When we spend time trying to optimize a web site to increase traffic, I find the need to check how our optimizations are performing.  There are two tools that I am addicted to, Google Analytics and Clicky.

Last week Google released a bunch of new features to their Google Analytics product.  I check our sites analytics just about everyday.  It’s interesting to see who visited our site, where they linked in from, what pages they viewed, how long they stayed and other juicy info.  I haven’t had much time to play around with the new features, but I am looking forward to the new custom reporting.

Here is how Google(http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html) describes the new custom reporting feature:

“Create, save, and edit custom reports that present the information you want to see organized in the way you want to see it. A drag and drop interface lets you select the metrics you want and define multiple levels of sub-reports. Once created, each custom report is available for as long as you want it.”

However, I think the e-commerce tracking is by far the most profitable feature with Google Analytics.  Using Google Analytics we can determine which links, keywords, banner ads, Adwords or other sources generate the most revenue. We can also see what visitors are trying to look for and if they are finding what they are seeking.  Then we can tell the percentage of customers who bail during the checkout process and at what point.  All very cool stuff.  All this info helps us to work with our clients to make their websites generate more revenue.

While Google Analytics has very powerful reporting tools, I have to wait until tomorrow to see today’s traffic. Not so with Clicky.  With Clicky I can see reports of real time traffic as it happens.  I find myself checking in two or three times a day. They even have an iPhone optimized version for the hard core analytics addicts.  The reports are great and I can drill down and see the entire session of each vistor.  Very nice.

Each of these solutions require a little bit of javascript on each page.   If you are a client of Aslan, please let us know and we’ll be happy to set your site up for analytics.

It’s always nice when a conference is in our backyard.  On December 8-12 2008, we will be attending Search Engine Strategies Chicago at the Chicago Hilton on Michigan Ave.  This will be our first year attending this event that is now in it’s 10th year in Chicago.  Hosted by an industry seasoned veteran, Kevin Ryan, the conference is geared towards both website owners and search engine consultants.  As of now, they have not listed the speakers. However, looking throught the agenda on their website it looks as if they have some very interesting topics.  The topics consist of basic search engine optimization techniques, as well as discussions on some of the latest trends in search engine marketing.

For the last couple of days I have been working on business documents that I want to collaborate on with co-workers.  There are several ways of doing this, but the best way I’ve found is using a Google Docs Document.  Now that I have used it with about a half dozen documents, it has become one of my favorite word processors.  It hardly feels like a web app.  Google has done an amazing job. It does just about everything I want a word processor to do and more.  While using the application I keep finding new features that I didn’t know existed. Best of all, IT’S FREE!

What is a hosting framework?

Our hosting company SoftLayer is not a normal dedicated server hosting company. Rather than providing servers, they provide an automated infrastructure. Most of the jobs in hosting can be done by a robot. SoftLayer has just about perfected their use of robots to run their business. If load on a server hits a big spike, I can have another server automatically provisioned and ready to go in a couple hours. Not only that but this new server is connected to my others as if they were sitting next to each other. I can automatically put any Ooperating system on the new server and/or switch operating systems at will, all without the help of a person. With this, SoftLayer becomes the most scalable, flexible hosting provider I’ve worked with.

What happens when there’s problems?

Whereas with other hosting companies, if I have a serious problem that I could fix, I still need to find someone at the hosting company to help. Those rare, serious problems often require someone onsite at the data center to go in front of the server and help you out. Not with so with SoftLayer. Through their unique infrastructure, they can basically offer me direct access to “stand in front of the server” all the time. This is done through redirecting the keyboard, screen and mouse right to my office through a secure, back channel. Since often times I know how to fix a problem, I can get most things fixed before I could even explain what’s wrong to another hosting company. But if I’m on vacation, the SL folks are very knowledgeable to help out others in the company. I really like how they set the expectation up front of paying 3 bucks per incident. Paying 3 dollars to get a problem solved takes the load off of the SL tech support in dealing with much of the mundane stuff most hosts have to. And still it’s a very reasonable change if you have a real need.

How’s the reliability?

I started off in this industry in the late 90’s hosting with RackSpace. They’ve been widely known as the best in the business. I know that the only people with more Redhat Linux engineers than RackSpace is Redhat itself. In the past couple of years I’ve been with SL though, I’ve seen more major infrastructure problems at RackSpace than there have been at SoftLayer.