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UPDATE JUNE 2, 2008:
it seems that the statcounter code has changed and we have to make some changes on our side. These changes may not be available for some time though, I will update the parent topic with this info.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
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Statistics are very important for any website owner, forum organizer, or blogger. Here on Lefora, we provide organizers and members with lots of juicy stats. But as an organizer,you may have a larger appetite for more stats. I'll show you how to get up and running with free web stat packages - StatCounter.
What's so valuable about visitor stats?
As any good forum organizer or blogger can tell you, it's valuable to understand how much traffic your site gets on a daily basis, where they come from, how long they stay, and where they leave. This will help make sure you are providing content that people are looking for. On either of these stat packages, you'll be able to see:
- How many visitors come to your site a day (charted over time)
- Where they came from (on a map)
- How they arrived on your site (either from another website link or a search term).
- This is the most important as it will let you know which sites are providing lots of traffic to your forum by linking to you (maybe from a popular blog?). So you should reach out to them and thank them and see if you can form a relationship by linking back to them as well.
- Also, it's important to know which keywords visitors use to click through to your site - so you'll get an idea of what they're expecting when they click your forum through a search engine.
- And various stats about the web browsers they use, how long they stayed, and on what paged the exited.
- Visit http://www.statcounter.com/register.php, create an account and enter your personal info. Click "Register My Account"
- Select your timezone, Click "Proceed & Add A Project"
- Select Basic or Advanced and click "Next"
- Enter your Forum's name and URL. Select a category from the drop down.
- Select how often you want a visitor to be considered 'unique',I like 6 hours. As if somebody comes back to the site after being away for 6 hours, I consider that a very separate visit.
- Block your IP address if you want (so you don't skew your stats). How do you know what your IP address is? Visit http://whatismyip.com/.
- Leave 'public stats' unchecked unless you want everybody to view your stats.
- Click "Next"
- Click "Configure & Install Code". Select the type of counter you wish to have displayed on your page. My Preference is the "Invisible Counter". Click "Next"
- Leave the default options for Not wanting an install guide, and not checking html only counter. Click "Next".
- Copy the code they provide, we're gonna paste this into your forum.
- As a forum Organizer, click "Forum Admin" on your top Menu Bar. Select the "Widgets" tab.
- Add a new widget, the HTML Content Widget.
- You can choose to leave your widget without a title and header bg image, this way it will be 'hidden'.
- Paste your stat code from either stat package (or you can paste both, the order doesn't matter.)
- Click "Submit"
- Click "Save"
- Congratulations, you're now collecting tons of traffic stats on all the visitors to your site!
