Web/blog statistics make some people want to stick pins in their eyes, I know…but bear with me for just a minute, because you don’t have to love them to benefit greatly from paying just a little bit of attention to them.

The image above is a screenshot of the overview stats for one of my sites in Google Analytics. Now, I know that not everyone uses Google Analytics…and I’m not going to convince you one way or another. But I do use Google Analytics, so it’s what I have to share as an example. If you can’t stand GA, feel free to stop reading now.

Ok…here we go.

What is this telling me?

This graph shows the most basic of statistics for this site:

• How many visitors came to the site in this period?
• How many pages were viewed in this period?
• The average number of pages viewed by each visitor
• The bounce rate for the site, overall, for the period
• The average amount of time spent on the site by each visitor
• How many of the visitors were first-time visitors, rather than returning visitors?

The list above is rather self-explanatory, which the possible exception of ‘bounce rate’. So let’s talk about that for a minute.

What is ‘bounce rate’?
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page (i.e. the same page they landed on when they arrived.)

Which direction do I want these numbers to go – up or down?

• # of visitors: UP
• # of page views: UP
• page views/visit: UP
• bounce rate: DOWN
• average time spent: UP
• % first-time visits: depends on your objectives*

* A high percentage of first time visitors is normal for new sites…it’s actually what you want. As time goes on, you’ll likely want to concentrate on getting visitors to come back again and again, especially if you’re blogging, so this percentage will likely come down. This stat is best interpreted in relation to your goals and objectives, how long your site has been online, and in conjunction with other statistics

How can I use this information?

The obvious answer for this set of statistics is track your site’s growth and usage. That’s what these stats are all about. But you can go a little further than that…

For example, if your # of visits is growing (that’s the goal for most of us) and your % new visits is still high, but your bounce rate is also very high…that means you’re doing a good job of getting people to your site, but when they get there, they’re leaving as fast as they came. Now it’s time to concentrate on engaging the visitors you get and giving them reasons to stick around. You’ll know you’re getting this handled when your visits continues to grow, your page views grow, and your bounce rate decreases.

There’s a wealth of information awaiting you in your stats. It may take you some time to discern the clues hidden in the numbers, but it’s well worth the excavation!

Related posts:

1. Make Your WordPress Site/Blog More User-Friendly for SmartPhone Users
2. The Easy Way to Put YouTube Videos On Your WordPress Site or Blog
3. Worry About Your Site Being Hacked? Use WordPress File Monitor to Alert You to Changes at Your Site

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

Now, if that’s not incentive enough to upgrade, I don’t know what is! Have you upgraded yet?

Related posts:

1. Photo Dropper WordPress Plugin
2. WordPress 2.8 is Available! (and my list of plug-ins that don't like it)
3. WordPress 2.7 – I'm Lovin' It!

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

This month, we’ll explore security measures you can take to protect your WordPress website/blog from malicious attacks big and small.

According to Matt Mullenweg over at the WordPress Development blog, although there are many solutions available for WordPress security, “The only thing that I can promise will keep your blog secure today and in the future is upgrading.”

He continues:

WordPress is a community of hundreds of people that read the code every day, audit it, update it, and care enough about keeping your blog safe that we do things like release updates weeks apart from each other even though it makes us look bad, because updating is going to keep your blog safe from the bad guys. I’m not clairvoyant and I can’t predict what schemes spammers, hackers, crackers, and tricksters will come up with with in the future to harm your blog, but I do know for certain that as long as WordPress is around we’ll do everything in our power to make sure the software is safe. We’ve already made upgrading core and plugins a one-click procedure. If we find something broken, we’ll release a fix. Please upgrade, it’s the only way we can help each other.

I have two recommendations for you today:

1. Read the full article excerpted above. It won’t take long, it’s not uber-technical, and you’ll understand better why getting and staying upgraded is your first and best line of defense.
2. Upgrade today! (Instructions here.)

(WordPress.com users – you’re covered. You’re always upgraded.)

Related posts:

1. Get a Measure of Your WordPress Security Level with the WP Scan Tool
2. WordPress Summer Camp is Coming!
3. Self-Hosting Your WordPress Blog

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

I’ve been asked several times whether I’d be willing to re-open WordPress Summer Camp now that the craziness of summer has died down and the answer is: Yes!

All of the lessons are there, ready and waiting for you to go through – no pressure, no schedule, and I’m still monitoring the site for questions and comments. You’ll have access to camp until May 31st, 2010, so you’ve got lots of time to incorporate the tips and tricks you’ll learn.

I’ll keep the gates open until September 30th October 31st, so if you’re interested, go sign up.

Related posts:

1. WordPress Summer Camp is Coming!
2. Interview with Tom Volkar: WordPress Summer Camp 2009 Sneak Peek
3. Sales Pages in WordPress? Yes, You Can!

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

“I hope that all of your summer camp participants will listen, and I also hope that you won’t limit that interview just to that audience. That needs to be shared with everyone.”

I interviewed Tom Volkar, my coach and mentor, on the topic of his experience as a blogger. Tom’s blog, Delightful Work enjoys a loyal following and is a shining example of how to create community through blogging. Tom has – get this – a 20:1 comment per post ratio! In this interview, Tom shares:

• why, as a coach, he decided to start a blog
• the importance of authenticity and transparency in blogging to attract your ideal clients
• how blogging has helped his coaching practice
• how he created that awesome 20:1 comment per post ratio
• how he uses social networking in conjunction with blogging
• and his #1 tip for new bloggers just starting out

Camp Starts August 3rd – Early Bird Discount Ends Sunday, July 26th!

You can save yourself $50 PLUS get 30 minutes of one-on-one coaching or coding – whatever you need – if you register for WordPress Summer Camp before Sunday, July 26th! You’ll have access to all the content until May 31, 2010, so no worries if you’re going to be busy the first week of August. Register anyway and have 10 months to go through all the information you’ll learn inside the camp gates!

Related posts:

1. WordPress Summer Camp is Coming!
2. WordPress Summer Camp Re-opens!
3. New Sites – November 2009

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

If you want to cut to the chase and get a 33% discount, click:

Could you use a little help with your WordPress site or blog? You see, I know from my conversations with you and my clients that there are really two basic reasons you’re not getting the most out of your WordPress site or blog: Overwhelm and overwhelm.

1. Overwhelm when you log in and just kinda sit there and stare, wondering what to do…afraid you might do the wrong thing and break something.

AND

2. Overwhelm because you have a bazillion things to do in each of your 24 hours and while you might have a long list of things you’d like to do with your site or blog…they remain on your to-do list because you don’t know how to do them and don’t have the time to stop everything else and go hunt down the answer.

I feel for you, whichever camp you’re in (pun intended. LOL) So, one morning back in March…during my kids’ Spring Break, actually…(I planned to take the week off. Yeah, well…uhhh…that didn’t happen)…I was lamenting the approaching summer and how to keep Lexi (my daughter) entertained this year. I Googled summer camp in Tulsa for ideas on how to keep her occupied…and it hit me: Summer Camp! WordPress Summer Camp! Yeah! That’s what we need!

So that’s what we’ve got. Come to camp, join the fun, and “get your blog on!” Check out the activity schedule to see all we’ll be covering, and remember – you’ll have access to all this WAY after the week is over…like all the way ’til May 31, 2010 when I’ll be shutting it down to prepare for…yeah, you guessed it…WP Summer Camp 2010!

For less than $100, you get a truckload of WordPress training and 10 months to absorb and implement it.

Even the busiest of schedules can handle that…

PLUS – if you register before July 26th, you get 30-minutes of coaching or coding – whichever you need – at no extra charge!

Have questions? Contact me or leave a comment below.

See you at camp!

Related posts:

1. WordPress Summer Camp Re-opens!
2. Interview with Tom Volkar: WordPress Summer Camp 2009 Sneak Peek
3. Sales Pages in WordPress? Yes, You Can!

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

WordPress 2.8 Highlights

* Theme Browser and Installer
* Ability to add Custom Headers
* New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new Widgets API
* New ways to customize dashboard widgets
* Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors.
* Configurable Views on Management Pages.
* Faster Loading Admin Pages

Check out this great review, or the WordPress Codex (documentation).

Plug-ins That I Use that Don’t Like 2.8 (…yet)

When I upgraded to 2.8 and logged back in, my Dashboard was blown away. So, I deactivated all my plugins and checked it and it was fine again. That meant that one (or more) of my plug-ins was the culprit. So, I went through all my plug-ins (and you know I’m a plug-in addict, so it took awhile) and activated them one by one to see which one was blowing it up. Turns out there were more than one. Here’s my list:

Broken Link Checker – I’m going to miss this one for awhile…it’s pretty handy and shows me all the links I have on my site that don’t work. (I don’t knowingly put links on here that don’t work, but sometimes links break when what I’m linking to changes or moves. Like Feedburner…all the links I had on previous posts broke when Feedburner moved to Google, and this handy little plug-in lets me know when that happens.)

Traffic Getting SEO Plugin Free Version – finds the best SEO plugins available for wordpress and then optimizes their settings so you don’t have to. Saves you time and helps get you more traffic. This is a fairly new plugin from Jeff Johnson, so I’m not surprised it blows up with 2.8. I just hope Jeff gets on the stick and gets it playing nice again soon.

WP Ajax Edit Comments – this one I suspect you guys will miss more than I will, because as I can just hop into the dashboard to edit my typos, but hopefully it’ll be fixed soon, too.

WP Auto Tagger – this is a plugin that was recommended by the Traffic Getting plugin, so I haven’t been using it for very long.

XHTML Video Embed – Ok, this one makes my Dashboard blow up, but I haven’t seen any other problems on the site, so I’m tolerating the blown up Dashboard so that the videos I have on the site will work properly. If you guys notice any weirdness with the videos, please contact me, ok? Thanks.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. This is another favorite of mine, so it’s also another one that I hope gets fixed sooner than later.

I’ll be checking these frequently until I see that they’re working again and I can reactivate them. When I can, I’ll let you know, in case you use any of them, too.

Related posts:

1. How to Install New Plug-ins in WP 2.7
2. Give Extra Link Love by Using the CommentLuv Plug-in
3. WordPress 2.7 – I'm Lovin' It!

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

A friend introduces you to someone. First thing out of their mouth is, “Will you marry me?”

You walk in a new restaurant. The owner greets you with, “Would you like dinner delivered to your home every night?”

Crazy, right?

What would you think? You don’t know the person your friend introduced from Adam and you haven’t even had a chance to try the food at the new restaurant yet – so it’s pretty clear your answer to both would (at best) be, “I don’t know” but more likely, “No!” They both seem pretty desperate to be asking something like that upon your first encounter, don’t they?

And so it is with folks who use (or, in my opinion misuse) the What Would Seth Godin Do plug-in and other plugins like it.

Just this morning I clicked an interesting link in Twitter and was taken to a blog I’d never visited before. And what greeted me?

The Blog Post Title

by [blog owner name] on January 25, 2009 in [Category]

The blog post, itself…blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Come on, now…I haven’t even read your post yet and you’re asking me to subscribe?

Now, I’m going to give this person (and everyone else who does this) the benefit of the doubt and assume they were concentrating on things like the fact that these plug-ins really do increase your subscriber base, and having things “above the fold” gets them more attention, and so on. Those things are all true.

But none of it matters or is going to work if you appear desperate.

Just one little change will make everything all better: Have the plug-in put that message at the end of the post, not the beginning.

Then your visitors get a chance to read your post and decide if they want more. And it’s not ‘in their face’ upon arrival at your site. And you don’t look desperate, you look helpful.

Big difference.

P.S. The What Would Seth Godin Do plugin is a great plug-in with some really great features – despite the fact that it inserts the message at the top of the post or page. If you’re using this plug-in, you can differentiate between new visitors and returning visitors and display a different message for each. My suggestion would be to welcome the new visitors without mentioning subscribing to your feed. Just make them feel special and thank them for stopping by. Use a different plug-in to insert the subscribe message at the end of the post.

Related posts:

1. Give Extra Link Love by Using the CommentLuv Plug-in
2. NoFollow, DoFollow – Do You Know or Even Care?
3. How to Install New Plug-ins in WP 2.7

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

The feature I want to “show and tell” today is the ability to reply to comments from the admin dashboard!

I KNOW!

No more having to go to the public side of your site, find the post and comment like your visitors do. You can actually stay put in the admin dashboard, approve the comment (if it’s in moderation) and reply to the comment right there! (Click the picture to get a larger view so you can see what I’m talking about.) This feature is going to save us a lot of time!

If you’d like me to do your upgrade for you, just contact me. (I’m scheduling upgrades for Thursday now.)

Related posts:

1. Color Schemes for the 2.7 Dashboard
2. How To Remove Comments from Pages in WordPress
3. Link to Your Own Content Without Mucking Up Your Comments

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne

Features I Love

Configurable User Interface: You can arrange the the sections of every screen in the dashboard the way you want them. At first, that might not seem like a big deal, but it really is. If you don’t use things like custom fields, handmade excerpts or trackbacks – hide them and get them out of the way! Only fill your screen with the functions you use!

Plugin Settings Are Easy to Find Now: No more having to check ‘Manage’, ‘Settings’ and ‘Plugins’ to see where the settings for the plugin you just installed live. They’re pretty much all in the same place now (with just a few exceptions) and that place is ‘Settings’. Makes sense…finally.

Publishing Options Are Clearer: They’ve really done a great job making clear whether you’re saving a draft or publishing a post. The buttons you click indicate specifically what you’re doing. The ‘Save’ button (which used to mean save a draft if you hadn’t previously published, or save the edits if you had previously published) now says ‘Save Draft’ if you haven’t published yet, and ‘Update Post’ if you have.

New Plugins Can Be Added Without Using FTP: Adding plugins to your installation is a much more integrated process now. You don’t have to leave your dashboard at all. Just search for the one you want, click a button to download it from the plugin directory and save it on your computer. Then click another button to upload it to your site. One more click activates it and bam! You’ve just installed a new plugin!

Uploading Images is MUCH Easier: Until now, if I wanted to upload an image or other kind of media to my media gallery, I had to pretend I was writing or editing a post. There wasn’t a way to get to that upload functionality directly. Well, now there is. Yay! That’ll save me several clicks!

If you want to see more about what’s new and different about 2.7, here are 20 Must See Features.

Take a Test Drive!

You can play with the demo site to get an up-close and personal view of what all has changed and improved.

Preparing Your Blog/Site

Afraid your blog or site might blow up if you try to upgrade? I was, too, so this week, I downloaded Release Candidate 1 (the pre-release version of 2.7) and installed it on this site. I figured if 2.7 might blow something up if my clients upgrade, I better find out and be my own guinea pig so I can warn them.

As you can see, this site is alive and kickin’ and doing just fine. The only things that blew up when I upgraded were the plugins I was using to add functionality that is now a part of WordPress. That makes sense. All in all, I’m happy, happy, happy. (And no longer so jealous of WordPress.com users. I have just about what they have, now.)

So, if you’re wondering whether things will blow up for you, or not, first make sure you’re upgraded to version 2.6.5 (the latest one) and then check these resources for more information:

WordPress 2.7 Core Update Host Compatibility

WordPress 2.7 Theme Compatibility

WordPress 2.7 Plugin Compatibility

Note: These are lists published at the WordPress site, but they are neither exhaustive or definitive. Just what we know at this point. For example, there are literally hundreds of themes out there, but this list only shows those that have been tested on 2.7. If your theme is not on the list, don’t assume it’s not compatible just because it’s not on the list. It might not have been tested yet, that’s all.

Related posts:

1. WordPress 2.7 Feature: Reply to Comments from the Admin Dashboard
2. Why WordPress?
3. How To Remove Comments from Pages in WordPress

Published at Websites in WordPress - Websites you can manage yourself no matter how non-technical you are! by Suzanne