Lazytea Creations FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have questions about your website or Lazytea Creations?  If we don't have your answer here, please email Lynn and we'll add your answer to this FAQ. If you are a current client wondering about progress on your site, please consult Lazytea Creations Web Development Status

Understanding Your Stats

 

How do I read my statistics?  Where can I find them?

• Main Headings

  Hits represent the total number of requests made to the server during the given time period (month, day, hour etc..). It's important that you not use this to gauge how many people visit your site. One visit can trigger multiple hits (requesting html code, images, stylesheet, etc.)

  Files represent the total number of hits (requests) that actually resulted in something being sent back to the user. Not all hits will send data, such as 404-Not Found requests and requests for pages that are already in the browsers cache.

  Tip: By looking at the difference between hits and files, you can get a rough indication of repeat visitors, as the greater the difference between the two, the more people are requesting pages they already have cached (have viewed already).

  Sites is the number of unique IP addresses/hostnames that made requests to the server. Care should be taken when using this metric for anything other than that. Many users can appear to come from a single site, and they can also appear to come from many ip addresses so it should be used simply as a rough guage as to the number of visitors to your server.

  Visits occur when someone makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same computer keeps making requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. If a computer makes a request to your server, and the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes), a new Visit is started and counted, and the sequence repeats.

  Pages are those URLs that would be considered the actual page being requested, and not all of the individual items that make it up (such as graphics and audio clips). Some people call this metric page views or page impressions, and defaults to any URL that has an extension of .htm, .html or .php, etc..

  A KByte (KB) is 1024 bytes (1 Kilobyte). Used to show the amount of data that was transfered between the server and the remote machine, based on the data found in the server log.

  
  

• Common Definitions

  A Site is a remote machine that makes requests to your server, and is based on the remote machines IP Address/Hostname.

  URL - Uniform Resource Locator. All requests made to a web server need to request something. A URL is that something, and represents an object somewhere on your server, that is accessable to the remote user, or results in an error (ie: 404 - Not found). URLs can be of any type (HTML, Audio, Graphics, etc...).

  Referrers are those URLs that lead a user to your site or caused the browser to request something from your server. The vast majority of requests are made from your own URLs, since most HTML pages contain links to other objects such as graphics files. If one of your HTML pages contains links to 10 graphic images, then each request for the HTML page will produce 10 more hits with the referrer specified as the URL of your own HTML page.

  Search Strings are obtained from examining the referrer string and looking for known patterns from various search engines. The search engines and the patterns to look for can be specified by the user within a configuration file. The default will catch most of the major ones.

  Note: Only available if that information is contained in the server logs.

  User Agents are a fancy name for browsers. Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, etc.. are all User Agents, and each reports itself in a unique way to your server. Keep in mind however, that many browsers allow the user to change it's reported name, so you might see some obvious fake names in the listing.

  Note: Only available if that information is contained in the server logs.

  Entry/Exit pages are those pages that were the first requested in a visit (Entry), and the last requested (Exit). These pages are calculated using the Visits logic above. When a visit is first triggered, the requested page is counted as an Entry page, and whatever the last requested URL was, is counted as an Exit page.

  Countries are determined based on the top level domain of the requesting site. This is somewhat questionable however, as there is no longer strong enforcement of domains as there was in the past. A .COM domain may reside in the US, or somewhere else. An .IL domain may actually be in Isreal, however it may also be located in the US or elsewhere. The most common domains seen are .COM (US Commercial), .NET (Network), .ORG (Non-profit Organization) and .EDU (Educational). A large percentage may also be shown as Unresolved/Unknown, as a fairly large percentage of dialup and other customer access points do not resolve to a name and are left as an IP address.

  Response Codes are defined as part of the HTTP/1.1 protocol (RFC 2068; See Chapter 10). These codes are generated by the web server and indicate the completion status of each request made to it.

If you are a Lazytea Creations client and wish to know how to view your website statistics discussed above, please contact me and I'll be happy to send you the necessary links and logins when applicable.

 

A List Apart: Articles: The Web Design Survey, 2007

Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

It’s time we learned the answers to these and other questions about web design. And nobody is better qualified than the readers of A List Apart to provide the answers. Participate in our first annual survey to increase knowledge of web design and boost respect for the profession. Selected participants, chosen by random drawing, will win one free ticket to An Event Apart event held in the continental U.S.; an Apple 30GB video iPod, an Event Apart jump drive, or a funky A List Apart T-shirt.1

A List Apart: Articles: The Web Design Survey, 2007.

Search Engine Optimization Services

While this company is promoting it's own services, I felt some of the advice was concise, accurate, and well-written. If you are concerned about your search engine rank or optimization be sure to visit this site and poke around a bit when you have time. Here is just an example of what you can find there:

Full Search Engine Optimization Services
Why we don't use doorway/gateway pages

We believe that creating doorway pages solely for the purpose of ranking high is absolutely NOT the way to achieve long-term high rankings, and simply adds clutter to the search engines. The search engines are a lot smarter than many people think and they are getting better and better at detecting pages that are not actually a real part of your Web site. Many of the engines will simply remove these gateway/doorway pages all together from their database if they spot them and others will give them a low ranking. We have never used doorway/gateway pages to achieve high rankings, as we want to provide you with top results in the search engines that last for years.
Tried and true search engine optimization methods that work

We use two basic methods of search engine optimization. Every site has its own unique needs, and we will determine the best method of optimization for your site once we've had a chance to carefully look at it.

1. Writing or rewriting your existing content for search engines and your prospects. Very often when we optimize a site, our professional writers will need to rewrite the text currently showing on your pages to incorporate your keyword phrases for high rankings. We understand your company has a particular branded tone and feel that needs to be reflected, and as such we will work closely with your marketing department, and/or train your writers in SEO writing, as necessary.
2. Editing your existing content for keyword phrases. For some Web sites there may already be enough well-written, visible text that allows us to weave in the targeted keyword phrases, where appropriate. This is often the case with high content sites.

Please note: Highly graphical and/or Flash pages, cannot be optimized using traditional copywriting methods. For these types of sites, we recommend concentrating on Directory Submissions and/or creating new, search engine friendly pages for the site.
Included in all Full Search Engine Optimizations:

* Searching through the WordTracker database of actually-used keyword phrases that are relevant to your business, and determining the best phrases to use to optimize your site;
* Professional copywriting as necessary;
* Optimizing tags, titles and other parts of the code as necessary;
* Editing the copy to ensure proper usage of the most searched-upon keyword phrases relevant to your site;
* Submitting optimized page URLs to the major search engines;
* Monitoring the search engines for three months to ensure that your URL gets indexed, with resubmissions as necessary during this time;
* Providing three monthly reports showing where your site is ranking and under which keywords;

Expect results

By the end of the three-month period, you can usually expect to see your site ranked in the top 20 (usually better!) on most of the keyword phrases which we specifically optimized for, in most of the major search engines. Often certain phrases will rank high in some engines, and other phrases will be high in other engines. You should be able to see a good representation throughout the engines, in most cases. Although these results will vary over time, going up and down slightly over short periods, they will generally remain in the top 20 for the long haul (years), without any additional optimization.
Search Engine Optimization Fees

We offer ongoing SEO on a monthly fee basis with a minimum year's contract. Please let us know if you'd like a proposal for this type of service. These campaigns can run anywhere from $2000 - $8000 per month depending on the particular site in question.
Ongoing SEO

Please note that many optimization campaigns take at least 3 - 6 months to see measurable results. A professional link popularity campaign is often necessary to realize a noticeable increase in targeted traffic and sales. (Monthly SEO Campaigns generally have ongoing link building included.)

Please note that there are often long stretches of time when some search engines do not add new pages to their indices at all, or are very slow to add them. We have no control over when your pages will be indexed, but will do all that we can to get them into all of the engines’ databases.We've been finding that you will usually see at least the main page of your site in all of the engines in three to six months from when we first submit the site. Many of the engines will index your site quickly, and many will take some months. Patience is a virtue at this point in the process!

Search Engine Optimization Services - High Rankings® SEO Services.

Understanding Site Statistics

Understanding Your Website's Traffic Statistics

If you want to know how much traffic is coming to your site, which pages are  bringing the most traffic, where are your visitors coming from, and when is traffic coming in, you just have to analyze your website's statistics.
       
Nowadays, most web hosts utilize Webalizer, a powerful program that processes your raw traffic logs (long, text based files with information about your traffic), and generates  meaningful reports presented in the form of easy to understand graphs and tables. Other hosts may use different traffic analysis tools, but they all work and present the  information in a similar fashion.
       
We'll show you, step by step, how your web site statistics can answer almost any question  you may have about your traffic:
               

How much traffic is coming to my site?        

The two most important parameters are:
       
        a) Number of Visitors
        b) Number of Page Views
       
The Number of Visitors shows you how many users come to your site and request a page.  The visitor can move around your site visiting several pages, however he will still be counted as only one visitor.  An exception to this rule occurs in the rare occasion when a visitor takes more than half an hour (or the amount of time set by your host) to click from one page to another, in which case the program will register two visitors.
       
The Page Views parameter indicates how many pages have been requested. It is a very important number because it is indicative of the "stickiness" of your site.  Stickiness is a good thing: if, for example, your statistics show 10 visitors, but 50 page views, it means that, on average, each visitor has viewed 5 pages. A large "page views per visitor" ratio usually means that your site is so interesting and valuable that users are inclined to "stick around" and explore.
       
Other somehow important parameter, especially if you have bandwidth restrictions, is the Kilobytes Transmitted.  Sites with a lot of pictures, or sites that allow downloads (reports, ebooks, audio files or video) will incur in significant bandwidth usage. If you operate a plain HTML site but still show an abnormally high bandwidth usage, you may need to optimize your images to make them less heavy.
       
Finally, a less important measure (although it was heavily hyped in the early days of the web) is the number of Hits. Hits represent the number of files sent to a  user after a page request. If a page has 30 pictures, one sigle visit will trigger 31 hits: thirty for the pictures and one for the page itself.
       

Through where on my site is traffic coming in?       

You may be interested in knowing which pages of your site are bringing in the most  traffic, since not every visitor will come through your home page.
       
Your traffic statistics will show you a list of the most popular entry pages to your site, ranked by number of requests. Sometimes, internal pages can bring in more traffic than the homepage itself.  This may happen when a particular internal page is very well optimized and regularly shows up at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), or when it offers such good content that other sites   link directly to it.
       
You will also find a list of the most common exit pages (the last page your users visited prior to leaving your site)

How is traffic coming in?

Your traffic statistics will show you a list of referrers.  Referrers  are those URLs that lead a user to your site.  Referrers are ranked by the number of hits they produce.  That is why the vast majority of referrers will be URLs from your own site (since HTML pages usually contain embedded links to other objects such as graphics files, they generate a large number of hits). However, if you filter out your own  pages, you will see what external URLs are bringing in visitors to your pages.

External referrers generally fall into two categories:

• pages that have posted a link to your site, and
           
• search engine referred traffic.

You will also find an entry in your referrer list named "Direct Request"; it shows you the number of times somebody accessed your pages by either directly typing your URL in the address bar, by using a bookmark or by following a link on an email message.

Analyzing your traffic statistics will also tell you what keywords are your visitors using to find your pages through search engines. This is extremely important since it will tell you if your selected keywords are working or not.  It may also bring to your attention keywords that you may have not thought about. You may then use those keywords to further optimize your pages and bring in even more traffic.
               

When is traffic coming in?        

You can also find out when are visitors coming to your site. You will find statistics by month, by day and even by hour. This can be useful in a variety of circumstances. For example, if you publish new content, you may want to release it during the moments of more traffic. Your statistics will help you by identifying the days or hours when more people are likely to visit your site.

       
Finally, you will also have access to other interesting data, like the IP addresses of your visitors, the browsers they are using, and even the countries they are coming from.
       
Altogether, the information you gather from your website's traffic statistics will provide you with a wealth of valuable insights, so that you can continuously fine tune your internet marketing strategy to bring more traffic to your site.

Coutesy of The Internet Digest Archive

Increase Site Traffic

Q: How can I increase the number of visitors to my website?  Why isn't my site one of the first listed in the search engines like Yahoo & Google?

A:  Several factors contribute to how people find out about your website and make the decision to visit.  Some of this falls under something called Search Engine Optimization .  I  have no reason to not want all of my sites to receive maximum traffic; so, every Lazytea design is fully optimized from the very beginning of planning the design.  I do not charge extra for this service.  It includes domain selection, meta tags, description, alts, accurate page titles, links, and site mapping. Often I will discuss changes in content, text, or navigation with the client to enhance this process.  Before I even begin work on a site I will discuss the projected audience with the client and put it in writing for reference.

Upon completion, I submit every site to some of the top free search engines including Yahoo and Google.  It is up to the client to resubmit their site or request me to continue to submit their site to other engines (of course, this is an extra fee).  Submission of your site to a search engine is really a small part of being indexed and increasing traffic.

I also have reciprocal links for all client sites on my sites and blogs when appropriate.  I will gladly add any code for webrings, banner ads, or other reciprocal links as a part of your initial design fee or maintenance agreement.  Remember, I benefit from your increased site traffic as well.

Most of the work to publicize a website and increase traffic falls on on the site owner.  Nothing replaces your effort to publicize your own website. 

Things you can do to advertise your website site:

• Include your site's URL in your email signature, your blogs, guestbook entries, forum/bulletin board  signatures, and e-list signature
• Print your URL on business cards, flyers, promotional material, contracts, handouts, trophy sponsorships, premium lists, catalog ads: magazine, newlsetter,  and newspaper ads; the back of your event chair, tote bags , bumper stickers, donations, raffle items, etc. Ask me to help you with this.
• Ask your friends with websites for reciprocal links .  I am happy to add them for you free at any time.  Links on your home page are especially useful
• Consider some adsense word ads or similar paid advertising
• Consult this reference for other ideas

Any changes to your site will take 4-6 weeks to be reflected in site traffic and search engines.  Without massive site traffic, you most likely won't come up in the first pages of a general search.  Another important factor for top search engine ranking is how long the site has been stable on the internet.  AustralianCattleDog.com receives around 30,000 unique hits per month and has been on the internet about 10 years.  It is also a pertinent domain name.  In searching for AustralianCattleDog this site currently ranks #2 on Google #4 on Yahoo and #2 on MSN

Note:  Often those ranked in the top positions have paid to be listed there.  Many have told me they avoid clicking on the first search engine entry and opt for the second or third because they want the most pertinent site not the one that paid to be there.

For reference: having a unique domain name and doing all of the above, I have managed to rank on the first 10 pages on most search engines with my site and business Lazytea Creations

If you still have questions about increasing traffic and visitors to your site, contact me.

Another Interesting article on the topic with some new ideas - (link posted 1/26/07)
 

Site Updates - Modifications

Q:  I have paid my maintenance contract for the year.  When can I expect you to post my updates?
A:  I make every attempt to post your updates as soon as possible after they are received.  However, I often receive a slug of updates from several clients in one day. I will prioritize the updates according to timeliness and whether or not I've already updated your site for the month.  Your maintenance fee includes monthly updates.  The longest you will ever have to wait for an update is 1 month.  Site modifications may take longer and I will tell you if your update is really a modification when I receive it.  If you are in doubt, please ask.

Site Maintenance

Q:  Is there a fee for site maintenance?
A:  Yes.  There is a fee for routine maintenance on your site after the initial design period designated in your contract with Lazytea Creations.  It is a nominal fee based on the complexity and frequency of your updates.  Usually, I will enhance your site as a routine part of maintenance.  You will be responsible for supplying the content to be used for the updates.

Site Updating

Q:  Can I update my site by myself?
A:  Yes.  You can update your own website.  If you request this ability before I design your site, there is a nominal surcharge to set up your with access.  Access will only be allowed after the design period is complete.  Be apprised that there is a $75.00.hour fee charged to repair any damage or restore your site.  I may also choose to remove your site from my portfolio and search engine submission list if you dramatically alter the site's design.  If you wish to learn to update your own site that is already finished, I can assist; but, I charge an hourly fee depending on the complexity of your website.

Frontpage

Q:  Do you use Frontpage?
A:  While Frontpage 2003 is just another WSIWYG editor, I prefer to use Dreamweaver or a text editor to design my newer sites.  Many of my old sites were designed using Frontpage 2003 especially if at the client's request.  Many clients still request the ability to update their site using Frontpage and I make every effort to accomodate their requests.  Be sure to discuss self-updating with me before I design your site.

Site Design - Colors

 Q:  I really don't like some colors and want a dark/light background for my new web site.  Will you design the site around my colors?

A:  I make every attempt to design your site using colors you prefer.  I'm sure you've been to sites that were unattractive because of the chosen colors.  That is because color is very subjective and each monitor, browser, computer handles color a little differently.  I try to use colors that look the best in as many various configurations as possible.  I also use web design standards to guide my choice of colors for your site.  It is best to tell me BEFORE I design your site what you prefer.  I cannot guarantee the color is easily changed after the site is designed.