Check Your Blog Stats Like Your ATM Balance Pt 2

This entry is part [part not set] of 1 in the series Check Your Stats Monthly

We really should check our blog stats like we check our ATM balances. Since I participated in the Blog Challenge for this month I thought it would be good to share some of the stats from my host. As you know, yesterday I shared how the stats look on one of myWordpress.com sites. But tonight venture with me for a quick , I mean really quick look at some stats on this WordPress.org site hosted by Bluehost.

Now, I am not going to share ALL  of the categories but the few I do share can tell me where I need to improve. Of course after you stop looking I will be looking at all the stats.

Direct address/Bookmark?link in email?Links from an Internet Search Engine

search engine activity

What Search Engines are connecting to this site?

My revelations and future actions

Yes, it is true that most of my action came from Google. But some action also came form 9 different search engines. Two folks used a Social Bookmark! In this case I was Stumbledupon. Actually someone contacted me on Facebook to let me know they Stumbled me. MY ACTIONS? I am going to get busier in those bookmarking sites!!!

Finks from an external page(other web sites except search engines)

external links

external links

My revelations and future actions

I noticed that there is one site that I joined that serves the highest number of links. Here is a little more about them

Tamazu is a categorized collection of blogs. This site is split up into niches so you can find your need in a click! Tamazu has many types of blogs, and we accept blogs in all languages, so don’t miss all last news of the world. For each niche we have top list. Come see Blogger services blogs and discuss!

This site allows you 2 blog submissions per day. But you must do reciprocal linking.

The next highest is Twitter. This is the place that all the BLOG CHALLENGE folks had to hang out to tweet their posts. Now, I am going to sneak over to the month of May to see how it was different. Ha it was only 5 and Stumbleupon was higher at 6 so my action is to keep hanging out in Twitter and submit my sites to more directories.

Finally I will share a f ew of the top posts for this month. Or rather those with the most views. Are you ready?

post with highest views

post with highest views

My revelations and future actions

The post, 10 Top Reasons Why Baby Boomers Should NOT Use Social Bookmarking had the highest views as of the 29th of this month with 360. My decison?

Do more posts with Numbers in the title.

Ok, that is enough for tonight.  This baby boomer must get rest and be up early to walk and prepare for a workshop plus attend a meeting. I hope this motivates you to check out your stats and make some decisons. Of course there is much more so take your time. Have fun!

Check Your Blog Stats Like Your ATM Balance Pt. 1

This entry is part [part not set] of 1 in the series Check Your Stats Monthly

Whenever I check my ATM card balance I find out several things that form my spending behavior. Well the same thing happens with our blog stats. As many of you the blog stats available to you on your host  can tell you a lot about your current and future blogging activity.

What If You Are Using Blogger or WordPress.com?

Well, I currently use both Blogger and WordPress.com for my FREE hosted blogging. I have never used a service to track statistics on Blogger but I found a service that does it free.

But wait! Did you know that Google owns both Blogger and Google Analytics? Well, they would not leave their blog site without a statistical interface for too long. Here is a tutorial for adding Google Analytics(Which I also use for this self-hosted site) to your Blogger blog.

WordPress.com has a built in blog statistical interface. It is quite good. It will also tell you the posts that get the most attention. Check out the stats on one of my recently neglected sites.This is what you will see directly on your Dashboard on a WordPress.com site. It shows the top posts for the week and also the most active. If you place your cursor on the graph it will show the number of posts for a given day. Since I have not been as active for a few moons there is not a lot of activity. But that will change..

wordpress.com stats for http://www.rosiesblogclass.com

Rosiesblogclass.com stats on WordPress.com

Continue reading

7 Things to do Before You MOVE Your Website to Your New Blog Home-Part 6

This entry is part [part not set] of 6 in the series 7 Things to do Before You Move to Blog Home
  • 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?

Google Analytics vs AWStats

Not to long ago I posted about a site that gave a great explanation for why my AWStats were different from my Google Analytics.

Well I do not know what happened but either boomer me left out the link or pixel thiefs stole it. (Just kidding)

But please see the post again with the link this time. Hope it helps you like it helped me. See the post corrected post on the two statistical packages AWStats and Google Analytics

And let this be a lesson for you also, always check your links. Also, sometimes when watching TV review some of the posts in your site to be sure embedded codes are still in bed and links are working. Thanks Rita for letting me know.

Why Do My Google Analytics Look Different Than My AWstats Report From My Host?

My stats from Awstats look so different from my stats on Google Analytics. I keep scratching my head trying to figure it out. Did it mean that one of them, hopefully the one with the lower numbers, was wrong?

Actually my research led me to several sites.  But I found one that seemed to be much clearer than mud. This baby boomer actually understood it! Ha!

Anyway, for all of you that have placed Google Analytics on your site please read this excellent article explaining the difference in the statistical reports. The site is designed for beginners and those with one step into the intermediate range.  Here is a short description about the author who seems to know what he is talking about. Well, he sure knows more than me.

Edward Lansink has been active in web marketing and web analytics since 2005, working with an international software development company and providing consultancy services to a few online retailers who have grown to understand the increasing importance of optimization of their websites and marketing spend.

So thank you so much Mr. Lansink for your excellent explanation about Google Analytics vs AWstats. Now, I understand. You made this baby boomer happy.

Google Page Rank, Alexa and Textlink Ads Communication Error

Recently I sent an email to a fellow boomer blogger and raved about their Google Page Rank, Alexa rank and suggested using Textlink Ads. I got an email back saying thanks but it was all gooogly gook.

Shame  on me, Ms. Communication Expert, Trainer, Presentation skills expert and baby boomer to do something so stupid.

So,  to all my readers I now ask for your forgiveness when I have just threw out terms without defining them.

So, I would like to begin by defining the terms Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank and TextLink Ads. I promise to make this painless.

Google Page Rank:

Google gives a numeric value from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet. This rank tells you how important Google thinks your site is to them. This numeric value is complicated and you math genius should explore this in more depth.
Now, I have downloaded a free page rank tool and placed it on my tool bar. Hence, whenever I am at a site I can see what rank it has according to Google. If you want to place one on your tool bar you can by just putting the term “Google Page Rank Toolbar” into ____(You are correct, place it into Google.)
If you don’t want to put the tool bar on your site there are sites that will allow you to key in the url and get the page rank for any site.

Alexa Rank

 According to Wikipedia, Alexa ranks sites based on tracking information of users of its Alexa Toolbar for Internet Explorer and from integrated sidebars in Mozilla and Netscape.

They went through a complete overhaul in March of this year(2009) and added some really cool features. For example,  you can go do a review of a site and then post it directly on your Facebook page.  Go give it a try while you see what rank they have given your site.

With Alexa you want the lowest rank you can get. But, note that they have big time competitors. There are other companies that rank your site also like  Adgooroo-really great if your are a search marketer doing serious affiliate marketing, plus more.

 Compete.com-visit and key in  at least 2 other sites to compare with your competition.

 ComScore-Another awesome site for serious search marketers plus more

 Hitwise-All I can say is take the tour!

 Netcraft-Ok I confess I enjoyed keying in sites to see what host they were using. But there is a great about of information on this site and tools you can use.

You can start by visiting each site and learning from their blogs.

Finally, there is Textlinkads. I have their ads on two of my blogs and make money from them. That makes me one of their publishers.

Who are they? Well this is from their About page.

Located in New York City, Text Link Ads is the premier targeted traffic and link popularity ad firm. We specialize in placing static html links on high quality, high traffic web properties. Our clients have seen a dramatic increase in targeted traffic, brand exposure, and organic search engine rankings with our service. We currently work with a wide range of clients from Fortune 500 firms to individual website owners.

I have had a good working relationship with them and they make their payouts to my PayPal account every month.

You can click on the graphic below if you want to get started for yourself.  Was this clear, what did I miss?

Blogging Shortcut-Use ScribeFire

ScribeFire was downloaded a while ago to my browser. However, today I downloaded the update and wanted to share with you what they have to say about their service. It is listed below. Remember, you need to download FireFox. It is not a bad idea to have two browsers on your computer. When one acts silly you always have a backup. Of course Internet Explorer is the basic “must have”. When you check your statistics you will find that most folks visiting your blog use Internet Explorer.

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

Blogging Can Be Lonely

Blogging can be a lonely time when you slow down your blogging. Your stats will drop, your comments get reduced, and it feels like you never ever blogged. There is a silence that is deafening and you re-evaluate your purpose for blogging in the first place.

Only when you re-connect to your reasons for blogging then you are motivated to pick up the blogging mouse and start again. How do you handle the lonely feelings when the activity dies down and the search engine spiders don’t visit as much?

Help! I’m Blogging But I Can’t Get My Stats Up

Blogging but having a hard time getting your traffic stats to be over 30 visits a day? What’s the problem?

I know for a fact that using good keywords in your title and your post is really important. I also get good traffic when I am consistent with my posting.But there are other things that can be done. Please, this post is for the experienced blogger out there.

Please share what is working for you.

Social Networking Sites-Use Socialmeter To See How You Rate

Social Networking is hot in the blog world. For baby boomers this means that if you want to share this network you might want to check out where you are in the world of social networking. But STOP, WHAT IS A SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE?

I like defining social networking as a way to network online vs offline. Social networking sites create groups that share common interests or affiliations, upload videos, and hold discussions in forums. PLUS MORE!

There are about 500 social networking sites out there. But not all of them are popular. I read about a really cool site for you to check out that will give you some idea of how activity you already have in some of these sites and not even know it.

Social Meter checks some of the more popular social bookmarking sites to see how many links are pointing to your site.
SocialMeter is a quick, easy and visual way to determine how much (or little) impact your site is making through various networking sites. I strongly suggest visiting each site that has links to track down where they may be coming from. And for the sites that do not have any action, Well get some action on those sites if your are interested.
Note that if you just posted some pages a lot depends on how quickly the sites may add new sites to their databases.

So have fun and let me know what you find out.

Rosie