Dominic Foster

Performancing Metrics

I’m now using Performancing Metrics for this blogs stats.

When I first read about Performancing Metrics, I was not convinced that it would be of any value to me. However, I managed to brush aside this initial assumption and actually had a look at what it offered.

The first thing that I liked was it’s no-fuss interface. A very pleasant Web2.0 style look to it, with simple navigation and easy to read graphs.

Next, it is really simple to install. Using the easy interface, you add your blog and then copy and paste the code it spits out into the the selected blogs footer. A logo is optional and you can copy and paste this code too.

Now I can check all my blogs stats from one central location using a simple tool.

And finaly, you get all this for free!

From now on I’m going to make the effort to look into the recommendations that are made on websites that I regularly read and respect. I wouldn’t want to miss something like this again.

Technorati Tags: performancing, performancing+metrics, stats

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Website Marketing with WP-Noteable Plugin

Today I wrote about Public Relations (PR) For Your Website as part of my Blog Boost effort as part of my activity with LinkedIn Bloggers for a blog called Conversation Blog by Philippe Borremans.

If you go off and read the post mentioned above, you will notice that points 4 and 5 discuss the use of News Content Sites and Social Bookmarking sites as a way of marketing and promoting your website.

Now, if you look at the end of this post, you will notice there are a number of buttons which link this post (or which ever you are reading here at Accidental Entrepreneur) with a number of these types of websites - and I won’t be shy in coming forward and explaining that the reason they are there is hoping that there is a statistical possibility that some of my readers will click on these buttons to bookmark posts that they like or even submit them to news websites. This in turn will influence readers of these peoples bookmarks or new submission into visiting my blog and becoming a subscriber.

The buttons themselves are placed there courtesy of the brilliant WP-Noteable Plugin by Cal Evans. This plugin comes with all the images and has full configuration via a settings page int the options tab of Wordpress.

Up until now, I had only bookmarked a couple of my posts at deli.cio.us, but they are good for at least 2-3 visits a day, which even though a small number, shows that bigger things are possible.

So this got me to paying some closer attention to each of the buttons that appeared for the Public Relations (PR) For Your Website post and I thought I would document my findings for anyone who like me (until today) are relatively clueless about these opportunities.

- deli.cio.us - Possibly the most popular social bookmarking website there is. Register as a user and add links to web pages you like (your own for instance). Tag these links so that you can see what other people are linking to in the same category - and visit the pages that they like. Each link shows how many people link to that page and popular pages can get onto the front page and get loads of visits.

-Digg - Register as a user and submit web pages that you find interesting. Other Digg users vote on the stories and popular strories will make the front page. If you are lucky, your website makes the front page and you get heaps of visits. Then, if you are unlucky, your websites server shitakes itself from visitor overload and crashes and your webhosting company threaten to shut your site down for hogging bandwidth, CPU time, ect.

- Spurl - Social bookmarking webiste. Sign up and post your bookmarks. The front page has popular and most recent bookmarks as well as ‘what was bookmarked a year ago’ section.

- Wists - Looks like you need to create a login for this one. Has facilities to view latest and most populat items as well as links to yourself.

- Simpy - Another social bookmarking site. Looks like it has a lot of features apart from the usual bookmark-tag-share. Has sections with new users, most active users, recent posts, most popular posts. Also has and API so you can build spiffy integrations with your websie.

- Newsvine - A news content site where you can ’seed’ a news story. News appears on the front page in all sorts of categories from world to sports to entertainment to odd news. Once news is ’seeded’ readers vote on the story and this determines its importance and thus its order on the list of news. Like digg, it your website gets to the front page, expect lots of visitors.

- Blinklist - Social bookmarking site with the usual suspects - bookmark-tag-share. The front page lists popular tags, recent bookmarks and hot bookmarks.

- Furl - A popular social bookmarking website that provides a personal archive of 5MB to store snapshots of pages that you bookmark. Also has a Firefox pluging.

- reddit - A news submission and voting type website. Submit stories and vote on stories to send them to the front page. Appears to be a little more light hearted than Digg and Newsvine. They say you can submit your own stories, which from what I’ve gathered, is frowned upon by Digg and Newsvine and their respective users.

-Fark - A funny news website that lists oddities and funny stuff. News stories are posted and users comment on them.

- Blogmarks - Social bookmarking site - bookmark-tag-share theme.

- MyWeb2 - Yahoo’s offering in the social bookmarking sphere. Much like the rest.

- Smarking - More social bookmarking.

I can see that the descriptions of the social bookmarking sites appear to get rather terse towards the end. Please don’t take this that I think they are no good. It’s just that I could not think of anything new to say about them that I had not said about the ones closer to the top. It’s probably a good idea to visit them for yourself and discover each ones unique features.

As and experiment I submitted my Public Relations (PR) For Your Website post to each of the above to see how it affected my traffic.

However I didn’t submit to Digg of Newsvine for fear of backlash from their users for submitting my own content. However, in the interests of experimentation, feel free to submit them yourselves.

I’ll report back in a week or two with results.

Technorati Tags: social+bookmarking, news, marketing, del.icio.us, delicious, digg, spurl, wists, simpy, newsvine, blinklist, furl, reddit, fark, blogmarks, myweb2, smarking

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Web Stats

I downloaded my Web Stats for the weekend today and had a pleasant surprise. The total number of Visitors was 319. Quite a nice birthday present.

My previous daily visitor record is 185.

How did this happen? I’m not sure exactly, but here is my analysis of my Web Stats for 14th of August.

22% of my vistitors were referred by another Web Page. The rest were repeat visitors.

Of this 22%, about 92% came from ProBlogger.

So then, it’s off to see what Web Pages people are clicking through from ProBlogger.

Of all the visitors from ProBlogger - 43% came from its Sunday landing page, and 49% from the post titled 31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 14.

So I clicked on the above link - and there is a short post which mentions my The Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging post which I lashed together on Friday.

And there, I believe, is proof that commenting on other Blogs can increase the traffic to your own Blog.

Also, believe it or not, I am writing this post on the fly. I was actually half way through before seeing that Day 14 post by Darren Rowse. I thought I had a real mystery on my hands to try and find out the spike in my visitor numbers. I guess it goes to show that you should pay attention to your Web Stats.

And on that note, I have also noticed some interesting Search Queries from people arriving from Google and MSN - which have given me topics to Blog about to increase traffic - now that I know what some people are looking for.

Finaly, since I believe that one good turn deserves another - I am going to ask you all to go and have a look at Yuna’s Village which is written by Christine Zheng - mostly because of the encouraging comment at ProBlogger about my Purpose of Blogging post - but also because the most recent post at this time of writing - Secrets Are Out – Webmaster Revealing Blog Readers’ Behavior is about Web Stats - and it is funny.

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The Bootstrappers Bible

You may be mistaken for thinking that it is Seth Godin Day here today. (Errr… could that be a Meme?)

Well with two of my most recent posts mentioning him - I remembered that I had a copy of The Bootstrappers Bible if PDF format which I got from Changethis.com several months ago. This prompted me to take a quick squiz at it again - and I realized that a lot of the information within its pages is very relevant to the flailing Blogger when he/she/it is in start mode.

This format of The Bootstrappers Bible is actually a ChangeThis.com manifesto, but is based on Seth’s book The Bootstrappers Bible which was written several years ago.

Within it, Seth describes what the Bootstrapper is and what they have going for them. At the begining is the Bootstrappers Manifesto - which Seth says should be taped somewhere conspicuous and read loudly before you go to bed each night - here is a quote from it which I really like -

I am a bootstrapper. I have initiative and insight and guts, but not much money. I will succeed because my efforts and my focus will defeat bigger and better-funded competitors. I am fearless. I keep my focus on growing the business - not on politics, career advancement, or other wasteful distractions.

Does this sound like you - or many of the people who write the Blogs that you read?

Section 1 could be the most poignant to the Boostrapping Blogger. It is titled The Joy of Small and expands on the Bootstrappers Manifesto with some true story examples of Bootstrappers - and then a list of reasons that the big companies succeed in the market - and how being small can be a big advantage, such as Having Nothing to Lose, Rapid R&D and Being the Underdog.

In the following 3 sections, Seth goes on the explain some of the tricks to make you Bootstrapping Venture a success - And then Doing the Math to keep you on track - Here mentioning Multiple Income Sources to see you through leaner times. Finaly, Seth mentions some aspects which you should understand once you are up and running and need to keep going - Among them - the importance of Being Mentored.

Anyhow. Thats enough of me carrying on about how good The Bootstrappers Bible is. Go and read it yourself.

If you are having trouble finding it on the web, then Contact Me and I’ll email you a copy.

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Color Wheel Pro

During my 31 Days to a Better Blog Project, I want to look at a few different tools which will hopefully help to make my Blogging better.

I believe there are several ways to make a web site appealing to visitors - Among these ways are - Fresh and Topical Content, Intuative Useability (Good User Interface) and an Appealing Design.

Today I’ve been thinking about the Design of my Web Site. I’m pleased with the Wordpress Template I’m using - It is called Safety and was designed by a guy called Josh Lyman - with a few extra mods by myself which you can read about here.

There are several ways you could go about having a web site designed.

• You could pass the whole project over to a professional designer (along with a fair wedge of hard earned cash).
• You could use a Content Management System (such as Wordpress, Mambo, Drupal or many others - some of which you have to pay for). Doing it this way, you can use the default template, download one for free from some kind souls web site, or pay for one.
• You can do the whole thing yourself for free!

My personal option was to use Wordpress. DreamHost (my Web Hosting Provider) has a nifty One-Click-Install for this - They also have Triple Bandwidth and Disk Space special at the moment - which finishes on the 29th August! - I then tried a few different themes and settled on Safety. The main reason - apart from generally liking the theme - was because I wanted a 3 column layout.

Now, allthough I like the theme very much there are a number of modifications I’d like to make - such as adjusting the layout a little and also creating a logo for the header.

But the modification that has been on my mind today is an overhaul of the Color Scheme - And the really worrying thing about this is that I have an absolutely Shocking sense of Color Co-ordination

Luckily I have found a tool on the web which I am going to trial - and which will hopefully help me out. It’s called - Color Wheel Pro - a program that allows you to create color schemes and preview them on real examples.

I’ve pretty busy with it so far. What do you think of this for a Color Scheme darlings??

P.S. I didn’t use Color Wheel Pro to create that!

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