. Alexa also provides other neat graphs and handy info. Although it does not show you the exact number of visitors, you can get a general idea of the website's performance. By comparing the traffic rank of your website to your competitor's website, you can estimate who gets more traffic. For example, YouTube.com ranks higher than Weather.com. Please note, although this is another great tools to use they are sometimes a bit behind with keywords and the amount of links, linked in.
THE BIKER GUIDE summing up...
We hope this article will help understand the difference between hits and visitors and hopefully to help you choose wisely where you place any advertising or your business on the World Wide Web!
If you would like any further advise of hits, visitors and anything else included in this information, do not hesitate to ask.
If you already knew all of the above, please accept our apologies and welcoming you to our world of seo geekness!
Resources
- Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics
- Google Adwords www. Google.co.uk/ AdWords
- TrafficEstimate www.trafficestimate.com
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A customer said this to us - "After trying a few other websites that 'supposedly' advertise biker friendly places and getting virtually no response, I have recently signed up with THE BIKER GUIDE. I cannot believe it took me so long, as within 3 weeks the 12 months advert I placed has already been paid for (and more) with a booking for next June. I am going to be honest - the other websites I have tried were cheaper, but you know a waste of money, £25 quid here, £35 there - it all adds up!"
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We would like to wish all our advertisers, visitors, customers, contributors and supporters a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2017!
During 2016 we attended many shows, events, Biker Friendly cafes and meeting places to promote THE BIKER GUIDE® brand, name and ethos, given away many prizes, cards, stickers and booklets, ran adverts in BMF and Stormin' the Castle magazines, had an on-going marketing campaign on Google, have grown the large facebook page and groups to enforce the brand and community spirit and continue to trademark THE BIKER GUIDE® to secure our brand, name and ethos!
In the year we have spent lots of time promoting THE BIKER GUIDE to gain new visitors and keep the ones we have, so we continue to be 'the' website where so many from the Motorcycle community come to find information.
We value our clients and work hard to maintain and grow the visitors to the website and readers of the printed booklet.
On the website we have popular pages for the ever growing Meeting Places and What's On sections, many articles in the News sections for Ace Café, Ducati, IAM, Safety, Superbikes, TT, Tourism & Travel and of course news from us @ THE BIKER GUIDE®, increased the size and amounts of photographes included in the listings for Biker Friendly Accommodation, Campsites, Pubs and Touring, along with many other new sections and so our daily visitors have now grown to over 3,450 a day...
In a survey we found that 89% of our visitors use only www.thebikerguide.co.uk when looking for anything Motorcycle related, which is mainly due to the large amount of information included, which is regularly updated and relevant.
THE BIKER GUIDE® would especially like to thank our advertisers for trusting us to promote your business to the Motorcycle community, for your many lovely comments on our service and products and for your continued involvement with us @ THE BIKER GUIDE® on the website and within the 6th edition of printed booklet.
A Merry Christmas from the team (Rockin' out for your pleasure) @ THE BIKER GUIDE®
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