Blogging Tools Week: StatCounter and Performancing
A stat counting tool is vital for any website, let alone a blog. For me, my stats have shown me how my blog has matured and aged over the few months I have been posting on it.
The best stat counter which I would freely recommend to any person out there is the one at www.statcounter.com. They are the world’s most popular stat counter and there reports are always spot on. There are a number of things which are important when it comes to viewing details on statcounter.
Pageviews: This tells you how many times your individual webpage has been loaded and has been viewed.
Unique Visitors: This shows how many visitors have come to your site, who have not previously visited before.
Returning Visitors: This shows how many visitors are coming back to your site, having visited it before.
However, as I am currently using a blog hosted by Blogger, I am not able to make full use of the functions on StatCounter. For example, I am unable to see where my visitors have come from. This is especially important, as I can link swap with any sites linking to one of my articles or posts. I can also check to see whether an article has been Dugg or added to del.ici.ous which is another tool which I will cover later on this week.
As a result, I found another Stat tool to compliment StatCounter called Performancing Metrics (www.performancing.com). Along with the normal visitor count and pag views, I am ble to record where my visitors are going to after visiting my page, and where they are arriving from.
Another brilliant tool which Performancing encorporates is an Adsense tracker. This shows you how many clicks you have had on your ads, and at what times of the day they have been clicked. I have often been notified of a click before it appears on Adsense, so this has also boosted my morale at some times!!!
I would thoroughly recommend that you use these 2 sites to track the state of your blog, and to see how it has developed over time. On the left is the first graph I have ever published for Blogtrepreneur that shows the exponential growth of Blogtrepreneur over the opening few months. Due to this growth I plan on expanding Blogtrepreneur!
Blogging Tools Week: Feedburner
Following on from my previous post on Technorati, I now want to cover the importance of using Feedburner for your blogging, and I feel the tools that this site offers are the most important in terms of bringing returning readers to your site.
Now, I will define the most important term first, as it can be quite tricky to understand:
RSS or Really Simple Syndication allows you to subscribe to the feed of a website, blog, or most media content sites. This means that when the website is updated, you are automatically sent the new content via email, without having to visit the site to check. What is more useful about RSS, is that you can subscribe to all the feeds you want, and then you can use a feedreading software like Bloglines to view all your feeds in one place, saving you time and increasing efficiency.
Where Feedburner comes in is quite simple. As a publisher of information, all I had to do was sign up, and then create my feed by typing in the name of my blog and its address, and by finally naming my feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Blogtrepreneur.
I was then able to publicize my new feed by adding a chicklet or button which you can see in my sidebar. To make things really easy for my readers, I put a completely free email subscription box at the top of my sidebar, so that readers can quickly subscribe to my content if they like what they see.
Now, every time I write a new post or article, Feedburner automatically detects the new post on my site, and emails it to my subscribers. I didn’t even have to pay for the service.
In a nutshell, Feedburner’s services have greatly improved my blog’s readership, and it is readership that helps to build a fantastic blogging community which will hopefully spread the Blogtrepreneur name.
Are you a naturally born blogger?
May 29, 2006 by Adam
Filed under Blogging, Personal Development
I’ve been reading a lot this week, mostly focusing on the world of entrepreneurship and business blogging, and in doing so has taken me from sites like Problogger and Entrepreneurs Journey, to many of the sites that I link to on my blog.
However, what has struck me the most, are their individual abilities to write fluently, without hesitation, and with motivation and passion about their topic. This has led me to ask the question, are some people naturally born bloggers?
Now, I feel there are many different qualities that a communicator posseses for example the ability to put ideas into text, but in my opinion, bloggers are set apart from this field:
- Firstly, Bloggers have determination and goals. It would be extremely easy to think that by looking at high - profile blogs, that money and fame can be made within a short space of time. The reality is very different. What we see now is the result of hard years at work, often without sleeping, socialising and doing activities. These genuine bloggers spend hours upon hours, writing new material for their sites, browsing through the blogosphere for new information and news, commenting on other blogs, responding to questions and maintaining their rhythm. Fortunately for them, the strenuous work has paid off for the bloggers, and rightly so. Anyone who strives for a goal and achieves it through hard work deserves full praise and acknowledgement in my opinion.
- Bloggers are organised. Although they might not say in public, many bloggers follow a specific rhythm or tempo that helps cary them through the working week. It is usual for bloggers to write posts a few days in advance, so that if they have mind blanks or an off day, they have backup posts to rely on, and to maintain the stream of new information. I have seen the opposite of this theory work for some bloggers, but I myself always like to plan posts days in advance, or at least think of what I would write, so that I never run out of things to talk about.
- Bloggers write eloquently whilst encapturing their audience. This is a must for any successful blogger-to-be. If you do not have sufficient writing skills, or the skill to entice readers into your topic, then finding regular readers will always be tricky. For me, the key to writing gripping posts is
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Blogging Tools Week: Technorati
A few days back when I was writing one of my posts, I suddenly noticed how many different tools I make use of so that my blog can run smoothly. In fact, all the tools I use are completely free, so I’ve decided to start the “Blogging Tools Week” so that all of my readers can benefit from these great tools, which can help to expand your blog and offer the best comfort for the reader.
And I promise, no affiliate links!The first tool that I’ll touch upon is Technorati. You’ve probably seen their logo on nearly all blogs, but don’t know what its about.
Technorati is the Google of the blogging world. The free service automatically tracks blogs every time they are changed or new posts are added. In addition, Technorati also keeps track of which other blogs are linking to you. This has proven to be very helpful to me, as I can discover whether people have been copying my articles, or simply whether people are being kind by doing a bit of link-loving.
By recording the amount of links you have to your blog from other sites, Technorati determines a rank for you. At the moment, my rank is 363,481, however I’m sure that this figure must be out of 10’s of millions of blogs who do not have as much link power as mine.Technorati also allows you to have a watchlist, a search on your favourite keywords or phrases, so that you can keep track of blogs who are talking about your similar interests.
Although I don’t really utilize all of Technorati’s search features, I still think that it helps me to keep track of the blogosphere and my progress.
Different ways to blog: Podcasting
You may have read more and more about the growth of podcasting today on the internet, however all that technology can seem a little complicating at times, so I will try and break some of it down so you can discover the benefits and disadvantages of podcasting.
Firstly, what is a podcast?
The name podcasting really comes from the Ipod, and focuses around your ability to listen to audio content on your mp3 player, not only on the Ipod. If you get a bit bored of writing content on your site, then there are many programs such as Audacity, which allow you to record your own show, save it as a .mp3 file, then upload it to your webpage so that people can download your show and listen to it on the move.Most high profile sites such as Engadget now have podcasting, so that readers do not always have to be connected to the internet to take advantage of valuable information. Programs such as iTunes also have pages where you can browse through many popular podcasts. In short, podcasting is becoming an alternative form of giving information to the final user.
So what are the advantages of using podcasting?
Well, as I mentioned, your readers or subscribers to your content can be on the move whilst listening to your show, and this can appeal to readers with short attention spans, or who simply prefer listening rather than reading.Podcasting can also be fun for you, giving you a break from the constant writing that you have to do to maintain a growing demand for instant information. Visitors to your site will also have a positive reaction to this new type of alternative blogging.
According to Aaron Brazell, podcasting is also great for interviews, as the listener can distinguish the change in speaker, and can really listen to what they are saying, and enjoy a fascinating debate.
Are there any disadvantages to podcasting?
Unfortunately, podcasting and ads do not go well together. Unless you can find a way of integrating spoken ads into your podcast itself, then you are likely to find that your revenue will be less than with textual articles, where readers can navigate away from your page, if an advert looks appealing to them. Whilst listening to a podcast, if a reader attempts to click on an ads, then in most cases the podcast will stop as well.Another problem is the amount of space a podcast can take up if you host the .mp3 file yourself. Although a few megabytes of space seems minimal, if you produce regular shows, then you may find that your diskspace and your bandwidth when people download the podcasts may get used up more quickly than with a textual article.
I hope this article has given all you Blogtrepreneurs an insight into different methods of blogging, and how adding podcasts to your site, may help a more diverse crowd of visitors come to your site. Please let me know if you have integrated a podcast into your site.
I myself will try podcasting once I have moved to a hosting plan which is only a few weeks away now. Please feel free to donate to help the Blogtrepreneur cause, and so I can continue to provide you with quality information about the business blogging world.
