Automating It

What you need? The first thing you need to know how to do it set cronjobs. If you don't know how to do that you can learn how to set cronjobs here. The cronjob is what will automate your server to run the script and how often to run it.

The Files

All you'll need is two files to make this work. The first file, mysqldump.php can be grabbed from CreativeFactory.it. The next thing you need is my backup.php file. Just create a file called backup.php and dump the following script inside.

The Setup

Configure the first file variables of the script and then just leave the rest. Put the backup.php and mysqldump.php in the same folder where you want the back up files to be dumped. Set the cronjob to run backup.php you don't need to worry about mysqldump.php. That's it, it'll automatically backup.

Possible Problems

The problems that you may experience is the MySQL privileges. If your account doesn't have enough privilege then you may not be able to properly query the database. Another problem maybe the CHMOD of the folder you're backing up to. You need to have write access into that folder.

Recovering from Backup

To recover you database just log into your phpMyAdmin, open the database you want to recover. Select the import tab and just browse for the file. If I recall the file itself should overwrite tables that are already in place if not then you may have to drop all the tables first.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Alexa here's a little background. Alexa is a tool available online to measure the ranking of websites based on traffic. So for Google who's one of the tops in traffic they're ranked number 1, and Yahoo who has a bit less is ranked number 2 and so on. Over the years web developers has been obsessed with their ranking as a measurement of how well their website is doing and to be honest this is not a good way of doing so, to a certain degree.

Inaccurate Measurements

First thing's first, lets understand measurement of traffic. If say right now I want to find out your website's traffic I can't, obviously because you own the website and you don't want to share it with me. Now if I was to place a tracker code in your site then I can see the statistics without your consent, but I need your approval and admin access to do so. With that in mind, think about how Alexa is able to measure your website statistics, they can't without your consent! So that's the "trick', they actually gather statistics from their Alexa toolbar. I'm not sure if you're using one right now, but people have installed a tool made by Alexa to quickly get statistics of websites they visit but what they aren't aware of is that Alexa is doing the same thing. They're tracking user visits to websites and accumulating a data of their own. This is why the Alexa ranking is not accurate and not a precise measurement of your success.

Shouldn't It Still Work?

Ok, so somebody was to say, its not accurate but if so many people use it, shouldn't it still work? Well here's my take on it. As far as I know the Alexa toolbar is only available for Firefox (correct me if I'm wrong), and FireFox users only account for 46.6% (1) of browsers online. That means that a majority of users are still neglected in the statistics. I don't have the stats but I have a feeling there are demographic segments that does not install the Alexa toolbar so depending on which target market/niche your website is catered to you may be higher or lower on the charts.

The Proof

Based on the theory I have above I've decided to test it out. The company I work for is a B2B company but their target market is senior level IT people which a majority is in the 39+ category. Our website visitors are mainly on IE6.7. Now the sites have on average a few hundreds of unique visits on a daily basis, but their rankings are between 1 million to 2 million. I

On the contrary I have a personal site which has 20+ unique visitors a day on average, but my ranking for that site is in the 400 000 category. It goes to show, its all based on the users that visits your site; therefore, skewed and inaccurate.

So It Doesn't Work – Why Use It?

Even though it doesn't give you an accurate ranking in the world wide web you can use it in a different way. Based on the first part of this article you aren't able to see other people/company's website statistics so by using Alexa ranking to compare again competitors in the same segment is a method to measure yourself against your competitors, but even then its not very accurate.

The true method to measure your success is to mark a goal and try to achieve it. If its 100 unique visits a day or $100 dollars in revenue a day, just set it and aim for it. When you have achieved it, you are successful.

1. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

To be more specific, a favicon is exactly as the name suggest, its an ICON. Its an icon usually displayed in 16×16 pixels that is associated with your website. That's the short story of it. For the rest of the article I'll explain the details of favicons and how you can have one for your site.

Aesthetic Reasons

Favicons are typically for iconic reasons. Its to associate a small graphic to your website that indicates to the user that they're on your site (not that they can't see that). Another reason is that the icon is shown in tabs. Tabs are really popular in modern web surfing, with a favicon it helps users quickly identify which tabs are associated with your website. With a small canvas (16×16) to work with its really testing your creativity, especially for those with very graphical logos. Here are a couple of creative favicons.

Bookmark Measurement

Back in the old days, favicons were a good measurement to see how many people were bookmarking your site, but that only worked when majority of the users on the internet used Internet Explorer. That's right, when people with Internet Explorer bookmark your site, you can see it if you have the right analytic in place. Here's an example for one of my sites using AW Stats.

It shows that this month there were 14 visitors who bookmarked my site. As I said before this measurement only worked for IE; thus, not very accurate. As well, a measurement of bookmarks truly doesn't account for anything.

How to Create a Favicon

Creating your own favicon is not hard. You just need to create a graphical image with dimensions 16×16px. Modern browsers will support GIF and PNG formats but if you want to be safe you can go with ICO format. If you don't know how to convert to ICO formats or don't have any graphical software you can use this favicon generator/converter tool I made for free. Save your file to any name store it in your web directory. You'll need to attach the code below for it to work.

Attaching Favicon to Website

Now that you have your icon in your directory and ready to go you need to tell your website where the icon is. I always use the two following codes in my header between code.

There you have it, your very own and unique favicon to match your site. Remember to be creative.

The concept is very simple, its all in how you manage your website/blog. What is your goal? It doesn't matter if its to share opinions or generate revenue, the thing you need most to keep your site live and you motivated to provide content is traffic. So, manage your site like a business. There are three main elements you should be looking at – the attraction, the product, and the return.

Part One: The Attraction

Assuming you have completed constructing your website and have made it beautiful. The key is to attract people to your site with the right message. There are many ways to promote the message of your site, of course there are the paid methods such as internet advertisements and sponsoring other sites, but these could sum up to be hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Since you're reading this article I assume you're looking for the cheaper way out. So here it is, I have to warn you though its quite time consuming, there are many ways to get your message out there. Here are some that I believe to be the most effective.

Commenting on Blogs

Commenting on blogs in the same niche as your own is very important for a few particular reason. One of course is to gain so backlinks to your own site. Another reason is that it allows you to create your personality on other sites, where readers are looking for articles like your own. If they like your tasteful comments and inputs they're more than likely to read your articles that you provide. For example, if you have a website that sells fashionable clothes, commenting on fashion sites would be helpful.

Posting in Related Forums

Forums is a great place to find users for your website, because forum users are mainly active internet users that likes interactive contents. Find forums that relate to what your website is about and be active on those forums. Now I'm not saying start 20 threads with your website as the topic and hope to gain awareness, the only thing you'll gain from that is a permanent banning. Interact with users, and post good replies. If the admins permit, have your website linked in your signature.

Directories Submission

Submitting your site to online directories can be a waste of time if you don't plan it out strategically. I know some people who spends weeks submitting to 1000+ directories which maybe as effective as somebody who submits to 100 effective directories. Find ones directories that are reputable and have categories related to your website. Not all directories are free so watch out. If you own a blog, I've compiled a list of great blog directories here for you to start with.

Social Networking

Now a days if you tell your friends and family about your website they may not remember your name and they may not visit even if they do. By sharing your site and what you have to offer over social networking sites, you can reach more people and since the message is digital they may pass it forward for you. Don't be shy about passing the word forward, you may know people who know others that are into what you have to offer.

Article Submission

If you own a blog and you write your own content. Another option for you is to submit your wonderful articles to article directories. They usually have a wide range of readers already and they sometimes provide links back to your site. Do not submit every single article though, just a few good ones now and then to tease the readers. If they like what you write they'll visit your blog and be suprised by how many more great articles you have. Just like movie trailers, usually they don't give out the whole plot to temp you to watch the movie (but there are some that gives it all away).

Part Two: The Product

Now that you have people coming to your site you have to worry about the second thing, the product. It doesn't matter if you attracted 10 billion people coming to your site, if you don't have a good product to offer they won't stay. The first impression is very important, keep your landing page attractive and your intentions clear. When a user first opens your site, what do you want them to see? What do you want them to know? Build a good landing page with the message of what you have to offer, people will stay and look around.

The one thing that most web owners will keep saying is that "content is king", and I truly believe in this. Having good content will keep users on your site longer. The longer a user is on your site, the more likely they'll remember you. What does having good content mean? It means that the content is relevant to what your target market wants to read, hear or know. It also means that your content is consistent with the message you promoted in part one. So in part one your promoting good fashion tips and trendy seasonal advice, but your website only sells clothes then you have not provided good content. Now if you were doing the same promotion, but you sell clothes categories and sorted for seasons and with fashion tips then you're being consistent.

Part Three: The Return

The last aspect you need to take a look at when managing your website/blog is the return. You have incoming traffic, and you have people looking at your site, what you should really think of is if they'll return again. You can't rely on new traffic all the time because it takes a lot less work to retain a current user than it is to gain a new user. If I recall correctly is cost 50% less to retain a customer than to gain a new one.

Commenting

Having a simple to use commenting system allows users to interact with your site, yourself and other users. Users now a days love interactions and will visit more often if they are permitted to participate. When I say simple commenting system, it means minimal information required and possibly no membership either.

Upcoming Content/Offers

Promote what you'll be offering next, so users will mark a time in their head of when to visit back. Some people may visit you once a month but if you keep promoting something good weekly or daily they maybe visiting you more often than they know.

Social Bookmarking

Allow social bookmarking where available or fits. This allows users to mark it in their favourites in which is a list of sites that they'll visit often.

Newsletter

If you offer great content and great deals, offer a newsletter sign up. Its a good way to constantly promote your site to current users and have them coming back often. Newsletter is not easy to manage and maintain so ensure you have the right skills and tools before advancing in this area.

So there you have it, a few tips to increase your traffic all for free. Now there is one aspect I didn't mention even once which is search engine optimization (SEO), because I think SEO is too important to be undermined or overlooked. I'll have another article on that in the future.