Do you track which pages/posts/products on your website are the most visited?  You can learn a lot by watching your statistics.

For example, by watching what my visitors are most interested in I can see the topics trend and consider whether to write more about the popular topics, introduce my own information product or tutorial about the topic, or find an affiliate product to promote.

It also works the other way.  I can see what topics weren’t of interest.  I can avoid topics that my readers don’t want help with and instead focus on giving them more content about what they want to learn.

Curious what others are reading?  Here’s a quick list of the top 15 posts from my site in 2009.

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One of my goals this year is to do more with video.  The article below arrived in my inbox this week and I thought I’d share.  For great video resources I also recommend @LouBortone on Twitter.  I’m going through his Online Video Rock Star Course and can’t wait to apply what I’m learning.

By: Christine Gallagher

Founded in 2005, YouTube is still the most well known video site and the one with the widest reach. It’s actually the number #3 most-trafficked website on the Internet behind Google and Facebook!

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Just finished installing the CommentLuv plugin.  So if you leave a comment and use your blog’s URL in the URL box, your most recent post will show up with a link, below your comment!  8-)

Another note on comments, if you’d like your picture to show up next to yours, go setup a gravatar.  Takes just a minute.  Go to www.gravatar.com and then we can “see” you.

Here are seven of the plugins I consider essential for any WordPress website I setup.  These can help your WordPress site be more secure, more search engine friendly, easier to deal with, and more engaging for your visitors.

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WordPress is a great way to build and manage a website. Like any online software though, there are steps you should take to secure your WordPress installation and keep it safe from hackers. Some are common sense for any website (secure website hosting and choosing a secure password) and others are specific to WordPress (such as the plugins recommended below). Here are seven steps to secure your WordPress website.

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I’ve been putting more time into making this blog rock so ya’ll will enjoy your learning here.  Thought I’d do a quick post to share the new plugins I’ve put in and why.

Recent Comment Avatars
On the right side of my blog under “Who’s Talking Back…” you’ll see a list of the 5 most recent comments on my blog along with the avatars of the commenters.

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Here are some free resources I like for adding images to my blog posts or web pages and editing images:

Free Online Photo Resizers

• Resizr: http://resizr.com/ – you can crop images easily as well as specify the exact size
• Resize My Picture: http://www.resizemypicture.com/ – allows you to resize more than one image at once

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I’ve been looking into ways to encourage blog comments and found a couple of very cool plugins to share.

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