Category: misc

Other miscellaneous

Project Management

Recently I was listening to this episode of Start Ups For The Rest Of Us podcast, and it gave me a kick in the pants.

I realize I had to put up this blog (and a landing page) before the launch of VanilaFolder.

Also I realize that I needed to manage everything about the development and marketing of my business. I needed a tool.

What Project Management App am I using?

PivotalTracker.

I have used them in the past, and looking forward to using it for my launch.

Sidenote:

Since I’m developing VanilaFolder by myself, I customized Pivotal Tracker for solo-mode.

Best Website Analytics for Bootstrappers

I need some stats. Google Analytics for sure, but what else?

Recommended:

  • Google Analytics
  • StatsCounter
  • WP-Statistics
  • Quantcast

Bonus

  • Mixpanel
  • Optimizely

 

Basically some stats to get started, some vanity metrics to stay motivated, until I look at metrics that matters.

 

Google Analytics

Only problem with Google Analytics is that it’s not real-time. (Complicated to use too) But they provide a wealth of data, and you can slice and dice, and get lots of insights. Definitely the standard.

StatsCounter

For real-time stats, I use to use StatsCounter.com. Their free plan allows up to 250k visits a month, and keeps detailed log of last 500 pageviews.

My favorite part of this service is how simple it is, and they offer tracking multiple sites for free.

WP-Statistics

This is a popular free plugin. I don’t see any downside of having this plugin, it seems well supported.

Quantcast

I’ve always liked Quantcast, not sure why. Maybe it’s cause it starts with ‘Qu’ 🙂 I like the demographic information it offers.

Mixpanel

Mixpanel is more of Optimization and an Events tracker, they have a generous free plan to get started. I’m excited to use them more.

Optimizely

Optimizely is the top a/b split testing tool. Super easy to use, and with it’s new pricing plan, it’ll work up to 50k visits a month. Pretty cool.

 

fyi. Here’s a huge list of stats & analytics services by popularity.

 

Honorable Mentions

Clicky, I’m not using it because the free plan only supports one site. I’ve used them in the past. If you have only one site, you might want to check them out.

Inspectlet, MouseFlow, GhostRec records the user session. Kind of like the new ClickTale since they’ve gone corporate.

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Segment.io competitor to Mixpanel, not as easy to use though.

Gauges, not free, but affordable at $6/month unlimited sites 100k pageviews. Looks simple to use.

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Trying out

I’m trying out HiStats, completely free, simple, kind of out-dated. It ranked well on Datanyze list above. HiStats doesn’t seem to be real-time stats though.

I’m also trying out Heap. Seems pretty comprehensive, offers a lil bit of the other tools.

 

 

To Pluralize or not to Pluralize Domain?

So I didn’t mention in my launch post, that traffichabit.com (un-pluralize) was also available! (amazing, come on squatters!)

I bought both TrafficHabits.com as well as TrafficHabit.com … how did I decide which one to use? Keyword research of course! ah

Screen Shot 2015-03-16 at 3.53.14 AM

So I went with TrafficHabits.com … “habits” gets more searches than “habit” … your results might be different.

Also for my keyword, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a high search term… good juju, so I went plural.

I then followed namecheap’s url-forwarding guide which forwards the domain name and keeps the path pretty cool. 

So http://your-misspelled-domain.com/post1.html will forward to http://correct-domain.com/post1.html

Pretty sweet! Just one more reason namecheap is my favorite registrar. 

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Note: Amazon & NameCheap affiliate links, I don’t expect to make anything but hey why not?

Launch of TrafficHabits.com

It’s 4am here currently in Worcester, MA (Northeast United States)

I have just launched (launched being an over-statement) TrafficHabits.com

I actually did the following:

  1. Wanted to create an App that help me take action everyday to market my various sites.
  2. Started coming up with names using dotcomornothing.com and various domain tools.
  3. OMG!?! TrafficHabits.com is available? Awesome… should I get it? … proceed to over-analyse/stall for 20 minutes…
  4. Opened up the google keyword tool to get some justification…
  5. Decided to buy it! Fits my personal success profile. (Kolbe-A Index)

I’m excited to share this journey with you. TrafficHabits will be a free app that’ll help you take action everyday to grow your business. TrafficHabits blog will track the creation of this site, as well as my other activities.

Okay so what did I do next?

  1. Bought the name using NameCheap.com using coupon code.
  2. Bought 12-month Managed WordPress Hosting from GoDaddy (I know GoDaddy has a bad rap, and I would never buy a domain from them (because you should keep your domains and hosting separate), but they actually offer the best price on managed wordpress hosting) coupon code cjcrmn1hos to get 12 months of managed wordpress hosting for $12 …
  3. Linked Namecheap domain -to-> GoDaddy hosting
  4. Started writing this blog!
  5. Set-up a Trello board for blog ideas, todo…

To-Do

  • Set-up free email forwarding for my domain using Zoho to my Gmail (running out of slots, will have to move to paid email hosting soon)
  • Set-up a Twitter account.