The Web Strategies Podcast

I began updating the dozen or so websites I maintain for myself and my business and realized that along the way I had launched some new sites without following through with a few important steps.

We all want to know how many people are visiting our websites and we want to know that even if we are not on top of the search engines we have registered our websites properly. In this episode of the Web Strategies Podcast we take a look at installing Google Analytics and using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

I also talk about MindManager, software I use to keep my websites and workflow organized. The program is also a preview of my upcoming book “The Strategic Internet”. It does not have much content as of this posting, but if you would like to visit the companion website to the book click here.

 

Tom Walker is the return guest and we talk about a dynamic digital catalog project that creates PDF documents and images personalized to the user’s needs. This is a good illustration of how running a business has changed in the digital age.

We also discuss the ups and downs of tying together a line of business software or other third party application to your company website. What happens when some function on your web site is not doing what you think it should? How to cut though finger pointing and just get the darn thing fixed.

In our Extra section I show you the inside numbers for traffic to this companion website. Click here if you don’t see the Tags and Tags Extra.

To return to the podcast click here: WSP 06 Marrying Integrators

I use a program called Urchin, which is the same basic engine as Google Analytics. (Well – actually I admit I use both.) Google Analytics is free and Urchin comes with the server hosting service. They both do essentially the same thing; give you information about how many people are visiting your site and where they came from.

In the screen shot below you can see stats from launch to this posting.

This second snapshot shows traffic recorded in the current calendar month.

Thanks to your interest the number of folks visiting and downloading the program is rising steadily. On average the number of visitors per day continues to rise exponentially. Thank you!

On the Extra section of the Web Strategies Podcast show six I also talk about the difference between tags and tags. Last time we talked about add-ons, tools for your browser that make it easier to see Meta tag information. That would include Keywords, Descriptions, and Page Titles mostly.

You should also be aware that your customers and colleagues may use tags to define bookmarks for various web pages they use. Over time the number of useful pages has increased to the point that Web 2.0 developers saw and filled a need to easily categorize our interests and share them. That’s the “other” kind of tag – and is best demonstrated by the site we mentioned last week – del.icio.us .

You may have noticed it took a little extra time to get the Web Strategies Podcast show six edited and posted. We hope to be weekly, but as a friend put it recently – “sometimes life just gets in the way”! We appreciate your support. Please invite your friends and colleagues to review our podcast on iTunes – just type in “Web Strategies Podcast” and we should come right up. The more reviews – the higher we rank – the more people will subscribe. Thanks again for your interest!