Analytics Intelligence : Leveraging Hidden Trends In Blog Traffic

Web analytics have improved dramatically in the last few years. Plain data logs with cryptic entries is a thing of past. Nowadays, popular web analytics systems such as Google Analytics are powered by smart algorithms that look beyond page views and visits. Modern web analytics system has more to do with identifying browsing pattern of visitors and identifying key changes in traffic, which leads to depletion or completion of defined/undefined goals and conversions at a certain rate. GA provides excellent tools to help us identify these vital trends to better assess the shortcomings and potholes.

Every morning you open your analytics dashboard only to find pretty much same traffic pattern with no unusual activity (at a glance). But wait are you missing something? What's your primary purpose of using a web analytics system? Are you using it just to know the number of visitors reaching your blog everyday? If you answer is YES, read on.

Why Do I Need Web Analytics System?

Almost all of us track our web traffic through different web analytics system, but only a handful of us utilize the power of this amazing tool to its full extent. What's your ultimate goal to use a web analytics system? It's not just about counting visitors or pageviews. To make things simple, I'll use a famous quote by former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld that highlights the crux of reporting and data analysis.

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. - (Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld)

Secretary Rumsfeld is indicating about three types of data sets that can be mined by any reporting system. It is applicable to any reporting system regardless of the type of data and the type of method involved in extracting the relevant information. The first type is - known knowns - the information whose existence we know beforehand. In this context (web analytics) it can be compared to a pageview. The second type is - known unknowns - the information we know does exist, but somehow we are not able to quantify it in measurable terms. Any triggering condition that may inflate your pageviews or any causal factors that increase or decrease your conversions comes under this category. These conditions do exist, but we cannot predict, quantify, measure or detect them effectively. And, the third type is - unknown unknowns - the information that's present in our web traffic data set, but we don't even have the slightest idea of its existence. And mining this information is the most challenging problem for any web analytics system.

Analytics Intelligence - Digging Unknown Unknowns

Before going ahead, I'd like to discuss the question I asked in the beginning of this post. What's the ultimate goal of using any web analytics system? Well, use it to improve the usability of your web site. Our goal should not be just to count pageviews, but with the help of massive information we get from our analytics systems, we should strive to give the best browsing experience to our visitors. That's what web analytics systems are made for. Fortunately, combination of GA's Intelligence and Advanced Segments features helps us dig out unknown unknowns giving us the power to see those hidden trends that are so vital to improve the overall usability of our web site or blog.

Let's see how to use these two features to optimize our blog. Earlier, I've written about 'Advanced Segments' and their usage. For demonstration purpose, I took 3 days data and a popular post to properly explain creation of these advanced filters. Here's a simple guide to using Advanced Segments.

Using 'Intelligence' feature is extremely simple. All you need is to find the starting point. Ask yourself a question - "Where to start looking and what to look for?" It's all about anticipating developments within your web traffic. For example, you're running a campaign for newly launched product and are interested in measuring the demographics. We further assume, you're very hopeful for getting good results from Latin-American countries (for exp: brazil). You may create an 'Intelligence' alert such that if conversions from Brazil inflate by more than 25% compared to the previous day you should receive an alert. Here's how you can do this...

Let's take one more example. You may want to know when your new visits from organic sources (search engines) inflate by more than 10% compared to the previous day. Now if your blog is getting decent traffic, increase of 10% in total new visits from organic sources is a significant change in your daily traffic. It may happen due to page rank update. In that case, you may be interested in knowing which posts are receiving this extra traffic. So, let's create this alert.

Creating these alerts is not difficult. What matters is your anticipation and your chain of thought. When you start looking beyond pageviews and impressions, things change dramatically. Study your blog traffic and ask yourself generic questions that may affect your conversions and goals. Create a list of these questions and convert them into 'Advanced Segments' and 'Intelligence' alerts. Happy analyzing

Some parts of this post are inspired from Analytics Becomes Intelligent. Hello Insights!, an excellent post by Avinash Kaushik - Web Analytics Guru.

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Wordpress MU 2.8 : Building Powerful Communities With Ease

Wordpress powers millions of websites and blogs ranging from a small personal diary to big company portals. The single-site edition of Wordpress enjoys much more popularity leaving the multi-site version way behind. However, when it comes to developing a large blog network supporting unlimited users with each one having a separate blog, Wordpress MU is the best possible solution. It's extremely flexible, feature rich and is very easy to customize as per your needs. Recently, Lesley A. Harrison has released her book entitled 'WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner's Guide', available from Packt Publishing, which provides detailed step-by-step guide to build a powerful blog network that includes forums, photo galleries and much more.

The good thing about this book is that it assumes that you have no prior experience of working with Wordpress. Step-by-step tutorials supported with helpful illustrations make it one of the best guides to creating blog network through Wordpress MU.

Building The Basics

The first 3 chapters introduces Wordpress MU features, compare and compute hosting requirements and guidelines, presents detailed installation procedure and easy-to-follow methods of customizing the appearance of your fresh Wordpress MU install.

Ordinary shared hosting plans cannot promise smooth running of (active) blog networks. Keeping this in mind, the author has presented detailed web-hosting requirements and alternative solutions that can cater the needs of a fairly large and active blog network. The type of web-server components needed to run a typical Wordpress MU are also discussed, so that you can cross-check the configuration of server before signing up of any hosting plan. A comprehensive installation guide loaded with helpful illustrations ensures smooth deployment of your blog network. Whether it's about configuring critical security settings or about fine-tuning the most essential plugins, the install-guide covers every step in the right sequence to get your installation done in the minimum possible time. I particularly liked the section explaining database planning and implementation closely followed by sub-domain mapping and settings. Chapter 3 covers installing and customization of a fresh new theme along with configuration of the most popular Wordpress MU plugins.

On To The Next Level

One of the big issues maintaining a blog network involves user-management and related tasks. Users on a blog network may share different or same set of plugins and themes with different set of privileges depending on the type of account they hold. Chapter 4 deals with advanced user management with loads of practical examples turning you into an expert blog network administrator. No web site can claim to be 100% hacker proof. An entire chapter has been dedicated for addressing this sensitive issue. Chapter 5 provides in-depth methods of making your Wordpress MU install almost hacker proof securing it from all common hacking attempts. Automated backup strategy is also part of this chapter that is so essential for any blog network.

Going Beyond The Limits

Wordpress gives you the flexibility to customize it to the limits. Chapter 7,8 and 9 discusses some of the most advanced and much needed features needed in a typical blog network. Following is a list of important customizations featured in these chapters.

Some of the most essential features discussed are:

• Integrating third party commenting system.
• Setting up custom contact forms.
• Integration of polls and sitewide searching.
• Integrating bbPress Forum. (Includes styling and customization of forum)
• Integrating BuddyPress Suite. (Enables flexible social networking features)

The list shown above clearly suggests that forum and social networking integration is becoming a norm in today's popular blog networks. You can think of it as a mashup of various social media platforms giving the users various options to connect and share their ideas and content. And that's where chapter 8 and 9 gives you the power to integrate these platforms to your Wordpress MU install. It will make your blog network more attractive, more appealing and eventually more popular among its existing as well as potential users.

Often blog networks are created with flexible monetization schemes to attract more registrations. This includes flexible revenue sharing options that may variate on per account basis. Chapter 10 deals with this extremely important issue and guides you to complete ad management solution for a typical Wordpress MU install. This includes ad management, revenue sharing techniques, supporting premium memberships and much more.

Site optimization is a critical issue, especially for multi-user blog networks. A sluggish blog network is the first thing you'll need to repeal the visitors. That's where chapter 11 comes to the rescue giving you all the vital techniques to make your blog network a zipper, with techniques to develop optimized database and themes. You'll also get to know server side optimization and load balancing techniques to offer highly optimized blog network to the users. And last but not the least is the troubleshooting techniques and miscellaneous daily routines needed to keep your blog network up and running. After going through the last chapter, you'll come to know about performing smooth upgrades, performing and restoring daily backups. Various backup strategies via different methods is the part of this important chapter.

All the development tools required to create a WordPress MU blog network are free. The book has a separate section in the beginning tabulating all the required tools, where to get it and what is their use. The author of this book is a freelance web developer and technology consultant with more than ten years experience in IT related fields.

Who should read this book?

If you are planning to create your own blog hosting service or want to build your own blog network (whether for your company or for your family and friends or for your closed community), this book can serve your purpose. Knowledge of basic HTML and general blogging principles is all you need to follow this book.

Book: WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner's Guide
Paperback: 268 pages [191mm x 235mm]
Publisher: Packt Publishing (Released: October 2009)
Language: English
ISBN: 1847196543
ISBN-13: 978-1-847196-54-5
Also available as an e-book from Packt Publishing

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An Introduction To Niche Blogging

Niche blogging is all about creating a weblog targeting a specific market with an aim to make money out of it by enticing readers to buy relevant products and services. In recent years, niche blogging has picked up pace and has emerged as a popular way to make money online. You don't need to have deep pockets to start one such blog. All it takes is your time and dedication. Let's see, how you can start from scratch to get the taste of this much-hyped way to make bucks on internet.

Deciding The Niche

You're all set to launch a niche blog, but struggling to find the right market to tap on? Without any question, if your passion reflects in your blog niche, you'll find things much easier than expected. You may find yourself blogging about a so-called saturated niche that may give you sleepless nights in the beginning. Or you may find yourself blogging about a topic that has no audience! Whatever is the case, there are some essential attributes to consider before you finalize your blog niche.

Content creation scope - Blogs are dynamic in nature and so does the expectations of blog readers. Regular content is one of the prerequisites for a successful niche blog. Choose a niche that inherently covers wide range of topics. This includes possibilities of branching-out to sub-niches at a later stage. If you are choosing a very narrow niche, you may be able to churn out laser-targeted content, but may run out of ideas in the long run until you are really creative and imaginative.

Profit potential - Whatever niche you decide to go with, profitability is the cornerstone for a successful niche blog. That's what niche blogs are made for, and that's what pumps life in countless niche blogs on web. Two major traits of a profitable blog niche are:

• Large search volume on popular search engines
• Large advertisers base on major PPC networks

Analyze the volume of search queries on major search engines to get a good idea of the amount of traffic looking for products and services related to your niche. If the search volume is very high, be sure the niche is highly competitive. Advertisers couldn't resist themselves to leverage this highly targeted traffic coming from organic sources. Once you are assured of these two trends happening in your chosen niche, you can expect decent earnings right from the beginning of your blog launch.

Monetization Scope And Strategy

Once your blog is up and running, monetization seems to be the next obvious step. The most heated debate related to blog monetization is the timing to introduce ads on your blog. Some advocate to aggressively monetize from day one, while others prefer to defer any such plans till you start getting some decent traffic. There's no harm in monetizing your niche blog right from the beginning, provided you start with limited amount of advertisements. A relatively new blog can't afford to lose initial traffic just because of loud adverts scattered all over the web page. The initial phase has more to do with consolidating returning visitors and building loyal subscribers. Here are some common monetization options at your disposal that can earn you good money if implemented in a correct way.

Affiliate marketing - is one of the most popular ways to make money on niche blogs. You can get the best results when your blog has earned enough reputation and your credibility is unquestionable. In-content affiliate links are known to perform best supported by persuasive copywriting. No matter what form or type of advertising is used, experimenting is the key to success.

Pay-per-click ads - is the most widely used form of advertising that is easy to implement with minimum fuss. Clever placements supported by great content can earn you decent money from PPC ads. Several popular niche blogs make big money solely from these type of ads. They are easy to implement, highly relevant and gel very well with the content provided you do it in a correct way. I've written about "Why PPC ads may not receive any clicks?" and how to improve your PPC ads click-through-rate.

Paid reviews - are common on niche blogs. Once your blog reaches a certain level, you automatically start receiving paid review requests from relevant companies interested in reaching your audience to showcase their products and services. Here there are two things that need to be taken care of. First, how frequently you do paid reviews and, secondly, what products you are endorsing. Too many paid reviews in quick time will not only repel the visitors but may also result in a penalization from Google.

Direct ads - are yet another popular monetization option for niche bloggers. Unlike pay-per-click ads, direct advertising gives you complete control over pricing, ad formats and the products you want to endorse. Again, your blog should have enough traffic and feed subscribers to attract advertisers. Here's a comprehensive guide to get direct ads for your blog.

Selling your own product/service - is the pinnacle of niche blogging. You don't need to have thousands of subscribers or very high traffic to introduce your services. From day one, you can announce your products and services. Initially, you may struggle to get some buyers, but once you get about half-a-dozen, use their testimonials to prove your credibility for attracting more clients. For example, well known social media guru - Chris Garrett offers a hugely popular Authority Blogger course for budding as well as experienced bloggers. It's a classic example of successfully launching a product through a niche blog and taking it to new heights.

Marketing Your Niche Blog

A product is as good as the marketing of the product. Almost all successful niche blogs have established themselves as a brand. Blog branding involves intuitive and clever marketing techniques supported by diligent networking efforts. Building trust, creating desire and offering solutions are 3 important steps towards building a successful niche blog.

Building trust - It is the most important element of successful Internet marketing. Creating affiliations with countless products and selling them successfully are two different things. People want reliable information from a credible source before they decide to buy any product or service. Build their confidence in you and witness your checks swell month after month. Here's how you can do it.

• Offer killer content.
• Promote relevant and quality products.
• Connect and acknowledge readers' contributions.
• Disclose paid reviews.
• Share your success stories.
• Present credible data about your performance.

Leveraging your network - Connections with peers, followers and existing clients is a goldmine that can be used to net more subscribers and buyers. Recommendations, testimonials, comments, discussions and votes are some of the examples that exhibit the power of networking and its importance in marketing your niche blog.

I'll conclude with summarizing the essential elements needed to build a profitable niche blog. Write killer content, promote quality products and network, network and network. Here persistence is the key.

Image Credit: T.Oechsner

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8 Principles of Micro-Blogging

With the emergence of new media, we have witnessed new and innovative mediums to connect, share, distribute and exchange our ideas and views. Micro-blogging is one such medium that has become extremely popular among netizens. Every such service has certain de-facto rules and conventions that are implicitly followed by the masses. Some learn these conventions in quick time, while others remain clueless about the correct usage of the service leading to abandonment of their stagnant accounts.

I have witnessed several friends of mine scratching their heads after creating an account on twitter. This phenomenon is quite common around the world when people sign up for any micro-blogging service and then wonder - "What to do now?". Well, here are some basic guidelines that may help you in making your micro-blogging experience a pleasant one.

Create An Unambiguous Profile - Why Should I Follow You?

One important aspect of micro-blogging is connecting with like-minded people and creating a large network of fans/followers to share and distribute your ideas to the maximum number of eyeballs. Unless you are a celebrity or well known personality in your domain, a potential follower will not press the follow button until he is not sure about your area of expertise by giving a glance at your profile. Make sure you keep the following attributes up-to-date while creating your micro-blogging service account.

Mini-Bio - Clearly mention your area of operations, your interests and (if possible) the nature of messages you will be posting. This eases the decision making process for every potential follower. Make sure your mini-bio is more or less similar across all social media accounts. Failing to do so can lead to confusion among your connections.

Unique Avatar - Brands are known by their logos. They have the power to influence the masses. The crux of social media marketing is creating a unique identity among thousands of connections. Create a unique avatar for all your social media accounts and highlight it prominently wherever possible.

Custom Profile Page - Micro-blogging services like twitter allows you to create a custom profile page. This helps your regular connections feel at home whenever they visit your profile page. For new connections, custom profile page gives added visual information about you and your domain. Normally, blog or web sites links, your own image and logo or theme slices are inserted into a profile page.

Provide Value - Give A Reason To Follow

Content rules the web, and this principle applies across all forms of web content. Although micro-blogging messages are a mixed bag of posts, still potential followers almost always expect a consistent stream of postings that fall in a specific category. Experimenting too much and sending unrelated posts could trigger mass unfollowing.

You have to create a delicate balance between one-to-one public conversations and messages related to your domain. Try to keep the latter type of messages a bit more prominent in peak hours. That's the time when your followers are most expectant for their daily dose of juicy messages coming from you.

Listen And Respond - Isolation Leads To Inevitable Death

Social media runs on relationships between groups and individuals having common interests and goals. Have you ever seen adverts claiming to get you thousands of followers on twitter on autopilot, and that too in quick time? Some of these products may get you some followers but they cannot sustain them for long time. Reason is simple. These autopilot products lacks human touch and runs via API calls posting messages through programmed bots.

Every successful social media campaign runs on the basis of two-way fruitful communication that benefits both parties. Ask questions, conduct polls and answer public and directed questions to develop a healthy community via your micro-blogging efforts. As I said before, you should evenly distribute your conversation messages and your business messages to create a mixed bag of stream that is received well by your audience.

Learn Microblogging Lingo

Almost every micro-blogging service puts the restriction of 140 characters in a single message. At times, you may get frustrated due to this restriction that forces you to express the maximum in minimum words. With experience micro-bloggers learn to overcome this restriction by carefully trimming unnecessary words and using short codes commonly used in micro-blogging. Here's an excellent micro-blogging lingo guide by Mari Smith that will equip you with necessary knowledge to understand and create space saving yet meaningful messages.

Use Direct Messages Wisely - Say No To Auto-DM's (Marketing)

Direct messages are an important part of any micro-blogging service. They help you directly pass the message that you don't want to appear in public timeline. Sometimes people try to misuse this feature by configuring automated direct message for new followers consisting of marketing pitch with a link. At least for me this results in instant unfollow. What about you?

There's no harm in welcoming new followers via automated DM, provided you keep it simple without any selfish promotion of your services in the very first DM immediately after someone follows you. There's another case where sometimes newbies bug you every now and then by continuous stream of DM's as if they are conversing with you on an instant messenger. This is the last thing you can do to get yourself unfollowed.

Your Message Goes Public - Think Before Sending!

Unlike instant messaging, your messages are public to the entire network and beyond. Nowadays major search engines also index micro-blogging messages. Sending intimate or NSFW messages can instantly trigger mass unfollowing that may hurt your reputation. Although most of us are cautious enough to avoid any such circumstances, keeping an extra vigil can save us from any embarrassment.

At times, you may inadvertently send some unpleasant message in public timeline. Acknowledging it and resending the helper and supplemental message can avoid any dispute or public argument. If the situation aggravates it is advisable to delete that message altogether and settle the argument via DM's or email.

Say No To Mass-Following - Don't Appear As a Bot

No internet service is free of spam. Micro-blogging services are no exception and are prone to spam accounts that follow large number of people in short span of time followed by stream of junk messages via automated software. If you want that your account is not tagged as spam or get suspended for indefinite period, make sure you do not follow large number of people in quick time. Nowadays almost every micro-blogging service has come up with more sophisticated systems to detect any suspicious activity. Once an account is identified as spam, irreversible account suspension is inevitable.

Keep a check on your following rate and do not hesitate to report any spam account. There are many services that filter micro-bloggers with similar interests to help you grow your network by following right kind of people. Using these services can save your time provided you don't do the mistake of following large number of people in short span of time. Create a list and distribute your following exercise across reasonably long span of time. This time period is variable and is completely dependent on the length of the list and how many people you plan to follow each day.

Do Not Overwhelm Your Followers - Take A Break

Have you ever unfollowed anyone just because of the sheer volume of messages he or she used to post in peak hours? Well, I have unfollowed few of them. It's good to share wealth of information with your followers, but make sure you are not bombarding them with large number of messages in quick succession. If you have too much of information to share, distribute the messages across the whole day or schedule them with reasonable time intervals.

It's possible that your peer or close friend may give you a hint via DM or mail about your messaging spree. Take note of it seriously and change your message posting frequency at the earliest to avoid mass unfollowing.

Image Credit: ggrosseck, Zahra

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How To Land Your Dream Job Through Your Blog

Blogs have created new opportunities for professionals and freelancers to grab potential job openings of their choice. This excellent social media platform serves as an alternative to portfolio or resume giving credible proof of your expertise in a subject. As companies are looking to alternative mediums to hire new workforce, blogs are within the scope of their search for finding potential candidates. Here's how you can use your blog to get hired by the best in the industry.

Blog To Your Strength

Sounds obvious, but often ignored by newbies looking to find something easy to blog about. Employers look for individuals having good command on their subject having concrete examples of their work. A successful blog is the best platform to show that. The key to build an authority blog is choosing the right niche that shows your skills, knowledge and command on a subject in an effective way.

Share your best tips and case studies - Build an archive of quality posts consisting of irresistible tips and tutorials. A potential employer is bound to scan your blogs archive to assess the depth of your proficiency and competence and where you stand among your peers. Case studies are the most credible source of information that authoritatively demonstrates your knowledge.

Highlight your best work - Building an archive of quality content alone will not help until you don't provide a convenient way to reach it. Litter your sidebar with links to the best posts and revamp your archives page to keep your potential employer glued to the screen until he has not finished reading almost all of the best posts in your archive.

An ideal situation is when your potential employer is overwhelmed by the content published on your blog and you are in the driving seat negotiating the terms and conditions.

Announce Your Availability/Services

Sometimes, people don't approach you due to lack of information about your willingness to take a job. This ambiguity can lead to missed opportunities that may be knocking at your door without any effort from your end. The solution is quite simple. Read on...

Create a dedicated portfolio/services page - A blogger owning an authority blog leverages its credibility by offering expert advice and services. This not only opens the door for indirect income but also clearly defines your SKILL SET. Create a separate page tabulating all the services offered by you including your willingness to join a full-time opening. I would advice you to resist declaring rates for each of your services. Offer free quotes to potential clients to help negotiate the best deal. In case, a potential employer decides to hire you, you can exercise greater control while quoting the expected compensation.

Get Recommendations From Clients/Peers

Leveraging existing client base - The best way to exhibit your skills is getting testimonials from your clients. Never miss a chance to get one from your existing satisfied customers and prominently highlight them on your services page. You can even create a dedicated testimonials page, in case you are fortunate enough to get dozens of them.

Get push from peers - Almost always you'll be asked for credentials before getting confirmed. Your peers are the best candidates for providing positive feedback about you. Generously link to your peer's quality content and build a strong relationship for mutual benefit. Make sure to once ask your fellow blogger before giving his name in credentials list.

Scan Blogger Job Boards

Nowadays, you can find several job boards for bloggers with countless opportunities in different domains. ProBlogger Job Board, CrunchBoard Job Board and GigaOm Jobs are some of the popular job boards for professionals who blog. All of these job boards are associated with famous blogs and offer vast array of openings from different fields for almost every skilled and semi-skilled professional.

Some of the these boards maintain both employers and job seekers database and provide registration facilities, while others offer RSS feed for prompt notifications of new job postings.

Network, Network And Network

And last but not the least is the human chain (online/offline) that is developed through your blog. As your blog grows, so does the community around it. Sometimes, your follower or fan can unknowingly introduce you to a potential employer with all the positive feedback. Create profiles on Business Exchange and LinkedIn including details about your blog with a link to a custom landing page. Be active on social media sites and connect with as many people as you can. Creating a large network increases the probability of getting the right kind of opportunity you are looking for.

Image Credit: Somewhat Frank, minifig

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How To Secure Your Wordpress Installation

Security has always been a major issue on self-hosted Wordpress blogs. Hackers look for vulnerable web sites whose security can easily be breached to exercise their evil intentions. With every new version, the core engine of Wordpress is getting more and more secure. Still some extra steps are needed to harden its security to the maximum. There's no silver bullet that can guarantee complete protection from hackers, but we can make sure they get a tough time while attempting any intrusion.

There are three sub-systems that needs your attention to secure it from potential threats viz., blogging CMS, back end database and web server. Normally we have complete control on blogging CMS and database, while web server administration is normally maintained by hosting service provider unless you own a VPS (virtual private server) or have your own dedicated server. Remember, your Wordpress installation is only as secure as your web server. If there is any weak link in the server, all the security measures discussed below will go in vain.

Securing Wordpress Directory Tree

The basic strategy to make your installation secure is to restrict public access to sensitive files and directories. Whenever any CMS is installed, the directory tree is assigned certain access permissions that may vary according to the their importance, functionality and usage to help protect them from unauthorized access. Following is the step-by-step method to protect your Wordpress files and directories.

Assigning directory permissions - Start with assigning correct permissions to your Wordpress installation tree. Here are some of the basic rules to follow.

1. No file or directory should have a permission of 777.
2. No file should have a permission of 666, except those theme files that are edited via built-in theme editor through Wordpress dashboard.
3. Ideally, all files should have permission of 644. Similarly, all directories should have permission of 755.
4. Some servers require permission of 'wp-content/uploads' folder to be 777.

Disabling public browsing of directory tree - Add the following code to .htaccess file to prevent any kind of direct browsing activity. This ensures no one can view the contents of directory by simply typing directory paths in their browsers.

Options All -Indexes

Although the same effect can be achieved by placing blank index.html files in every directory, but it is the most inefficient and least preferred method to disable directory browsing.

Securing wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes and wp-config directories - Apart from disabling direct browsing of directory tree, some extra steps should be taken to restrict access to important directories.

Add the following lines to .htaccess to protect wp-config.php from unauthorized access. As the name implies, this file contains important Wordpress configuration settings needed to connect to your blog's database. It includes MySQL username and password.

<files wp-config.php>
Order deny,allow
deny from all
</files>

Adding following lines to .htaccess will protect wp-admin.php from unauthorized access. This will ensure your admin dashboard is protected from intruders.

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Access Control"
AuthType Basic
<LIMIT GET>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from xx.xx.xx.xx
allow from xx.xx.xx.xx
</LIMIT>

Here xx.xx.xx.xx are the static IP addresses used by you or other administrators/contributors of the blog. In case you get a dynamic IP address each time you connect to Internet, this method will not work at all. In that case, you can use AskApache Password Protect plugin to protect wp-admin, wp-includes and wp-content without any need to edit .htaccess yourself. This excellent plugin acts as a firewall and adds an extra layer of security protecting your sensitive files from automated spam bots and hackers.

Securing Database

Hackers often target Wordpress database to insert countless spam links within the posts. Whenever you install Wordpress, by default every table gets a prefix of wp_ regardless of the table type. Intruders use this information to launch certain type of SQL injection attacks on the database. For better security, you must change this default prefix to something unpredictable. There are 3 methods to change this prefix.

Changing table prefix at the time of installation- This is one of the easiest method to provide a random table prefix to your Wordpress database tables.

At the time of installation, you get a chance to edit the table prefix. Choose a random and unpredictable table prefix that cannot be easily guessed.

Changing table prefix manually - This method can be painful for technically challenged. It requires editing of more than one .php files along with execution of multiple SQL queries. However, if you are comfortable with basic blog maintenance (technical) skills, this excellent tutorial shows you how to change table prefix in Wordpress through direct file editing.

Changing table prefix via plugin - Fortunately, Wordpress has large repository of plugins available for almost every requirement. You can also use WordPress Table Prefix Rename Plugin to achieve the same effect.

Regular database backups - Backups are lifesavers in event of any catastrophe that may bring down your entire site. You can use WP-DB-Backup plugin to backup core as well as additional (plugin & 3rd party script tables) tables of your blog's database. Make the habit of taking backups at least once a week followed by saving of more than one copy in two different locations.

Securing User ID's & Login Procedure

Almost every CMS has built-in user access control mechanism that defines a hierarchy of user-types with each type having different set of privileges. Wordpress is no different and supports pretty good user access control mechanism. Hackers target this system to gain complete control of the CMS leaving no chance to recover from the disaster. Here are some methods and safe practices that can help you in strengthening Wordpress access control mechanism.

Delete default administrator account - As soon as Wordpress installation is completed, we get a default administrator account with user id admin and random system generated password. DO NOT use this account for maintaining your blog. Create a second account with administrative privilege and delete the default admin account.

Strengthen login procedure - With the help of these 2 plugins you can make your Wordpress logins more secure and safe. Chap Secure Login encrypts your password to prevent anyone stealing it while it's in transit to the web server. Login LockDown is an excellent plugin that helps prevent brute force attack to guess your passwords. It disables the login function after specified number of failed login attempts within a given time frame blocking an IP range for specified period of time.

Fine-tuning user access privileges - For multi-author Wordpress blogs,
Role Manager plugin is a boon. If you want to exercise greater control over user access permissions, this plugin can help you assign specific rights at granular level.

Role manager can create custom roles with tailor made access privileges that can be assigned to any Wordpress user on your blog. You can even change and tweak the default roles provided by Wordpress, although it is not recommended and should be avoided.

Miscellaneous Steps To Harden The Security

Hide Wordpress version - Older versions of Wordpress have several loopholes that can be easily breached by seasoned hackers. It is always advised to hide your Wordpress version to mask any vulnerabilities (if any) that may exist in the release you are using. The best way to hide this information is placing the following code in function.php file of your theme.

<?php remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator'); ?>

This ensures removal of Wordpress version information while generating html files for client side.

Keep search engines away from Wordpress folders - You'll never want your blog's entire directory tree to be indexed by search engines. This may expose the contents of sensitive directories making it easy for hackers to analyze and find the potential loopholes. Add the following line to robots.txt file, which is located in the root directory of your blog.

Disallow: /wp-*

Adding this line will ensure none of the search engine bots are allowed to index the directory content.

General Safety Precautions

1. Create strong passwords and change them frequently.
2. Keep your plugins and Wordpress release updated.
3. Regularly backup files and database.
4. Create a disaster recovery plan and simulate it on a test blog.
5. Avoid using plugins from unknown sources (may include malicious code).
6. Use WP Security Scan plugin to find any vulnerabilities in your Wordpress installation.
7. If possible, avoid remote publishing via 3rd party publishing tools.
8. Use SSH or SFTP for secure editing of files and directories.

Image Credit: Peregrino Will Reign

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12 Vital Rules In Twitter Networking

In this post, Wong Ching Ya discusses about twitter networking principles. She is well known for her expert reviews on various social media tools & services and possesses exceptional networking skills. You can also follow her on twitter. If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend subscribing to her blog.

People have been fervently writing about the fame of social media, especially Twitter. Ever since it took everyone by storm with its 140 characters of instant messaging, social networking has never been the same again.

We have heard many describing Twitter as their ultimate kit for successful online business, promotional tool, or even traffic magnet for blogs. No matter what niche you’re in, Twitter could be your ally but only if you know how to utilize it well. Having said that, let’s have a look at the 12 vital rules in Twitter networking:

#Rule 1: Dedication & Participation

For any social media, participation is the key to success. Dedicate your time to mingle with your contacts. Regularly taking part in discussion allows people to remember you among their 1000++ followers. Unable to tweet 24/7? At least try make up to 5-10 useful tweets each time, 4 days per week. In case you have difficulties to online for a few days, try scheduling your tweets beforehand using Hootsuite or TweetLater. Don’t be the ‘forgotten’!

#Rule 2: Honesty but Not Hostility

Imagine this: trying on a clothing you absolutely love, but the salesgirl simply blurted ‘you look fat in it’! An honest statement from one’s point of view yet the damage is done. I do believe a slight adjustment to the phrase might sound a lot better -- ‘It doesn’t seem fit, perhaps we try another piece that may look better on you?’ Much better approach. Politeness is welcoming in a community. Although people do appreciate honesty, it does not give you the right to comment harshly, or being hostile with whoever you’re disagreeing with. Don’t let pride get in your way while networking. Be considerate. If you care about your network, you may like to go mild with the words you’re using.

#Rule 3: Don’t Take Offense or Oversensitive

People tend to follow/unfollow; like/dislike the tweets you shared. When I just started tweeting, I observed closely my twitter following status-- who unfollowed me and why? Did I say something wrong?? Later I figured, it’s one of the most common phenomenon in Twitterverse. Try not to get oversensitive or too upset with it. Either the tweeting relationship didn’t work out, or they may have to sacrifice some of the less-communicative users so they could find like-minded tweeple to engage with. Sounds reasonable, but only if you’re proven innocent from being rude and self-centered.

#Rule 4: Use Desktop/Web Clients to Manage Your Contacts

Once the people you’re following increased exponentially, it’s impossible to track their updates effectively via Twitter official site. Third party applications such as desktop clients are well equipped with grouping ability, well columnized layout for easy tweet-tracking, real time updates and instant notification of replies/direct messages. As for web clients, they could be accessed anywhere, anytime! How convenient is that! Organize your contacts asap before they get buried underneath heavy public timeline.

#Rule 5: Be proactive & Responsive

Many benefits we could gain via ‘listening’: real-time info that comes with link and allowing us to be initiator in chat activities. Be responsive and make conversations that matters. Show people you’re not a mechanical tweeter android, but a normal human being with feelings. Let them know you care and ready to help if possible. Even if your approach didn’t win you a reply after several engagings, needless to feel depressed as well. Either it’s not the time yet, or it’ll never come to you. Move on! Ever heard of ‘When a door closes, another opens’?

#Rule 6: Know Your Twitter Branding – Personal or Niche

Not trying to sound cliché but personal branding matters a great deal in Twitter. It’s the reason why we are advised to treat our Twitter profile seriously, fill up the ‘keywords’ as accurately as possible. If you’re a designer who wishes to get connected with other designers, nothing is going to help much unless you made it obvious in your Twitter profile, and timely tweets. A person who loves photography yet tweet about marketing all over the place is a turn-off for other like-minded photographers, which is why one may experience drastic drop of followers if he did so. Advisable to have separate accounts if you intending to have 2 major interests shared massively on Twitter.

#Rule 7: Follow Or UnFollow? – Let Your Instinct Decides

There’s no right or wrong in this area, in fact more to personal judgement. Personally I’m not a supporter for mass-follow/unfollowing using applications. I prefer to decide personally, not relying on emotionless software to do it. Some people are worth to follow even they don’t follow back. There’s so much more than just a numbers game. Treat your contact list seriously and emphasis on quality connections. For someone who’s a non-marketer, I don’t mind getting marketing tweets, as long they are inspiring and mind provoking. I enjoy knowledge from various niches, and I don’t think any software could gauge who I shall follow besides my instinct.

#Rule 8: Be Giving

We all love nice people with kind hearts. Since we’re on social networking, if you wish others to treat you the same, why not start by being one? Although we need to get reminded constantly -- never expect anything in return. Helping out others by answering questions; providing comfort for those in need; recommend a new acquaintance to your existing Twitter friends etc. Those are just the least things you could do in Twitter. Sincerity is the solid foundation of all relationships, even social networking.

#Rule 9: Don’t Force Yourself

Despite we should be helpful, you don’t have to ‘force’ yourself into doing something you don’t feel comfortable with. For example, if someone asks you to tweet ‘help tweet this link, it will gain you 50,000,000 followers!’, not knowing where this link redirects to, or how legitimate it is, it’s alright to decline politely. You are responsible for your own actions, and no one shall ever trick or force you into ‘helping’ in anything you’re not sure of.

#Rule 10 : Reasonable - Be Selective with the RTs

There’s always a line to be drawn in any cases, even Retweets. Whether an RT is meant for sharing outstanding content or doing one a favor, bear in mind that not everybody will appreciate a page full of RTs. Why just targeting the hot, popular tweets which already have 500++ hits? Unless you’re a trendy-tweet collector, or an affiliate for tweetmeme or some sort, bare in mind that not many are enthusiastic to see the same newsflash over and over again. And repeating the same tweet more than 10 times in a day is unbearable. Dislike been nagged? Well, that’s just what you’re doing to your followers.

#Rule 11: Don’t Stop, Continue the Networking Elsewhere
In case 140 characters are not enough, do continue your networking with others via social media sites like Facebook or blogs. The connection shouldn’t stop at Twitter. You should prolong and enhance the friendship by keeping the conversations going from time to time. That’s how I get to know some of the nicest blogger friends. Blog serves as a networking hub. So, make sure you’ve worked on the red carpet for your blog visitors with quality content, and responsive comments at all times.

#Rule 12: Be Yourself

Some people look cool to follow for their personalities. You could learn, but shall never attempt to impersonate someone you’re not. No lies or exaggerations involved. By being authentic, you’ll find comfort and ease of mind while communicating. It enhances your personal branding and confidence. People can recognize you easily. So what if you’re not the most famous guy/girl in the block? Many would still appreciate your authenticity for being the real YOU.

How about you? What is your rule in Twitter Networking? Kindly share with us your opinion in the comment.

You can connect with Wong Ching Ya on various social media sites. She is very much active on Facebook and StumbleUpon.

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Why Your Business Web Site Needs A Blog?

Nowadays more and more companies are integrating blogs with their official web sites. The advantages are well understood and acclaimed by large portion of business community. About a decade back, when blogging was just starting to come out from infancy, companies used to practice traditional methods to update and bring traffic to their web sites. Since blogging has gone mainstream, no company serious about having good presence on web can think about their web site without a blog. Let's see what are the benefits and advantages of integrating a blog to a corporate web site.

Search Engine Benefits

One of the best ways to elevate your rankings in SERP's is to integrate a blog with a web site. Almost all blogging CMS's are inherently search-engine friendly. A blog is updated more frequently than a traditional web site giving a reason to search engine bots to pay a visit and gobble up fresh new content. The SEO-friendly features of blogging CMS and regular generation of fresh content not only makes your tail long in index but also helps you in achieving better rankings through clever contextual linking across your blog and web site. External sources referring your blog content will increase the overall link strength of your domain giving you the required boost in search engine rankings.

Targeted Traffic

Since you write specifically for your business and related products and services, you are bound to receive targeted traffic from organic sources where people are looking for exactly the same information that you are ready to provide. This helps increase your conversion rate by diverting your traffic to the main web site on custom designed landing pages through smart linking within popular posts. Another common methodology is to display custom designed banner ads about your services on the blog that helps in indirectly diverting potential customers to the main web site.

Direct Engagement With Customers

Blogs are not just about posting content which readers read and go away. It's a two way communication medium where conversations takes place and a community builds up around the blog. Comments help you directly connect with your customers and help clear their doubts and questions. This direct engagement gives you vital data about the perceptions prevalent in the minds of your customers who regularly comment and opine about various topics related to your services. Sometimes, a constructive discussion via this medium can give you some very important piece of information that can be strategically used to counter your rivals and in reviving your business.

Exhibits Expertise In Your Niche

Blog gives you the chance to establish yourself as an authority and market leader in your domain. With a team of experienced writers assisted by technical experts, you can create regular stream of killer content that will shape your brand as the most trusted source of reliable information about your domain. Remember, blogs have the ability to build as well as ruin reputations. Always hire a professional blogger to run your company blog to leverage this excellent medium to its full potential.

Multiple Feeds For Audience

Feed syndication provides excellent opportunity to disseminate your content right in the in-boxes of your customers. Almost every business blog sets up multiple feeds (news alerts, new products reviews, regular articles) for different segments of customers to meet their information needs and at the same time keeping unwanted stuff out of their mails. It's the most effective way to reach out to maximum prospects in the most effective and easy manner.

Helps Build Community of Fans

Hugely popular blogs manage to get hundreds of thousands of feed subscribers that automatically help in spreading the word about your services and products. Through various subscription options you can build a large supportive community that helps in building confidence of potential customers who visits your blog for the first time. Whenever you will launch any new product or service, all your subscribers will immediately receive the news via their subscriptions and it may spread like wild fire through various social media channels used by your regular readers.

Image Credit: DavidErickson

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How To Track Your Advertising Campaigns

Often we spend good amount of money on advertising but fail to convert the incoming traffic. One of the reasons is almost nil meaningful traffic analysis that is so vital for any successful advertising campaign. With the advent of new and improved web analytics services there are plenty of options at our disposal, provided we identify and utilize them in a correct way. Let's see how to track and improve our advertising campaigns that can give us maximum returns in limited budgets.

Divide - Segregate - Segment

Let's start with old principle of divide and rule. Whether you are tracking text links in email newsletters, regular text link ads, graphic banners ads or video/flash ads, the basic principle to track these ads is to separate each group of ads/campaigns and then associating identifiable and unique metadata to them. Let's assume you are planning to advertise about your new twitter marketing ebook. Let's further assume that you are going to use multiple ad formats with different landing pages for selective ad formats. To make it simple, lets say you have four text link ads and four banner ads (each with unique creative and different size).

At macro level, these ads can be divided into two groups. Each group can be further divided into four sub-groups each one containing ads of different size and different anchor/description text. Once you have completed the classification, you are ready to move on to next level. You can use Google Analytics to track your advertising campaigns. It's a powerful web analytics service that is often undermined by large number of users. It's free, simple to use and provides plethora of options to monitor, analyze and improve your web traffic.

Tag it! - Make Intelligent URL's

As I mentioned earlier, associating metadata with your ad links can help you track and analyze your ad campaigns in an effective manner. This technique is called - URL Tagging. Major PPC advertising networks like Google Adwords inherently supports URL tagging for intense campaign tracking and analysis. For other ad types (direct ads, promotional links), you can use the services of Google Analytics URL Builder to tag your ad links. Tagging a link involves associating variables with it starting with (? question mark) and each variable separated by (& ampersand) mark. For example,

http://www.xyz.com/landingpage.php?variable_1=value&varialble_2=value

Google's URL Builder uses 5 variables for tagging links out of which 3 are mandatory while other 2 are optional.

1. utm_source - As the name implies, this variable identifies the source of ad where it is going to appear. This can be an email newsletter, a feed, a page, a search engine or any other similar source. In simple words, it denotes the referrer. For example: (twitter_newsletter_v1,google,bing)

2. utm_medium - Again the name says it all. The ad medium is identified through this variable. For example: (email,banner,cpcflash,video)

3. utm_term - (optional) Generally, it is used by auto-tagging feature of Google Adwords to assist in better targeting of paid ads. Use this variable to identify paid keywords.

4. utm_content - (optional) Another non-mandatory option used to specify the type of ad associated with any ad link. If you want to differentiate ads on the basis of their types, you can use this variable to classify them. For example: (textlink,bannerlink)

5. utm_campaign - Identifies the campaign name. Use this variable to differentiate between multiple promotional campaigns running simultaneously. For example: (twiiter_ebook, seo_320pack)

So let's get started with tagging of ad links of our fictitious twitter marketing ebook ad campaign.

In first example, we have tagged a text link ad that will appear only on home page of site x. This ad will be served on cpc basis and is associated with twitter ebook promotional campaign.

http://www.xyz.com/ebook.php?utm_source=sitex_home_page&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=toc_text_link&utm_campaign=twitter_ebook_promo

In second example, we have tagged a URL associated with a banner ad (of size 468x60) that will be served on CPM basis on twitter ebook review page of site y. This ad is also associated with twitter ebook promotional campaign.

http://www.xyz.com/ebook.php?utm_source=sitey_review_page&utm_medium=banner_cpm&utm_content=toc_banner_link_468_60&utm_campaign=twitter_ebook_promo

Once you have tagged all the links, you can see the reports in your Google Analytics account via 'Traffic Sources -> Campaigns'. URL tagging not only allows you to track visits from a source, but you can further break it down to specific page and specific placement within that page. Combined with the power of goals, you can take it to the next level to get the actual performance of your advertising campaigns.

Analyze and Improve

Every successful advertising campaign is supported by analysis of ad performance data and doing improvisations wherever required. Here are some of the common methodologies that are implemented to improve the advertising campaigns.

Identifying performing creatives - Every creative is different and yield different results irrespective of its placement on the web page. Through Google Analytics campaign reports you can easily identify high-performing creatives. Design similar creatives or replace the non-performers with the other ones. Tip: Even if all your creatives are performing well, consider replacing them with the new ones after some time to help reduce ad-blindness.

Identifying best placements - It's almost similar to finding the best combination of your Adsense ads that gives you the best performance. Again, GA campaign reports can easily help you identify best performing spots within a single page.

Identifying performing landing pages - Some landing pages are like honey pots that inherently have very high conversion rates. Identify these high performing landing pages through GA campaign reports and make necessary changes to your ad links to divert the traffic to these pages. Alternatively, you can redesign the non-performing landing pages leaving the ad links intact without any changes.

Over To You

I would like to know your experience about tracking your advertising campaigns. What other techniques and methodologies you adopt to track your ad campaigns?

Related Reading:
1. How To Get Direct Advertisements For Your Blog
2. Ad Inventory Management For Bloggers: A Comprehensive Guide
3. Google Ad Manager: Complete Ad Management Solution For Bloggers
4. Why Your Adsense Ads Do Not Recieve Clicks?

Image Credit: Roo Reynolds, Tamar Weinberg

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5 Trends To Analyze Your Blog's Reach and Growth

The traditional methods of analyzing a web site's performance and growth are slowly being replaced by new and better ways that stress more on audience engagement than simple crunching of page impressions. These smart metrics are in development stages and still no credible solution is available that can accurately capture visitor's behavior and engagement in his visit to a web site or blog. Are you limited to page views and unique visitors when it comes to analyzing your blog's reach and growth?

The following five trends that are often ignored by newbies can give you ample data about your blog's expanded reach and visibility. Almost all of these trends rely on readers' engagement (direct or indirect) that can help you in identifying the honey pots and weak zones in your blog.

Feed Subscription Growth Rate (Per Month)

One of the most important metrics that convincingly represent the quality of any blog is the number of feed subscribers. While approaching direct advertisers, subscriber count is one of the important stats present in almost every media kit. If your blog is relatively new with no presence in SERP's, this metric is not so relevant unless you develop a decent readership and enough traffic. Growth in subscribers depends on several variable factors like your blog's niche, audience size, quality of your content and how aggressively you approach to potential subscribers. Keep an eye on the number of subscribers you are gaining each month. Once you have accumulated data for at least 6 months, you will be able to analyze the growth in subscriptions in a better way and will be able to take necessary steps to increase the subscribers.

Comments Per Post (Avg.)

High number of comments per post is a strong indication of highly engaged community. The total number of active commentators for any blog is relatively far less than the number of daily visitors. A blog getting higher number of comments but less traffic is in much better position in terms of growth and reach than the blog getting tons of traffic but no comments. Regular commentators represent your core-readership that helps you in making your blog a hub of active like-minded community by initiating constructive discussions and at times confronting trolls without the need of your intervention. Rewarding commentators is an excellent strategy to attract more comments and building a lively community around your blog.

Social Media Boost (Retweets, Discussions, Bookmarking)

Since social media has gone mainstream, blog promotion strategies has changed drastically. Nowadays, a large chunk of daily traffic comes through social media channels. Make sure you keep track of all major traffic pulling sources through this medium. Whether you are using stumbleupon to pull traffic or using twitter to market your blog, social media referral is one of the important metrics that plays a big role in expanding your blog's reach. There are many ways to analyze social media traffic that can help you divert your energy in the right direction to get maximum benefit from this powerful medium.

References (Linkbacks Growth Rate)

Quality blogs attract backlinks naturally, which are vital for good rankings in SERP's. As your archive inflates, so does the probability of someone referring your content. It's not just about the number of new backlinks you acquire per month, but the quality of those links matters the most. You can try various methods to get backlinks that will give you the required boost in search result rankings. Keep track of the number of backlinks you are acquiring each month and do not forget to thank whoever links to your blog.

Readers Emails

Similar to comments on posts, emails from readers are vital for your blog's growth. If you getting regular emails from your readers, it's an indication of trust in you and an acknowledgment of your authority on a subject. Readers often mail to ask for advice, to get a solution to their problem, to send a guest post or to suggest an idea. Entertaining each and every mail received from your audience helps develop a strong bonding with them, that lays the foundation of building a core-readership that helps spread the word about your blog through word of mouth.

For example, my fellow blogger regularly receive mails from bloggers on blogger platform asking for help related to blogger templates. A friendly mail with all the assistance helps him in gaining a new subscriber and a fan. Remember, building core-readership is more important than just counting page impressions you are receiving per day. Whether it's through commenting or through mail communication, if you are adding regular readers to your kitty month-after-month, it's going to benefit you significantly in the long run.

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