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.

Introducing newsATM - news at the moment, automatic teller machine.

NewsATM is a fantastic one stop shop for all your news across multiple news stations, neatly displayed on one website. With topics such as: World News, Technology, Sport, Business, Finance, Politics, Cooking, Health, Science, Entertainment and Travel, the chances of not finding what you are looking for is very slim. NewsATM has over 10 sources for the latest front page stories, meaning that you will not miss a single news item.

The beauty of the system, is that you no longer have to wait for large news websites to load, you simple choose your news category, sit back, and enjoy the headline news articles from a myriad of news stations right in front of you on one page.

Head on over to NewsATM and see for yourself - It’s a big time saver, and an excellent way to stay up to date with what is happening around the world.

When we deal with hyphens and unscores in domain names, we need to have an understanding of what Google does with these two characters. Without the knowledge, we will not be sure how to optimize our websites for search engines - which would prove to do detrimental. Google sees hyphens as dividers in domain names and in the content of a website. Underscores are ignored completely by Google.

In order to prove that hyphens are seen as dividers and that underscores are ignored by Google, a test is required. I spent some time searching online for an example, as I have not had a chance to run a test myself, and wanted to get this article out, after reading a comment by WizardMan.

The filename: wagatukepo-sitynozfau-mazidipole_vukertalet.php was created firstly, and a Google search was performed for these 4 keywords. Google yielded no results for these key words. The site was submitted to Google, and once indexed by Google, another set of searches was performed for these keys words. The results may be seen below:

Results: wagatukepo: 1 Google result sitynozfau: 1 Google result
mazidipole: No Google result vukertalet: No Google result
mazidipole_vukertalet: 1 Google result

With the above results, we can see that Google sees hyphens as dividers in URLs and ignores underscore. The second test required, is to test whether Google sees hyphens as dividers and that underscores are ignored in the content of a website. The second test yielded the following results:

Results: bozaketerp: 1 Google result boujulanbi: 1 Google result
vorismetapalu: No Google result terplamili: No Google result
vorismetapalu_terplamili: 1 google result

Once again we can see that, Google sees hyphens as dividers in the content and the underscores are ignored.

(more…)

Today I am going to show you a pretty decent way to make some extra cash, or to at least increase your website traffic.

Everyone has used a screensaver, and there are plenty of people who still do. A screen saver is not just a collection of pretty picture moving around on your screen, they actually do play a role in saving your screen! Screen savers are one of the easiest ways to attract people to your website. When a screen saver is made, you are able to put a footer message, for example, on the screen saver, perhaps saying, “Created by Webtrepreneur.co.za”.

Before we start making a screen saver, we need to things:

• Screensaver creation software
• Stock photographs

A program which I have used to create screensavers is called Saver Forge. It is freeware, and is downloadable here. The download is small, and the program installs in a few seconds, and allows you to create a screen saver in a few minutes. Stock photographs - A stock photograph is a photograph with no royalties, which basically means that the photographer took the photograph and has not claimed it as his own property, and is therefore legal to use and distribute how you wish. Finding websites which offer free stock photos is not a simple task, so I have included a few links below for you to start with:

• http://www.free-photographs.net/index.html
• http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
• http://freestockphotos.com/
• http://www.freeimages.co.uk/

There are actually plenty of resources online, which offer free stock photographs, you just need to spend some time googling for them. But for now, just take a look at the ones I have listed above.

I am not going to go into explaining how to create a screensaver with Saver Forge, as the process is extremely easy, and once you have installed it, I don’t think you will have any problems, of you do, leave me a comment here, and I will help you out. Below are two screen savers I made, which you may download and look at if you want an example:

• Ferrari Screensaver
• Audi Screensaver

Right, let’s talk a little more about monetizing these screen savers. This is where things will get a little more technical, but if you can take your time reading through this, I’m sure you will be able to follow.

There are a number of affiliate companies online, which pay for installations, one easy example, which most of us know by now is Google Toolbar. Each time someone clicks your referal link and installs the toolbar, Google pays you out a referal fee. What does this have to do with a screensaver? Well, read this next paragraph and hopefully feel inspired.

When you create a screensaver, you can compile it into an install file, which is effectively an .exe file. Most people know that an .exe file cannot be edited, even with some fancy software you will struggle. So, what we want to do, is rename this screensaver.exe file to perhaps images.db. Now we need to create something to link us between installing software and installing the screensaver, so what we are going to do is create a batch file. At this point we will have three files:

1. Images.db - the actual screensaver.exe file renamed
2. Tempfiles.db - this is actually an .exe file to install the google toolbar, for example.
3. Screensaver.bat - the linking file, which can be renamed to .exe as far as I know.

The batch file will contain commands to rename Images.db to screensaver.exe, and rename Tempfiles.db to googleinstall.exe and then run both of these programs at the same time. We will first execute the screensaver.exe file, which will ask the user if he/she would like to install the screensaver, and then it will run the googleinstall program, which will ask the user if he/she would like to install Google Toolbar. I’m sure that you can now put two and two together and successfully arrive at the beauty of this idea. You can get information on the various commands required for the batch file here or here.

Once you have created the three files above, you will need to zip them up together, and then distribute however you choose to do so. Perhaps on freeware websites, perhaps on your own website, or even via email to your friends. Beware of install programs which install spyware or adware, you don’t want people downloading your screensaver and finding out that they suddenly have spyware running on their computers, as this is just not fair!

Give it a bash, perhaps you will land up with some nice extra revenue, and if you use your mind here, I’m sure you can think of many other ways of incorporating interesting things into your screensaver install file. *hint* launching a website while they are installing, leading them to your website, which contains Google Adsense or other information

The Webtrepreneur wishes you luck!