Google Analytics – Removing Your Own IP Address
Using Google Analytics on your website gives you lots of great information about your site visitors and keywords along with a host of other useful information. But sometimes that data that you get can be a bit skewed if you haven’t told Analytics to NOT count your own IP address.
Chances are, you visit your own site quite a bit and these visits are being counted in your overall data.
So how do you tell Analytics to stop tracking your own visits?
It’s actually very simple…here’s how:
- First you need to find out what your own IP address is. To do this visit http://www.whatismyip.com/. When you get there you’ll see in very large letters at the top of the page “Your IP Address Is:” and this will be followed by a series of numbers such as 012.345.678.910. Copy your IP address down and then head to Google Analytics.
- Once you’re logged into your Analytics account you’ll see the website(s) you’re tracking. Next to each site on the far right-hand side of the page is an “Edit” link. Click this link next to the site you want to modify.
- The next screen will have a section entitled “Filters” – once you find this look for an “Add Filter” link on the upper right hand side of this section and click that link.
- Now you’re going to create a new filter. Choose the radio button that says “Add new Filter for Profile” if it’s not already selected.
- Next, give the filter a name that’s easy for you to identify what the filter is for such as “My IP Address”.
- Next, choose the “Predefined filter” button if it’s not selected already.
- You’ll see various drop down boxes. In the first box choose “Exclude”. In the middle box choose “traffic from the IP addresses” and in the third box choose “that are equal to”. Finally, enter your IP address that you just copied into the boxes.
- Click “Save changes”.
Google Hangouts and Video Conferencing
With Google+ now open to everyone (over 18 that is), you might be wondering just exactly how to use some of the features that are available to you.
Today we’re going to talk about Google Hangouts – which is also sometimes referred to as “video conferencing”; either way, they’re used for the same purpose; to connect with someone in real-time in order to share ideas, content, opinions and more.
Here’s how it works:
Once you’ve created your own Google+ account, you’ll want to navigate to the “Home” icon:
Once you’re there, look on the right-hand side of the page for this:
Next, you’ll need to choose which of your circles you want to start a hangout with.
You can also choose to “Hangout” with just one person; it doesn’t have to be an entire circle of people.
At the very bottom of this hangout screen are a few features…
As you can see, you can mute the video, mute your mic, adjust some settings, and exit out of the program. Since most of these are self-explanatory, let’s take a look at the settings:
The program will run you through a few questions such as “can you see yourself?”, “when you talk, can you hear yourself?”, etc.
You can also adjust what camera to use, the microphone that you want to use, and the speakers you want to use.
Also, notice at the bottom, there is a checkbox that says “Report quality statistics to help improve voice and video chat.” If you are uncomfortable sharing these things, uncheck the box.
Finally, click “Save”. When you’re ready click the “Hang Out” button.
Now, for those of you who want to use Google Hangouts for Video Conferencing, Google has introduced enhanced Google Hangouts. You can get to the enhanced version by clicking the following link on your Hangout screen:
After clicking on this link, here’s what you’ll see:
If you’ll notice, Google has a message at the top which states that these are “sneak previews” of new Hangouts features and that they’re only for a limited time. If you love it, be sure to let them know so that it has more of an opportunity to stick around for awhile.
Notice how with these extras you can name a hangout, share notes and a sketchpad (perfect for meetings), integrate Google docs, and even share your screen with someone.
All in all, Google Hangouts is pretty simple to use but the options that you can use it for are almost limitless! Imagine having a chat with a friend who is a country away instantly or holding an online meeting where you don’t need to use any expensive hardware. It’s one of the neatest things that Google+ has available to you and I’m sure it’s only going to get better!
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Google in Iowa – Helping Businesses Get Online
Filed under: Google, Local Online Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Ranking, seo, Web Hosting, Web Sites
This content has been re-posted from WirthMarketing.com. If you work with local businesses you may be interested to know that Google has been rolling out this service on a per-state basis rather quickly. They currently have multiple domain names registered for the separate states. The information here holds true for most programs.
You may have heard today on the news that Governor Branstad says the state of Iowa will partner with Google to help companies develop an online presence. Google has recently begun to roll out this service to various businesses across multiple states including most recently in Texas.
The program is called Google’s “America Get Your Business Online” program and it is rolling out on a per-state basis right now. For example, we’ve recently seen “Texas Get Your Business Online” and we can assume that the name of this new program will be “Iowa Get Your Business Online”.
This program is meant to help local business owners get a website presence, get them listed in Google Places and get them advertising with Google’s AdWords program and Google is partnering with Intuit in the process.
Currently, Google is rolling out informational meetings in Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Pella and doesn’t have all of the information yet listed online for the Iowa segment of this service, but we can be relatively certain that the same pieces of information will be given to Iowans that has been given to other states who have already been a part of this Google product.
The reason Google is offering this and partnering with Intuit is because according to their statistics, 59% of Iowa businesses do not have an online presence; in other words, a website for their customers to visit while 97% of consumers look online for local products and services.
That being said, here’s what Iowan’s can expect from the “Iowa Get Your Business Online” program.
- A free, easy-to-build professional website.
- Free customized domain name and hosting for one year.
- A free local business listing on Google Places.
- Free tools, resources, and local events.
All right, so now you know what Google is offering, let’s look at the details:
About Websites and Hosting with the “Iowa Get Your Business Online” Program
With this program, Google is partnering with Intuit and as such, there are some rules that we can assume Iowa will need to abide by (if this program follows the same protocol as other states) in order to participate. Based on the Terms and Conditions for the program, here is what we know:
- This service is only available to businesses not individuals or consumers.
- You understand that this is only for small businesses and you get one domain name and one website.
- It’s only available to new customers to this particular service.
- You agree that the information you share with Google will also be shared with Intuit.
- That said, Intuit’s terms run a couple of pages long which you can view here but I have pointed an interesting piece of information from these terms that you can read a little further down the page.
Now this can get just a little confusing because within previous frequently asked questions for other states it says:
“I have several small businesses. Can I get a website for each of my businesses?” Yes, eligible small business owners can get a free website, domain name, and hosting for one year for each of their small businesses.
But the terms and conditions for the program state:
You understand and agree that this offer of the Services is only available on the basis of one website and one domain per small business.
Based on this information, we can only assume that this will be based on a review of the businesses and Google and Intuit will determine how to divvy these domains and websites out.
What if you have a domain name already? If you already have a domain name then you can move it to Intuit if you wish. However, if you already have a website up and running you cannot move the contents of that site to Intuit and use this free hosting. You have to start from scratch which may or may not be a good thing for your website depending upon how long you’ve had your current site and how well it’s doing in the search engines.
If you’d like a shopping cart on your site, they offer this as well but you’ll need to upgrade and pay the additional fee for this service.
Probably one of the biggest catches is that the website you receive is only 3 pages. If you want more pages than that you can upgrade to the Business Lite Intuit account for $7.99 / month and if you want the shopping cart as well, that starts at $19.99 / month.
Keep in mind that these are the prices listed at the time this was written and they may have changed in the meantime.
With this Google program, you do get the first year of the three page website, hosting and a domain name for free and after that time you can then choose to keep it for a cost of $4.99 / month for the hosting and $2.00 / month for the domain name.
That being said, domain names usually cost about $11-$15 / YEAR depending upon where you get your domain name from. Intuit is charging you $2.00 a month or $24.00 a year.
As far as web hosting goes, there are also other places online like HostGator which give you web hosting for around $9.00 / month (far, far less if you pay for a year in advance) and which doesn’t limit you on the number of web pages you can have. However, this also means that you’d need to design your own site or have someone do it for you (at HostGator you can choose from a wide variety of templates or even install a WordPress blog on your site for free with a few clicks of your mouse).
By the way, if you decide to get hosting at Hostgator, use the coupon code of kristinewirth at checkout and you’ll get 25% off!
In addition to Hostgator, there are places like Webs.com or Weebly.com which, like Intuit, also offer a way for you to build your website from a template, and all of which are also very affordably priced.
It really comes down to whether or not you want to save yourself $83.88 (which is the first free year using this program) and you’re happy to have a 3-page website.
About Google Places
With this program, Google is offering you a free listing in Google Places. Now, this is something that you can do for yourself today for free already so it is uncertain as to whether or not they’ll create the Google Place page for you. In other states’ documentation of this same program, the information contained on Google Places as far as what they’re offering to do is a little vague.
About Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a program that let’s companies advertise on Google websites. You may have seen many of these advertisements yourself when doing a search in Google. They are the ads that run alongside the right of the page and sometimes at the top of the page. With this program, Google is offering local businesses a $75 advertising credit to market their business online.
Now, the way it works with other coupons is that you cannot use an advertising credit if you’ve already opened up a Google AdWords account in the past. It is uncertain if they’re waiving this fee for this program but it’s definitely something to keep in mind.
Intuit Terms and Conditions
While the terms and conditions for Intuit run a couple of pages long, there was at least one thing that stuck out to me. Namely:
Item #4. Trial Period. If you registered for a trial use of the Services (“Trial Period”), you must decide to purchase the Services within the Trial Period in order to retain any Content (defined in Section 6) that you have posted or uploaded during the Trial Period. If you do not purchase the Services by the end of the Trial Period, your Content will no longer be available to you. To be very clear, after using the Services during the trial period, if you decide not to purchase the full version of the Services, you will not be able to access or retrieve any of the data you added/created during the trial.
Essentially I read this as in the event you don’t follow through and eventually purchase the services, you lose everything that you have created over the past year; including content that you’ve written.
It is my suggestion to take a look at all of your options first before deciding to jump in on this deal.
Kristine Wirth of WirthMarketing.com and KristineWirth.com in Altoona, IA has been working with online marketing and search engine optimization for over 11 years. She provides consulting services and courses that help small business owners find a presence online quickly and easily.
