• How many visitors you get to your site each day?
• What pages they visit?
• What keywords they use to find your site?
• How long they spend on Your site?
• What country they come from?

Many new website owners don’t know any of the above because they aren’t using tracking software. Usually because they are unaware that it actually exists.

However having access to this type of information is important as it gives you a good understanding of how well your site is performing.

The good news is that getting it is easy and simply involves adding a small script to your web pages.

If you are using WordPress then the new ALL in One SEO plugin will do it for you. If you have a html/php template site then you will need to add it manually.

The script is free and provided by Google as part of the Google Analytics service. All you need to sign up for this service is a free Google account.

Here is a video I created some time ago showing how to set up analystics on your site.

For WordPress users then the latest ALL in one SEO plugin lets you add it there simply by adding the profile id. Here is a screenshot.

Google have a you tube channel on analytics here

What most people then do is to use the web browser to remember this login so that the next time they don’t have to retype the username/password.

Although this works very well it happens from time to time that the browser forgets or maybe you start using a new computer and therefore need to retype it.

So the first thing you need to do is to make a note of your account login details.

When you login you can access the ftp settings. You may need ftp to transfer files to the hosting space and so you should make a note of the ftp details, including:

• ftp address (url)
• username
• password

If you have installed WordPress then you will need to make a note of the admin password. Also don’t forget to change it to something that you can easily remember.

If you have just read the above and don’t know any of those details then you should find them out now as you never know when you might need them.

In addition most providers communicate via email only, and so the email address you used when you signed up is very important so make sure that you still have access to it.

Resources:

• Hosting 1and1
• Hosting Bluehost

Here is a video demonstration of adding a shopping cart using paypal

You can find more detail in How to Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website

Watch on Youtube Please don’t forget to leave a comment

Any Questions just ask!

• How Difficult is it to Build a Website?
• How Much Does a Website Costs

Although there are many more options than there were 10 years ago and it has gotten generally easier the amount of choice leads to confusion.

However one option which is used by millions of websites and blogs both large and small is to use WordPress as the site building platform.

By doing so you can get a professional looking site up and running with hours. Of course like all website building tools using WordPress does require that you take time to learn how it works.

I have a course over at my WordPress building site that will help and there are many others available on the web.

If you build the site yourself then you can do it for less than $100 per year. Which is roughly the cost of hosting and a domain name.

You can also use an outsourcing approach and do certain things yourself and for others you hire a professional.

I offer a setup service that takes the hassle out of the initial preparation, and lets you concentrate instead on the site content.

If you use a web designer then you can pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand depending on your requirements, and the designer.

If you are thinking about getting a designer make sure you are aware of exactly what he will do for you, don’t assume!

Answer- Go for WordPress on a host in your country if possible See website hosting for my recommendations but any host that supports php and mysql should be ok.

You may also want to look at my other site on How to build website with WordPress to get you started.

With WordPress you will not need detailed knowledge of coding as it is taken care of by WordPress making it the ideal tool for no techies.

You can also expand the functionality with free plugins so you can have banner ads,polls and lots of other advanced features all without having to write any code.

Answer- Normally when you click a link on a web page the page you are currently reading is replaced by the new page.

If the visitor wants to return to the original page he has to use the browser back button. This type of linking is standard for internal links (links on the same site).

When linking to other web sites it is common to open the new page in a different window. The visitor then has two pages open, the original and the new page.

To do this you use the target attribute of the anchor tag. Here is a  link that opens in another window.

You should notice that the anchor attribute is modified by the target=”_blank” property which causes the web page to open a new window.

A modification of this is to open a named target.

This link will open a new window called data. Here is the HTML, notice the use of the target attribute.

Although you probably wont notice a difference there is one.
If you repeatedly click the second example it will constantly refresh the same window.

However in the first example, clicking the link 10 times will open 10 new windows.

Here is ascreenshot of the link dialogue box in Dreaweaver. In the window where you see Target either use the scroll bar to select blank of enter a window name if you are using named windows.

References:

Website Links

Answer- Even though most sites will have JavaScripts on their pages there is no need to learn how to program JavaScript.

Most sites will include JavaScript tracking scripts for web analytics but these are provided by Google (usually).

What will will need to understand how do is to add JavaScript to your pages and this requires a basic knowledge of HTML, as you will be editing the page in source mode.

Useful Resources:

• Starting HTML
• Starting JavaScript

Answer -Many ( not all) hosting packages support multiple domain name hosting on a single hosting package/account.

Some support unlimited domain name hosting and other restrict the number of domain names you can host on the package.

If it isn’t clearly stated in the hosting features then you have to assume that you can only host a single domain name.

Bluehost and 1and1 support unlimited domain names and is clearly stated in the package features (see screenshots below).

Anhosting limits you to 20 ( more than enough) and is also clearly stated.

Blue Host

1&1-UK

Anhosting

Who needs it and how it is implemented is discussed in more detail in The Multiple Domain and Website Hosting article on the main site.

I’m a little unsure what the difference is between constructing a site with WordPress, Trellian, or something like Joomla. I don’t think I’ve come across a page on your site that explains the difference or why one would choose one over the other or even on what basis one would make that choice. I have a domain hosted at Blue Host now, and WordPress and Joomla are available there, but I’m unsure even how to make a decision. Any thoughts?

This is a very good question and not really easy to give a straight answer.

Both WordPress and Joomla are Content management systems but they were designed for a different end user.

WordPress was designed as a blog that could easily be managed and updated by a non technical content writer (author).

Joomla was designed as a website but to be maitained and administered by a technical webmaster.

Joomla is therefore mainly used by professional webmasters managing  large sites.

WordPress is used by professional webmasters and novices for small to medium sized sites.

If you want an easy to update and maintain website then WordPress is by far the best solution.

References/resources:

• Building a website with WordPress
• Content management Systems

Hope that helps

Regards

Steve