Just about everyone keeps track of certain statistics and actions taken by their website visitors in one form or another- and if you don’t you should start.

Statistical platforms such as AwStats are usually included within your hosting control panel, but to gather the most information from your visitors, more is needed. In my recent guest post on Problogger, I mentioned Google Analytics and Statcounter. Each of those programs give you simple installation instructions on how to integrate their stat tracking code onto your site.

Continue Reading

Popularity: unranked [?]

Statistics show that you only have about 3 seconds to capture the attention of your website visitors before they get bored and go somewhere else. You have a lot to do within those first 3 seconds, and you don’t want to waste it all on having to wait for your page to load. I’ve received a few emails from people telling me that they’ve done all they could think of, but their site still takes too long to load and they wanted to know what some of the methods were that I implemented in order to get JWRmeda to load so quickly.

When my blog first went online, I wanted to optimize it for speed and for the search engines as much as possible. I ran speed tests during each stage of the optimization process to record the effects it had on my site. Here’s what I came up with:

NOTE: To test my page load time, simply inserted the following code somewhere on my page:

The average page load time before I did any optimization was 2.138 seconds.

1. Cache objects
The first time a person visits your site, the page requested may have to make many HTTP requests for stylesheets, javascript, images, flash, etc. By instructing your site to cache certain objects, a browser will only have to load these objects once. Subsequent page views by the same visitor will require much less requests, thus significantly reducing your page load time.

Here’s what I inserted in my .htaccess file:

The above code will cache all jpg, jpeg, png, gif, css, js and swf files for 1 week. For more information on enabling caching with .htaccess, see cache filetypes.

After making this optimization, my average page load time took 1.447 seconds.

2. Merge all stylesheets & javascript
It’s a proven fact that a browser will load one large stylesheet much faster than multiple smaller stylesheets. The same goes for javascript files. I took all the stylesheets from my theme, Wordpress and all of the plugins I’m using and squished them all into one larger stylesheet. I did the same with my javascript files. I do have a few .css and .js files I’ve kept separate that only have components that are needed on a few pages of this site, so they only load when needed.

After making this optimization, my average page load time took 1.034 seconds.

3. Cut down your page content
Many people who own blogs will display up to 10 posts on the same page. This is a lot of content to load. Instead, try cutting it down to 5 or 4. Chances are nobody is going to sift through 10 of your most recent posts anyway, and now your pages will load faster.

I was never using more than 4 posts per page, so I don’t have a new page load time to share with you.

4. Compress images
Image compression is a HUGE factor for Continue Reading

Popularity: 3% [?]

One of the first things I do when I purchase a new computer is add as much additional RAM as I can. With a Macbook, the RAM comes in pairs, which means that you use a pair of identical RAM sticks at the same time.

The new aluminum Macbooks are a little more tricky to add RAM over the previous models. Previously, the RAM slots were accessed through the battery compartment. However, the new Macbooks take a little bit more work to access and replace the RAM.
Continue Reading

Popularity: 2% [?]

This may not apply to very many of you, but it was a bug I experienced in Internet Explorer 7 which took me quite a bit of effort to find the solution while driving me absolutely crazy in the meantime.

When selecting a drop down box with your mouse to make your selection, Internet Explorer 7 would suddenly crash, forcing you to shut down the program then restart. As long as you do not select anything in the drop down box, IE does not crash. This problem does not occur with every drop down box you may encounter with Internet Explorer 7, rather, it occurs quite randomly.

The problem generally goes away if you download and install the latest Internet Explorer updates from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/.

However, if you feel comfortable making some slight changes to your registry, you can fix this problem in about 60 seconds. Here’s how:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate the following registry subkey, and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_USE_WINDOWEDSELECTCONTROL
   (Note: If you cannot locate the FEATURE_USE_WINDOWEDSELECTCONTROL key, create the FEATURE_USE_WINDOWEDSELECTCONTROL key under the FeatureControl key.)
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type Iexplore.exe, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click Iexplore.exe, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Exit Registry Editor.

The next time you open Internet Explorer, the problem should be resolved. A quick fix to such an annoying problem!

Popularity: 10% [?]

If you’ve got a landing page that you want to rank well in the search engines, you’ve got to be sure that it is designed with search engines in mind. If you want your landing page campaign to be successful, make sure you follow these five rules:

1. My landing page contains at least 250 words of HTML text.

Search engine spiders are like hungry animals trying to devour their prey. They feed off of HTML. If you want them to think well of you and visit often, you’ve got to feed them what they want. HTML is what they’re looking for so be sure to give it to them.

A page with only 1 or 2 short paragraphs of HTML text or text within graphics will not fare very well if compared to your competition whose page contains hundreds of “juicy” words written in HTML for the search engine spiders to feed off of.

2. The Text on the Page Contains My Target Keywords

All that text on your page will do you no good if you babble on about a red car, but you want your landing page to rank well for the search term “green boat”. If you want to rank well for “green boat” then be sure to talk about a green boat within the text of your landing page.

Your landing page will have much more success if you be sure to use your target keywords as many times as possible while still providing a pleasant reading experience for the visitor.

3. Don’t Forget the Title
Continue Reading

Popularity: 4% [?]

Since I usually flip at least a few websites each month, I’m continuously acquiring domain names, setting up and removing hosting accounts. I prefer to design each website online rather than on my local computer, but I don’t want visitors or search engine spiders to find the site until it’s completely finished. How do I get around that?

Or, let’s say my website is setup with hosting company A and has been online for some time already, but I decide to switch to hosting company B instead. How do I transfer my website over to the new hosting company and ensure it’s functioning correctly without any downtime?

The solution to these questions is easier than you think. It all has to do with a little file called “hosts” that resides on your computer.

The Hosts File

The hosts file gives instructions to your computer to use a specific IP address when accessing a particular domain name. This goes for any type of access- the frontend website, cPanel, FTP, etc.

Your hosts file resides at:

C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts

Since your hosts file has no actual file extension, you will be prompted to select a program you would like to use when attempting to open the file. Any plain text editor would do such as Notepad, Notepad++ or Notepad2.

Once opened, you may or may not already have entries in the file. Spyware protection software such as Spybot Search & Destroy sometimes add entries to your hosts file to keep files from certain websites from installing on your computer.

Using Your Hosts File

Continue Reading

Popularity: 3% [?]

Since I usually flip at least a few websites each month, I’m continuously acquiring domain names, setting up and removing hosting accounts. I prefer to design each website online rather than on my local computer, but I don’t want visitors or search engine spiders to find the site until it’s completely finished. How do I get around that?

Or, let’s say my website is setup with hosting company A and has been online for some time already, but I decide to switch to hosting company B instead. How do I transfer my website over to the new hosting company and ensure it’s functioning correctly without any downtime?

The solution to these questions is easier than you think. It all has to do with a little file called “hosts” that resides on your computer.

The Hosts File

The hosts file gives instructions to your computer to use a specific IP address when accessing a particular domain name. This goes for any type of access- the frontend website, cPanel, FTP, etc.

Your hosts file resides at:

C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts

Since your hosts file has no actual file extension, you will be prompted to select a program you would like to use when attempting to open the file. Any plain text editor would do such as Notepad, Notepad++ or Notepad2.

Once opened, you may or may not already have entries in the file. Spyware protection software such as Spybot Search & Destroy sometimes add entries to your hosts file to keep files from certain websites from installing on your computer.

Using Your Hosts File

Continue Reading

Popularity: 2% [?]