Wordpress.org and plugin writers have created many statistical plugins for your blog over the years, but as skeltoak says, “However I found that even though something like Google Analytics provides an incredible depth of information, it can be overwhelming and doesn’t really highlight what’s most interesting to me as a writer. That’s why Automattic created its own stats system, to focus on just the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track and provide them in a clear and concise interface/”

The installation of the plugin is very straight forward. It follows the usual process of logging into your wordpress backend, and clicking through to the plugins page, and activating the plugin. This plugin requires an API Key, which you can get here. This is similar to the ever so popular anti-spam plugin, Akismet. The basic install guide, is shown below:

1. Upload stats.php to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. It will ask you to enter your WordPress.com API key, do so.
4. Sit back and wait a few minutes for your stats to come rolling in.

Once you have finished installing the plugin, it will start collecting statistical information immediately. This information will include things such as: pageviews, popular pages, popular posts, referal traffic, and an assortment of other useful bits and pieces. On top of this, the plugin will edit your DashBoard, allowing you to view your stats while logged in.

You can download the Wordpress stats plugin from this link, and if you require more information, you can click here.

This software is extremely useful if you are trying to monetize your blog, as it gives you a lovely breakdown on all the popular areas of your blog. Knowing what your visitors are interested in, and knowing where they came from, can only lead to success when deciding what kinds of adverts to place, and where to place them. Knowing your readers is invaluable ~ The Webtrepreneur.

ClickHeat is a visual heatmap of clicks on a HTML page, showing hot and cold click zones. What this means, basically, is that ClickHeat is software, which you install onto your website, it keeps track of where your users are clicking on your website. The software is really easy to install, and once installed, checking where your users are clicking is a click away. The visual heat map gives you a wonderful break down, and allows you to keep track of what your users are interested in. Knowing this allows you to focus on these areas and work in increasing popularity in other areas of the website, or if you are interested in monetizing your website, knowing where your users are clicking will help you with advert placement.

The requirements to run this software involve: Javascript, PHP and Graphic Library GD (PNG support needed). Most web servers cater for the php and library support, and javascript is client side, which involves your browser being able to handle javascript, which is usually not a problem, and will already be organised.

There are three main features, which Labsmedia mention:

- Low logging activity: a very few function calls to log a click, no server load rise should be noticed.
- A keyword is used to define the page upon Javascript code load, allowing you to group same pages.
- Screen sizes and browsers are logged, making possible the tracking of liquid CSS layouts (100% used width).

The labsmedia website has a useful section on performance and optimization, and a well put together Frequently Asked Questions section. Go take a read of these two sections to optimize your uses for ClickHeat. On top of these wonderful resources, a live demo is also available, which gives you a full breakdown on exactly what you are able to achieve with this wonderful addon for your website.

If you would like to download this software, simply click here. For information on installation and upgrading, you may click here.

I have been using ClickHeat for over a week now, and have found the results extremely interesting from many points of view. The software gives you more than just a breakdown of where users are clicking, if you take your time with your results, you can actually start understand human trends, which is the area I have actually found most interesting. Download the software, install it, and enjoy knowing your readers that much better.

Really Simple Syndication (RRS) is a useful (not quite crucial yet) format used by website authors on their websites to allow for Feed Syndication. This allows for an author to have his articles formatted in an universaly understood format. Most web authors these days are using packaged freeware, such as Wordpress, which sets up feed sydications automatically for their website. This saves a large amount of time and effort, and would be what I suggest you use.

Feedburner.com is a fantastic website, which controls your feeds, and should be used by authors. If you want to increase your reader loyalty, Feedburner is a service you should take a look at. Feedburner currently handles over 650,000 feeds, which shows that their services are very successful. The process is very easy, and does not take a long time to setup at all. Load the website in your browser, and you will notice a textbox in the middle of the screen, simply type in your RSS feed URL, and Feedburner, will take over and set up your feed for you. Once the process is complete, you will be given a URL, which links to your feed, and this is the link, which you will show on your website for people to sign up to your feed with. Feedburner also offers statistics for your feeds, as well as a control panel with a collection of useful tools, including subscribe buttons for your website.

Offering feeds from your website, allows people to subscribe to your feed, and receive the new articles the second they are published. With the use of software, a user can subscribe to your feed, and the article will appear in the software, without the user needing to check up on your website constantly. This will also prevent your readers from missing valuable articles. A good piece of software is Feed Demon, award winning RSS Reader. Feed Demon runs in your computers system tray, and checks for muliple feeds on a time based interval, which you may set. Feed Demon is what is known as an aggregator - An aggregator or news aggregator or feed reader is a client software that uses web feed to retrieve syndicated web content such as blogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites, or in the case of a search aggregator, a customized set of search results. You may download a trial copy of the software by clicking here.

These days, a website which handles articles, that does not have an RSS feed is missing out in a large number of possible new readers, as well as the loss of reader loyalty. Websites such as Afrigator and Amatomu use feeds to syndicate an websites content on their website, which for an author is free advertising, and well as free back links. I have also spoken about showing feeds on your website using some php code, you can view my article on displaying live feeds from other sites here.

You can read more about RSS Feeds by clicking here.

When it comes to deciding upon niches, keywords, and finding out where our website ranks on Google, we often aren’t really certain how to go about doing this, or where to do this. What often happens is we download fancy software, which ends up doing an extra twenty tasks on top of what we need, or the software just does not perform correctly. Through all my years of being online, enjoying programming and making money online, I always look for simple solutions to begin with. Jumping right into a complex situation normally does not work, and you end up wasting a lot of important time.

I spent the last hour or so putting together some code, admittedly, using a couple functions from other places for some of the more intense functions, which will help you check your Google keyword rank with ease. The tool is simple, and takes only a few seconds to get your results, so it’s right to the point with this one.

Webtrepreneur Google Keyword Rank Checker

Simply click on the link above, fill in your keyword, or keywords, and the domain you would like to check those words against, give the tool a few seconds and your results will appear. I have tested it a good number of times with different keywords and different domains, and the results seem to be fairly accurate.

Let me know how you like it, and if I get a good response, I will spend more time developing interesting little seo tools.

Enjoy.