Great questions Peggy. There is a bit of an art to interpreting website statistics but in the big picture it comes down to one basic question "Do you have as many guests as you want to have?" If the answer is no, then you need more traffic, if the answer is yes, then you can sit back a bit.

Now I'm betting that concept is one you already understand Wink , so let me go a bit further. In order to make sense of website stats, we need to first straighten out the vocabulary.

Hits - Hits is often a misleading number because it usually represents the number of individual files viewed. This means that if someone views a page with 4 images on it, it will count as 5 hits (1 for each image, plus the page itself)

Visits - Usually means one of two things, either the number of times a page is viewed, or the number of times all pages have been visited. The point is, it can apply to just a page, or your entire site. Depending on where your stats are coming from, you may need to look closer to determine if it is the total number of pages or just one.

Visitors - Usually represents the number of people that viewed your page. Though if the person clicked around your site and happened to come back to the home page 3 times, it will count all three times. So these numbers are often inflated.

Unique visitors - This is the most meaningful count. It counts the number of people that visited your site without the inflated numbers if they happened to jump back and forth between pages.

Time frame - Statistics represent a certain period of time. When looking at actual numbers you have to keep in mind how many days months, weeks or years the count actually represents. I often suggest that innkeepers should reset their stat counters at least once a year, and if you are in a region that has an off season and an on season, innkeepers should reset the counters for each season so you can track progress.

Okay so with the vocabulary lesson out of the way...

"1249 people" would mean that you are talking about unique visitors (double check that it was the term used for the count) Its hard to say whether that is a good number or not. If it's for one day, its absolutely amazing. If its for a month it means 41 people a day, which is pretty respectable for an offseason or new b&b website. If it is for a year, it means a little over 3 people a day visit your site. This is way too small as you have 3 rooms a day to fill so it would mean you would need 100% of website visitors to make a reservation to keep your B&B filled.

Now comparing the number of people who went further into your site to see your rooms, that is meaningful without needing to know what timeframe the numbers are for. 490 people out of 1249 chose to look deeper. That tells me that 39% of the people that saw your home page were interested enough to look deeper. It also means 61% weren't interested enough so they left. If people aren't looking at your rooms, its a safe bet they aren't calling to make a reservation.

There is no magic number here. No site convinces 100% to go in. But you do want as high a number as possible. From my experience I generally consider a site healthy if more than 65% of the visitors to the home page decide to look deeper.

Listing with the directories you have mentioned are a good idea. Even if your site is built well, it will likely not do well in the search engines for nearly a year, so you may find you need to pay to be listed in more directories at first and then you can cut down on some of them as your site does better in the search endines. You may also find Payperclick advertizing with Google or Yahoo to be helpful since you are just getting started.

Your decisions on what to do depend on how popular your area is and how full you are compared to how full you need to be (is your inn a hobby or do you rely on it).

Hope this helps, I know its a lot to take in. Let me know if you have other questions or if I was fuzzy on any of this.
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Steve Wirt
Wine Country Cabins Bed and Breakfast in the Finger Lakes
and Inngenious Bed and Breakfast Website Promotion