Piwik: The Open Source, Real-Time Tracking Tool and the results?

Step13

The other tracking tool we are going to talk about is called Piwik. My favorite!

The features Piwik offers are similar to Google Analytics, with one major exception: Piwik is hosted on your own server, giving you full control of your

data, and has real time updates.

Piwik is an open source program that you can download for free, and once hosted on your site's server, will give you a powerful tool to analyze how your site is performing.

You can download Piwik for free here:

http://piwik.org

Important: Installing Piwik takes a moderate amount of knowledge in using FTP to upload files, and how to change permissions.

Positives of Piwik: Gives you full control of your data, and real time statistics for your website.

Negatives: Requires somewhat more programming knowledge to install and configure.

Don't be intimidated though. It is fairly straightforward to get Piwik set up for your site.

Here are the basics of how to do it:

1) Once you've downloaded the zip file from the site, you'll need to unzip it.

This will give you a folder called piwik/.

2) Upload the piwik/ folder to your root directory using FTP or your cPanel.

3) Now open a browser, and go to http://www.yourdomian.com/piwik to start the installation process.

4) You will now need to change the remote file permissions for your tmp folder (and tmp/cache , tmp/templates_c, if they appear in the tmp folder itself). Change these to allow read , write , and execute permissions to all users.

5) Refresh your browser, and you should see the welcome page of the installer. Click on “Next”

6) Now you'll set up your database. You can leave the MySQL server set to “localhost” and the table prefix set to piwik_. Chose a name for your new database, as well as a password.

Record this information somewhere safe!

7) Almost done. Next you'll enter a username and password for your Piwik installation, as well as the url of the site you are tracking. (Later, you can configure Piwik to track multiple sites).

8) Piwik will now generate a code that you will need to copy and paste into your Wordpress site.

9) You'll need to install a plug-in to run Piwik on your Wordpress site.

Download Piwik Analytics

10) Installing this plug-in and pasting your Piwik code into it will automatically add the code to every page of your site.

Whew...ok, that's done. For some of you that was a piece of cake, for others it may have seemed a little daunting.

If you get stuck, the Piwik website is an excellent resource to find some answers to your questions.

And the Piwik forum is a great community full of people ready and willing to lend a hand:

http://forum.piwik.org/

I like to use piwik for all the data that the Adsense platform cannot give me. I recommend using piwik for all your sites, Adsense or not.

What to do with the results?

Whichever tracking tool you decide on, you'll now have at your fingertips everything you need to improve the earnings of your site.

Here are a few ways you can use the tracking information you have generated:

1) To understand which pages on your site are most popular:

A few of your pages may be getting the lion's share of your traffic, while others may be duds.

Armed with your tracking stats, you'll know which is which. Keep building links and doing other promotions for the winning pages, but really focus on the stragglers. The more pages you can get near the #1 spot, the more traffic you

will get… meaning more $$$.

2) To learn what keywords visitors are searching for to find your site.

After all the keyword research you've done, you may be surprised to find some search terms that you weren't expecting. This is a good thing.

Now is the time to build new pages of content around those search terms, to grab even more of that search traffic.

Personally, I love surprises like this, and am happy to let the market help me in my keyword research.

3) To evaluate the click thru rate (CTR) for your Adsense ads.

This one is vital.

A page may be getting good traffic, but if your CTR leaves something to be desired, you won't be happy with your earnings.

Sometimes a small tweak to your content will boost your CTR. With detailed tracking data, you can test different headlines and content on your pages and see how the changes affect how often your ads get clicked on.

*Don’t worry about changing the location of the images, ads, etc. I have already tested this for you and built the theme with this in mind. It is fully optimized for high click thru rates, so all you need to do is test your content and headlines.

There are many other ways to use your tracking data. Don't be afraid to experiment!