Google Offers Web Analytics for Free

"Webmasters can get free, sophisticated tools to determine how many people are visiting their sites, and what they're clicking on, causing suffering among pricey competitors."

Major good news for small web site owners! Google has made Urchin statistics available for free in a script-driven application. All you have to do is paste a small piece of script into every page on your web site (that you want tracked, you can skip pages that you do not want statistics on!), and go into the reporting application to see the results. The only limitation I have seen so far on the application is that it is limited to 5M pageviews per month for non AdWords advertisers. This will not be a problem for most small sites. Larger sites can always initiate a small AdWords campaign to qualify.

Our classes have always emphasized the importance of comprehensive, thorough site statistics to enable site operators to manage their site performance. The Urchin reporting package is one of the better packages available and will easily meet the needs of most site owners.

For more information, go to the Google Web Analytics page. Thanks to Bob Tchoryk, one of our class participants, for the "heads-up" on this news!

Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies - New York Times

"'Google is the realization of everything that we thought the Internet was going to be about but really wasn't until Google,'..."

The New York Times writes about the impact that Google is having on all businesses, and how Wal-Mart, the country's largest company registers concern about the threat that Google poses to their business.

What does this mean to us, webmasters and small business owners who are working to make the Internet an effective marketing tool for our businesses? It means that the tools we are attempting to utilize for the expansion and growth of our businesses are becoming more and more powerful and significant for all businesses. It means that the techniques we learn in improving our own sites, and those of our clients, have a broader and broader reach and impact every day, and that the trend will continue for the foreseeablee future.

It means that the time we spend learning to improve our web sites will pay us great dividends if we do the job right. Learn the lessons well, and be persistent in your application of them.

Business that works on the web!

"A clever little business that provides a useful product in an efficient manner to the widest possible variety of potential customers. "

The editor of SmartComputing describes a small business that is successful on the Internet, and sums up the principle concepts very nicely. Note the terms he used; "useful", "efficient", "widest possible variety". These are the elements of successful businesses anywhere, and even more so on the web.

His editorial is titled, "Building The Digital Cottage", as in "cottage industry". Most of us who are working on our businesses should relate to this description. We are all cottage industries. We are niche players, looking for the niches in the environment that we can exploit to produce an income for our businesses. We are not the people who have big budgets to create elaborate web sites. We are always looking for those opportunities to benefit by utilizing the techniques that bigger companies overlook. The size and continuing growth of the Internet as a phenomenon in today's world provides many such opportunities for those of us who are quick enough and energetic enough to capitalize on them.