Open Source Web Analytics – You knew this was Coming
October 14, 2008
It wasn’t going to take long for someone to come along and say “Hey, we can make that Open Source”. Google Analytics by its very nature is “Open Source” with access to its API’s and a whole host of information about configuring the interworkings of a Web Analytics platform. Other companies like “Piwik” are also aiming at offering APIs and developing developer communities to create added value for people to start using their web analytics platform similar to the following that organizations like WordPress have. Its not a bad idea!
Because larger companies want to keep everything “in-house” I can completely understand how some companies opt to buy a platform like Web Trends to keep things safe and internal. They don’t want to give away the secret recipe to the success of their web business systems. Also, when shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) come into play how can someone guarantee that their data is 100% safe?
Open source web analytics systems may find a place in big business but I wouldn’t expect industry players like Web Trends to lose too much sleep at night thinking that open source web analytics will end the revolution of paid web analytics services any time soon. Just because HTML is free to write and learn, companies still spend a lot of money investing into the look and feel of their websites and into tools like Dreamweaver to help them accomplish this.
Luc
A Web Analyst is Nothing Without a Website to Analyze
September 24, 2008
Now I’ve been tweaking my web analytics education for about a year now. I spent a little time designing websites to realize that my heart was in understanding how someone uses technology, like a website to do something from buying tickets, to looking up old classmates and not in building websites.
Now asides from running this blog I realized I need context to test new web analytics strategies and SEO efforts and I needed the traffic there to do so…
A New Website is born
SpicyWebDesigners.com is an idea I’ve had for the past few years that didn’t come to light until this past August (2008). So far the response has been great and as I continue to build it I am sure that it will continue to grow. I picked up a theme from WooThemes… I love their premium WordPress themes and WordPress itself.
Stay tuned for more articles and tips on Web Analytics.
WordPress Website Theme Review: ProudFolio
August 7, 2008
I found this interesting website theme design developed by Elliot Jay Stocks called “ProudFolio” today. This website theme is developed for use with WordPress, a CMS application and boasts the following features…
- The ability to separate your blog from your portfolio
- Create a unique homepage layout
- Allows you to use specific templates for various sections of your website (Blog, Portfolio, Tags, Search Results, etc.)
- And numerous other helpful features
This WordPress theme also includes two variations of CSS style sheet that allow you to choose a style that you like which is very helpful for new website owners looking to change the style on the fly. Check out this website theme today in action.
Hiring Freelancer Designers or Developers to build your business
July 30, 2008
After working with other designers, coders and developers over the past years I thought I’d put together an article about this. The way that I wanted to setup Pure Web Analytics was a business that works with its client base ongoing over the life of their web based business systems. Freelancing projects to different coders can be dangerous to businesses building their reputation online because you are only as good as your last designer or coder.
For some business owners this works but I’ve seen my share of projects where a coder or designer left a project and the person who paid for it had no clue of the work that was actually done and what was left remaining. When the next coder showed up it had to be re-coding from scratch and the cycle repeats itself over and over again.
Pros of Hiring
I don’t want to learn HTML, CSS, PHP or ASP and I don’t have to!
One of the biggest pros of hiring a freelance programmer or designer is that they do all the coding or designing and you just sit back and pay them. It can be simple and stress free to hire coders to work on your projects, update your website or perform any number of other tasks that you need help with.
Finding a skilled professional with a skill set that is hard to find locally
When it comes to hiring for a specific project where the skillet required is outside what anyone locally can provide for you, hiring a freelancer can work to your benefit.
It’s cheaper hiring a freelancer
When you are hiring a freelancer you don’t need to worry about paying those benefits, other overhead costs or anything associated to keeping an employee other then the cost of having them working on the project.
Cons of Hiring
Who owns what code or design work?
This is an issue that gets sticky depending on how you attack this issue. Naturally as companies develop proprietary web software with their freelance developers this becomes something that the business depends on and this is one way in which problems can arise.
How talented is my freelancer?
Some freelancers come off as gurus and after you read their resume, look at some of their samples you are ready to make the effort to purchase their services. Once you before involved in the project you realize that they don’t know what they are talking about and that they cannot help you. Money is lost, expectations are lost and you are lost as to who to hire next?
Where did my freelancer go?
Sometimes freelancers just disappear off the face of the planet never to be seen or heard from again. When some freelancers feel a project is complete to their standards and not the standards of the customer paying for their services they simply stop responding. They stop sending emails. They stop working for you on your projects. Your only real course of action is to either sue them or higher another freelance professional to finish the project.
Where does my freelancer live?
Choosing a freelancer means selecting who you want to work with based on their location. Some people don’t mind hiring a freelance coder or designer from
Whether you choose to work with a freelancer or not these are a few points to keep in mind when you are considering how to hire for your project. Not all web professionals are created equal and sometimes spending a little more you are able to achieve the things that you need to run a successful business online or adding a web channel to your current business.
Other options instead of outsourcing your projects to a freelancer
Do It Yourself
This is a favourite of many entrepreneurs and small business owners out there but unless you are a web developer you may be better off spending the money to have someone build your website over trying to learn everything yourself
Staff your company internally
If your company is large enough to support a full time or part time web designer or developer then this might be your best bet. This way they are an official employee of your company and running off with the secret source code becomes much harder.
Find a development firm to manage your projects and complete them.
Finding a solution provider, design agency or company that specifically can help you build your business’ web site is another great option. That is actually what Pure Web Analytics is designed for and the niche we meet we don’t choose to work with a lot of companies because we want to provide excellent support and development to our clients, they in turn pay for it but they get value from knowing that we only work with a certain amount of clients. Being structured this way allows us to remain competitive and selective about the people we hire and the projects that we take on.
That being said i think that there are many excellent freelance web designers, developers and usability experts out there and maybe in the near future Pure Web Analytics will showcase some of the hottest talent from around the web for your viewing pleasure!
How to Improve SEO for flash-based websites
July 23, 2008
After spending a weekend hiring a photographer for our upcoming wedding, we were looking at his website and he asked me “How is flash handled by search engines and is there anything that you can do to improve SEO short of redesigning the website without flash?” Now I know that a lot of companies big and small out there use Flash, Applets and Movies to improve the look, feel and navigation of their site but few realize how much this can impact the SEO on their website. I am going to give away some free information about how you can improve SEO on your website when you use objects like Flash, Movies or Java Applets (Use at your own risk).
Using <NOEMBED> tags
Using <noembed> tags means that you can add written content in a way that search engines can read the page without it being seen as though you are trying to trick the search engine with hidden text.
<embed src=”html.swf” width=”50″ height=”100″ />
<noembed>
<H1>Web Flash Movie</H1>
<p>This is a movie about flash and how to use it.</p>
</noembed>
Because there are a lot of media websites out there optimizing pages, objects and movies for search engines presents a problem and a current possibility for solving this problem is by using the <noembed> tags for multimedia content on your website. Feel free to test out this code in your websites.
Luc
