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Monday, March 31, 2008
Message Board for Your Site
Mea Culpa, mea culpa (just checking out your knowledge of the Latin phrase:
"my fault," "my fault" or should I update myself to 2008 with "my bad"?) Either way, I failed miserably in following
my previous advise on blogging. It isn't quite all my fault, it's the shipping department (me) and
the accounting department (me) and the web content department (yes, me yet again). Oh, then I guess it would
be my fault, but it's just plain busy here at Windmill Works.
But on to the topic which was meant to be Fridays and which is now today's
- message boards. I've been searching for a really nice message board and guestbooks where my customers can see their
postings immediately. I did find Quick Topics at www.quicktopics.com and will try out their message board on the top of this page. I would prefer
a message board that was integral to the web site so visitors didn't have to click, but I like this message board because
it is a straight running text of messages without threads. The focus, I feel, in this type of message board
is simpler and more efficient.
(On a personal note, for my husband's recent birthday, I set up a page that he didn't know about and emailed
family and friends asking for them to place their favorite "Mike memory" on "Mike's Birthday Page." On his birthday,
I had him go to the page I had created and he saw comments from all of his five brothers and sisters, mom and dad, and other
family and friends. He was touched by stories he had long forgotten, and said he really cherished this birthday
present. If you never use QuickTopic for your web site, you might want to try it for a similar celebration).
All of the questions you may have regarding the Quicktopic message
board tool are answered in the Frequently Asked Question link at this url: http://www.quicktopic.com/faq.html. Once there are 5 or more messages summed across all the topics you've
created, unobtrusive text-only advertisments will appear on the left-hand side of your topic pages. You can get QuickTopic
with no advertisments by subscribing to QuickTopic Plus (a two year subscription for $15) or QuickTopic Pro. (a one year subscription for $39).
Well, I'm off to put up a QuickTopic Message Board for the biz blog so you can try this out yourself
and also give feedback for our blog.
Until next time...Happy Trails
Billie
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Intra- Versus and Inter- Web Statistics
It's exciting to get a web site up and see how many people are visiting you on
a daily basis. Many web hosts provide this INTER-web statistic for you along with other reports such as rankings of
your web site on the search engines, etc.
However, one of the most valuable tools of statistical analysis for web sites (especially those who
are attempting to sell a product) is the INTRA-web analysis. As opposed to "inter" meaning between, "intra" reporting
gives you a picture of what is happening within your site.
When we first started our web site in the 90's, we received the valuable intra-web reporting. We were
able to see, not only how many people were visiting us, but on which page they entered, the pages they visited after
the entry page (path of visits), the website they entered from, how long they stayed, any search engine they happened
to use to get to us, and so on.
As the years passed and our initial host was purchased by another company and another company after
that, our statistical reports seemed to come from new sources and became less useful and difficult to read. If that
is the situation you find yourself in at the moment, you may want to look a more thorough analytics program for
your website. However, we found that it's not all that easy to find intra-web statistical reporting companies even
in by searching with the popular search engines. Recently, however, we finally did find a web site that offers packages
for intra web site reporting at www.mycomputer.com. Their "Superstats Professional" program is $29.95 a month and their "Superstats Premium" program is $34.95 a
month. In the last month, for example, we were surprised to see from the analytics that this particular page
(the biz blog) tends to be an entry page for many of our visitors. (We're a little bit puzzled as to why that is,
but that knowledge is helping us to focus on the needs of audience.) I personally like the colored pie
charts and particularly appreciate seeing the entry pages our visitors come to and where they go from there. We
are merely a customer of mycomputer.com, but we appreciate their type of reporting so much, we wanted to pass that information
on to YOU!
Cheers,
Billie
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Jog Your Blog Inertia
and Earn $30,000 a DAY ??????????
I read a great article yesterday on AOL about blogging, and apparently there's a better way to go about what I am doing at the moment! In a nutshell,
it seems as if bloggers need to actually blog - as in, consistently.
Since there is very little I personally do consistently, this could be a problem for me, but if the remarkable Marlee
Matlin can dance without hearing the music, I can blog in spite of my proclivity for non-consistency. (Since
I am a former teacher of the deaf I have to add at this juncture that each and every student I have taught or for
whom I have interpreted throughout my career has inspired me in some way as Marlee Matlin is inspiring
viewers to "Dancing With the Stars").
But I digress - which seems to be another error of scatter-brained blogger types like myself - lack of focus. From
what I can glean from the article, "A $30,000 Per Month Blogger Shares His Secrets," having a theme or focus for your blog seems important. It appears to me as if blogs that actually
are successful in creating a buzz (let's call them buzz blogs and see if we start a new vocabulary trend)...have
something in common - they provide valuable information to the reader which is based on the writer's experience.
Therefore, I the valuable information I'm leaving with you today as a fellow blogger is this:
1. Don't do what I do. Instead, be consistent. Consistency breeds consistency. If you are consistent
in your writing, your fans will be consistent in their reading.
2. Be a source of information in your blog whether on life or business or love or dog training or shoe shopping. We
all take for granted the knowledge we possess, thinking other people already know what we know. That's not always
true. If one idea you put forth benefits only one other person, it's nevertheless exactly that -
one idea that has impacted another person!
3. Lastly,be yourself. Find your own voice and go with it. Build your blogging mountain and they will come.
Until tomorrow...(see the consistency thing kicking in?) cheers,
Billie
Unrelated Quote for the Day
...to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
Tennyson from Ulysses
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