Getting Better Web Site Statistics

December 8, 2006 | Leave a Comment

One of the most important things to do, after you get your site initially up and going, is to watch your web statistics.

You want to know which web pages are getting visitors, which sites are referring others to you, which search engines are referring people to your site, what search terms they used to find you, and a lot more.

There are some good statistics packages that most web hosts offer, including Awstats and Webalizer. Powweb, the hosting company that I use, installs Awstats for free.

Those are pretty good for high-level statistics for everyday sites. But, they don’t let you dig deeply enough into the statistics, at least the way the web hosting companies usually set them up.
But, if you’re using Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network pay-per-click ads on your site, you will want a lot more.

How about an easy view of multiple domains’ activity, multiple web pages activity, all the search keywords that people used to get to your site, how many Google or YPN ads they saw, and how many they clicked on!

Yeah, Google’s and Yahoo’s tracking systems will tell you that — if you want to spend that much time setting up all the specific tracking (and if you don’t have too many different URLs or “channels” you want to track.

Adsense Gold is the tool that I use multiple times a day to monitor my site. It’s a lot easier than going to Google and YPN, plus a lot more information. It has real-time updating, since it’s storing data in a MySQL database on your site and served from your site.

It’s the best tool I’ve found to tell me which of my pages are getting the visits — and how visitors are responding to the Google and YPN ads on the page. That way, I know where I need to focus my redesign, rewriting, etc. efforts.

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under Adsense, Advertising, Monetizing Your Site, PHP Scripting, Web Hosting, Yahoo Publisher Network 

Powweb Sale Continues

November 1, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Powweb, my web host of choice, offered a special during October — 25% off of their regular $7.77/month price for one- and two-year web-hosting purchases.

Their web site announced that the sale is back by popular demand. New users can purchase the One Plan for only $5.77/month for their initial 1-year or 2-year purchase.

I’m hosting 10 active domains — and some subdomains, too — in one Powweb package. The One Plan package allows unlimited domains to be hosted in an account. That’s a huge benefit at this small price.

The Powweb One Plan features 20GB space, 13GB/day throughput, PHP, Perl, MySQL, FrontPage Extensions, Blog software, forum software, shopping cart packages, photo galleries and a lot more, all for that one price.

I thought the deal was great at $93.24 per year ($7.77 per month), but at $69.24, it’s a fantastic deal — plus, they’ve got a 30-day money-back guarantee.

All my sites are hosted at Powweb

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under Apache Web Server, Blogs, CSS, HTML, PHP Scripting, Web Hosting 

Reflecting Images on Your Web Site

October 31, 2006 | Leave a Comment

I found a neat web script that was released via the CorePHP blog recently.
With the Easy PHP Reflections v1.0 script, we can make our web images have matching reflections below the image.

Sure, we can pull an image into our favorite graphics editor and create the reflection, but this utility does it for us.

One call to load the image, and another to load the image again via the reflect.php script. Of course, there are a bunch of parameters we can set, too, to make the reflection blend into our web pages. How cool can it get?

The reflect.php script requires PHP 4.3.2+ and the GD library, both of which are available to me at my webhost of choice — Powweb.

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under PHP Scripting, Visitor Experience, Web Hosting 

Powweb Sale - One More Day - Ends October 31

October 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment

My web host of choice — Powweb, which handles all my sites — has a super October Sale at $5.77/month instead of the usual $7.77/month.

The “One Package” (the only package) is a huge package of services: 20GB space; up to 13GB through-put per day (compare THAT to the competition!); webmail; POP3 email; SMTP (outbound) email; PHP scripting; Perl; FrontPage Extensions;wizards to install free blog software, forums, content management systems, photo galleries; and a lot more.

Get Powweb for $5.77/month with 1-year and 2-year hosting purchases.

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under Web Hosting 

Blog Software - Moving from Serendipity to WordPress

October 24, 2006 | Leave a Comment

I made up my mind. I like to tinker with the pages too much to use Serendipity as my blog software package.

Drawing on the Web has been a WordPress blog since the beginning. But, I have several other blogs running Serendipity. The “Smarty Templates” for all user-interaction displays may be neat from a developer perspective, but it is a royal pain for someone who wants to make a quick and easy tweak to their system.

I liked Serendipity and may continue one of my blogs in it. But, deciphering what’s happening is a real challenge.

So, I just moved the 300+ posts of my Terry’s Computer Tips blog into a new format in WordPress. Installation of WordPress was easy, but you have to download, unzip, add and then upload any additional plugins and templates you want to use.

Once you’ve got one blog, though, just copy the package to a different directory, tweak the config.ini file and upload to a new directory at your web host. Point your new domain or new sub-domain to the new directory. And, point your browser there…

You can read more about the changes to my Terry’s Computer Tips blog in that blog.

Drawing on the Web and my Terry’s Computer Tips blog are hosted in the same Powweb account that has all my other blogs and my Terry’s Computer Tips site. Powweb currently has a $5.77/month sale for 1- and 2-year hosting purchases — this sale expires October 31st.

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under Blogs, Usability, Visitor Experience, Web Hosting 

Why blog?

October 15, 2006 | Leave a Comment

There are a number of reasons that people create blogs.

They may want to share information. They may want to rant and rave in public. They may want to help others. They may like the ease of setting up blogs instead of more traditional web sites. They may use them as commercial tools to sell products. They may use them to make money from Adsense or some other pay-per-click advertising system. And, they may use blogs as a way of driving traffic to other web sites.

That last one is the most interesting at the moments. Bloggers, people who write blogs, often link to other blogs and to web site articles as a way to share information that they have located.

What happens when they do this? Their readers often visit the site to which they linked. That site, then, has an opportunity to share its information and to utiliitize its advertising and affiliate programs to make money.

And, search engines recognize and follow the links to the referred site! Not only that, the links usually go to focused information that otherwise is hidden deeply within the site — and, now, Google, Yahoo and the other search engines recognize and assign more value to that page.

So, what happens when you blog about your own sites?

Exactly the same things!

Start your blog today. I have a free WordPress blog at wordpress.com. I also have multiple WordPress blogs and Serendipity blogs in a single web hosting package at Powweb, who has a $5.77/month (25% off) October Special for new customers. Get a year’s web hosting for only $69.24.

Posted by Terry Stockdale | Filed Under Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, Blogs, Internet Marketing, Monetizing Your Site, SEO, Traffic & Linking, Web Hosting 

« Previous Page — Next Page »