The land of plopsa

A kiddies fun park just over the Belgium border with France. After I took this picture I was picked up by two women who worked at the fabled Plopsaland. Oh, joy!

How to muffle your blog echo

It can be lonely out there in blog land. There are no fewer than 250 million bloggers and if you want to attract your fair share of readership you need to learn what your reader wants with Google Analytics. The old maxim "know your reader" holds true through to the digital age and Analytics allows anyone with a blog to easily and quickly aggregate info on who is visiting your site, what they are looking at and how long they are hanging around. Here are five features of Google Analytics you can use to become the next Mashable. Just make sure to send me a cut when you make your first million.

Who's who

Google Analytics uses your reader's IP address to log information on where your site is being read. You don't get the names of your readers (though you probably could with a simple Google search) but you do get important info such as the language the reader's computer uses. It even gives you a map that charts reader locations.

Why don't you stick around?

Analytics gives advertisers the two pieces of info they like best -- page hits and page views. However, discerning bloggers like to go deeper and are more interested in numbers of returning visitors (this means people like your site) and how long they stay for. The longer they stay, the better you site must be. Also, you can find out if they are looking at one article before getting out or staying to read other content on your site.

Piggyback rides

Analytics also tells you how your reader found his way to your site. Was it from a Google search (which means you might have a high Google rank for that page) or has someone else written about your blog and kindly sent traffic your way. You may find a mainstream newspaper or big website has posted a link to you resulting in a massive readership spike. Great news, as long as it doesn't crash your server.

The money

If your website sells anything you can keep track of sales with Analytics. Find out what your best sellers are and focus on those products while dumping underperformers.

Other bits

Analytics has a host of features, some useful, others not so much. One of the best is details of your Bounce rate, which is high on pages that people visit then immediately leave. The reason may be you have an awful blog, but it could be something else, such as a bad link or poorly designed page. Analytics gives you the information you need to optimise your site and get as many people visiting you as possible.

SOPA and the Wikipedia blackout

Congress wants to tighten up piracy laws but online giants are fighting back

Journalists beware! Thanks to US Congressmen and their meddling SOPA and PIPA bills, online encyclopedia and cut-and-paste word-count fluffer Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours.

Founder Jimmy Wales and other critics of the bills say the legislation will mean to an end to web freedom and the Internet as we know it.

Defenders claim it's needed to tackle rampant online piracy and other IP abuses.

Meanwhile, many more worry they won’t be able to download stuff for free any more.

So what does SOPA mean for you? How will you survive without Wikipedia for a day? And will journalists be forced to do some work for a change?

The legislation

The House of Representatives are considering the Stop Online Piracy (SOPA), or at least it was until recent pressure forced them to delay a vote on it. The Senate is mulling the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Together they propose five-year jail terms for anyone who streamlines copyrighted content without permission ten or more times within six months.

Defenders

Friends of the bill include House Republicans, Hollywood and the music industry, who say piracy has torpedoed record and movie sales. Rupert Murdoch is also a fan and used Twitter last week to blast Obama for speaking out against the bill. So far, showbiz’s biggest stars such as Justin Beiber and Beyonce have stayed silent on the issue, perhaps fearing the same backlash suffered by pint-sized Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who caught flack when he tried to close Napster.

Critics

Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and most Internet sites are dead against the legislation. Under its rules, content holders would be responsible for removing copyrighted material from their sites. To block users, a system used in China and Iran to wipe undesirables from the Web will be used, something Silicon Valley’s braided hippies find anathema to their big-love and bigger profit mantra. Twitter is also against it but called Wikipedia’s 24-hour blackout “silly.”

How to survive

The Washington Post has issued a handy guide to surviving the blackout while WebProNews has a more detailed one on what Web masters can do to support the protest but keep their Google numbers up.

I hate to start the blog on a negative note, but take a look at this piece on Beijing from a New Zealand paper...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southlandtimes/4429976a6565.html

... if only so you won't have to read a million others like it before the Olympics rolls out of town.