• By now you have create a floor layout of your blog with the FREE BLOG Planning Form.
• You choose a host, ( I hope it was Bluehost)
• have painted the walls by choosing a theme,
• you hung up a sign letting folks know that an exciting thing is going to happen in this new home.
• You also called the Security Company and installed an alarm. The alarm for our WordPress.org Blog is Askismet
• And you called the phone company-Feedburner.

Now it is time to call the Cable Companies

For me the cable companies I am referring to are AWSTATS and Google Analytics. I call them the cable company because they SHOW YOU you know when, from where, how and how long folks are staying on your blog. I am not going into a discussion about the differences between the stats with AWSTATS vs Google Analytics. It is deep and different. I would suggest putting the phrase, What is the difference between AWSTATS and Google Analytics directly into Googles search.

But I will tell you quickly that AWSTATS are part of most hosting packages along with Webelizer. The latter is great for charts. But I prefer AWSTATS. Whereas, Google Analytics is part of the Google World. You can download a plugin to place it on your site or do it manually. They have excellent tutorials.

But bottom line is set your domain name to start getting this information before you bring your furniture into the house. Now, it is true that the host where your static website lived will keep generating stats for you. But when you disconnect from that host you don’t want to miss a beat. Remember the day you left so you can check the stats f rom that point.

Depending on how fast your moving company bring in your boxes and your family and friends arrange all your stuff your stats might be down for a short period of time.

For those of you are will be using Bluehost they have a video tutorial on their site telling you how to set up AWSTATS or Webelizer with your domain.

I am sure many of the other  hosts also have some kind of instruction. Was this clearer than mud?

What Do You Think The Last Step IN This Series Will Be?