How To Make Beautiful Charts And Infographics For Your Sites?

alt="How To Make Beautiful Charts And Infographics For Your Sites?" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-21-500x342_c.jpg" />

Data visualization is an important part of web marketing strategies these days – charts, infographics, or even explainer videos – bloggers and web marketers are doing everything they can to feed users’ love in graphics with meaningful data.

KissMetrics, for example, developed title="KISS Metrics Infographics" href="http://blog.kissmetrics.com/infographics/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">dozens of sexy infographics to build traffics and attract social media attentions. So are href="http://blog.okcupid.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">OK Cupid, href="http://www.copyblogger.com/history-of-social-media/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">CopyBlogger, and href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/29/business/20080929-CONGRESS-VOTE-GRAPHIC.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">The New York Times.

With that being said, we will be looking into some of the best resources and tools for data visualization today. No matter you are a casual blogger who simply wants to create some beautiful infographics occasionally or a career designer who need to dig deeper into this field; I am sure you will find this post useful.

Information Architecture

In general, a good piece of data visualization consistes of three main elements: Meaningful data, proper information designs, and beautiful graphics.

Bear in mind that although infographics and charts tend to attract attention from the blogsphere and social media users; they should do more than just brand promotion – Infographics and charts are suppose to deliver boring and messy data in a user-friendly manner in the first place.

Hence, before creating a graph or an infographic, you’ll need to 1) Organize, filter, and refine your data; 2) Decide on how to present your data (aka, data visualization designs).

OpenRefine (ex Google Refine)

Enter OpenRefine – A powerful data mining tool that saves us from organizing our data row by row on Excel Worksheet. Formerly known as Google Refine (and Freebase Gridworks), this tool helps users to explore and clean up data, transforming the data from one format into another, and extending it with various web services.

In case you are working with some massive unordered data, OpenRefine is definitely must have in your toolkit. The tool is currently hosted on GitHub, you can title="GitHub Open Refine" href="https://github.com/OpenRefine" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">visit this page for all the necessary info and helps. For further followup and latest news, You should also check out its newly launched website at title="Open Refine" href="http://openrefine.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://openrefine.org/

Presenting Your Data

Once you are ready with your data, it’s time to decide how you are going to present it to the viewers.

There are countless approaches in getting this done: Pie chart, diagram, line graph, histograms, heat map, flow chart, periodic table, and so on.  Each of these approaches fits perfectly for certain type of data (and stinks badly it’s misused).

How should you present your data, so that your statistic is beautiful, eye-catching, and easy to understand?

On this issue, title="Visual Literacy Periodic Table On Data Visualization" href="http://www.visual-literacy.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Visual Literacy built an extremely handy periodic table on all the options you can use to visualize your data (view below). Note that the periodic table displays a number of interesting examples when you roll over your mouse, so be sure that you view the actual table on the site.

style="text-align: center;">style="text-align: center;" href="http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">class="border aligncenter wp-image-367" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-5.jpg" alt="Periodic Table On Data Visualization" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-5.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-5-300x216.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

In case you were looking for non-traditional approaches, then you should check out title="Data Visualization: Modern Approaches" href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this awesome article on Smashing Magazine. The post is published some time ago but still I find it very helpful.

Advance Charting Tools

As soon as you are done with information architecture, it’s time for some real production. Making a good-looking chart out of raw data is never an easy task, fortunately there are countless tools to get the job done.

Yes, countless number of tools for data visualization. There are comprehensive tools that generates interactive graphics out of complex data; there are also easy web applications that do nothing but generate simple 2-axis line graphs.

For practical reason, we are going to look into both sides and list out multiple graphic tools for both advance and casual users.

First, let’s look at some of the advance stuffs.

1. ggPlot2 and R

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-375" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-9.jpg" alt="R and ggplot2" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-9.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-9-273x300.jpg 273w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.r-project.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">R is a computer language and an environment for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display. href="http://ggplot2.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">ggplot2, on the other hand, is a plotting system for R that helps produce complex multi-layer graphics. The HeatMap above, for example, is built using ggplot2 and R. If you are keen on learning R and ggplot2, title="Learn R on WordPress" href="http://learnr.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">LearnR is a great blog for further reading (though the blog has not been updated for some time).

2. jqPlot

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-376" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-10.jpg" alt="jqPlot" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-10.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-10-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.jqplot.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">jqPlot is a plotting and charting plugin for the jQuery Javascript framework. jqPlot produces beautiful line, bar and pie charts. The tool comes with some nice features such as generating interactive points that can be adjusted by users on web browsers. However, it’s worth noting that this tool is not thoroughly tested and might not be supported by certain web browsers – namely, Chrome and IE below 7.

3. JP Graph

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-371" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-7.jpg" alt="JP Graph" width="750" />

href="http://jpgraph.net/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">JP Graph is a PHP-driven charting tool that support various plot types. In case you are writing a PHP program that needs a graph creating library, this is something that you should look into. I wouldn’t say JP Graph is an easy tool for starters but the tool (or, PHP library) does come very helpful when you need to generate graphs and charts from your web server. JP Graph is free for non commercial use and you will need a web server that supports PHP 4.3.x or above.

4. JS InfoVis Toolkit

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-378" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-11.jpg" alt="JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-11.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-11-300x168.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://thejit.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit is a library developed by Nicolas Garcia Belmont. The library comes with a wide range of visualization choices and it’s completely free to use.

 5. Many Eyes

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-380" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-12.jpg" alt="Many Eyes by IBM" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-12.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-12-300x193.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

title="IBM Many Eyes" href="http://www-958.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Many Eyes is a free tool that enables a user to create visualizations from almost any kind of data set. Hosted on IBM servers, Many Eyes does more than just data visualization – it allows users to upload their own data set as well as  generate new visualization model based on any data stored in the server.

6. Google Chart

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-383" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-15.jpg" alt="Google Chart" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-15.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-15-245x300.jpg 245w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="https://developers.google.com/chart/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Google Chart is free, powerful, flexible, and is supported by lots of other developer tools. Charting on Google Chart is purely based on HTML5/SVG technology; the tool helps create charts in various formats with beautiful animation and interactive controls.

7. Axis

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-393" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-22.jpg" alt="Axis " width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-22.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-22-260x300.jpg 260w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.axiis.org/index.html" target="_blank">Axiis is an open source data visualization framework developed by Tom Gonzalez and Michael VanDaniker. The tool is specially designed for beginner and expert developers alike. Axiis provides both pre-built visualization components as well as abstract layout patterns and rendering classes that allow you to create your own unique visualizations.

Easy Chart And Infographic Tools

Admittedly, most bloggers (myself included) do not need comprehensive charting tools above for their regular blogging operations. More often, all we need is an easy web application or a simple tool to get the job done quickly.

With that being said, here is the list of creation tools that require very little learning efforts and user friendly.

1. Visme

class="border aligncenter wp-image-19814 size-large" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/visme-750x345.jpg" alt="visme" width="750" height="345" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/visme.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/visme-300x138.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

href="http://www.visme.co/">Visme is a DIY platform that allows users to create professional presentations and infographics. More than 350,000 individuals and organizations (including users from big companies like IBM and Disney) utilize the tool to communicate better through interactive graphics and presentations.

2. Easel.ly

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-373" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-8.jpg" alt="Easel.ly" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-8.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-8-282x300.jpg 282w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.easel.ly/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Easel.ly helps create and share visual data easily online. The web app comes in a simple interface with some preset templates and drag-and-drop features. Although Easel.ly is still currently in beta mode, but it already has more than 130,000 users-created visuals on its server.

3. Vizualize.me

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-370" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-6.jpg" alt="VIsualize.me" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-6.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-6-300x236.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://vizualize.me/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Vizualize.me helps create beautiful infographics about individuals (yes, hence the name Vizualize Me). It’s a fun tool to play around with and it creates beautiful resume or profile in just a few clicks. In case you are on LinkedIn, you should really try this out – the tool is able to link with your LinkedIn profile and generates stunning graphics based on your data.

4. Hohli

class="border aligncenter wp-image-381" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-13.jpg" alt="Hohli" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-13.jpg 810w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-13-300x218.jpg 300w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-13-750x547.jpg 750w" sizes="(max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px" />

Need a simple chart builder? Then href="http://charts.hohli.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Hohli is the place to visit. This web applications support various types of charts in twelve different sizes – all users need to go is to key in the data and design details.

5. Piktochart

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-382" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-14.jpg" alt="Piktochart Infographic" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-14.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-14-300x288.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://piktochart.com/" target="_blank">Piktochart is a template-based infographic tools that help non designers to create beautiful graphics and charts. The tool supports drag-and-drop features and it provides a wide selections in preset templates, icones, vectors, and images. If you are looking for an easy graphic tool and do not mind paying a small fees for the service, Piktochart is definitely one of your best choices.

6.  Infogr.am

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-384" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-16.jpg" alt="Infogram" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-16.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-16-300x195.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://blog.infogr.am/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Infogr.am is an user-friendly web app for making infographics. Create interactive infographics and charts with a few clicks, place them in your article, blog post or share with friends. With some 200 000 infographics created and 10 000 new sign-ups a week it’s the fastest growing data visualization community in the world.

Inspiring Examples Of Data Visualizations

So are you ready to create some of your own infographics? Wait. We still have a little more to go here.

Here are some of the most popular infographics and charts captured from the Internet. I am pretty sure that you have seen some of them on social media networks in the past – which proves that pretty graphics with meaningful data sticks!

Also, there are reasons why infographics galleries are so heavy trafficked these days. By referring on others’ works, we get to learn what works well with the audiences. What is the average size for a popular infographic? What type of topic is most welcomed by the viewers?Should you include as many data as you can into your charts? How many bullet points should you cover in your infographics? What makes this infographic popular? These are the questions to ask when you are browsing around the samples.

href="http://lokeshdhakar.com/coffee-drinks-illustrated/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Coffee Drinks Illustrated

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-386" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-17.jpg" alt="Coffee Drinks Illustrated" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-17.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-17-300x273.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/190172/ss.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Field Guide For Fan Boys 

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-387" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-18.jpg" alt="PC World Fan Boys Field Guide" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-18.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-18-300x296.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.mikewirthart.com/?projects=best-beer-in-america-map-2008" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">The Best Beer In America 2008

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-388" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-19.jpg" alt="The Best Beer In America" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-19.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-19-300x174.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Periodic-Table-of-Typefaces/193759" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Periodic Tables Of Typefaces

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-389" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-20.jpg" alt="Typefaces Table" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-20.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-20-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/29/business/20080929-CONGRESS-VOTE-GRAPHIC.html?_r=0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Bailout Tracker By NY Times

style="text-align: center;">class="border aligncenter wp-image-391" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-21.jpg" alt="Bailout Tracker" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-21.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0321-21-300x205.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

Digging Deeper

I bumped into dozens of interesting blogs and websites related to our topic when I was doing my research for this post. Seriously, there are so much to read and learn and play with! I never knew there are so much data available freely on href="http://www.gapminder.org/data/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Gap Minder and href="http://www.betterworldflux.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Better World Flux; I have read a lot on informative sites/blogs like title="UX Booth" href="http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/" target="_blank">UX Booth (not entirely related to data visualization, but there are plenty of useful articles on how visualizations improve web user experience), href="http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Dynamic Diagrams, href="http://flowingdata.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Flowing Data, as well as title="Boxes And Arrows" href="http://boxesandarrows.com/" target="_blank">Boxes And Arrows; and I deeply admire all the stunning works displayed on href="http://www.styleandflow.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Style And Flow,  href="http://pinterest.com/rtkrum/cool-infographics-gallery/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Randy’s Pinterest board,  href="http://chartporn.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Chart Porn, and href="http://www.coolinfographics.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Cool Infographics.

If you are merely starting up on data visualization, I highly recommend you to visit the sites and blogs listed above. If you have not href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/featured-articles/creating-and-using-simple-infographics-to-increase-your-site-traffic/">leverage the power of data visualizations in your marketing campaign, now is the time to start. And, in case you think I’ve missed out some important tools or resources in this post (which I am certain that there are many), please leave your suggestion in the comment box below.

Page 21 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

How Internet Radio Can Increase Your Site’s Traffic

alt="How Internet Radio Can Increase Your Site’s Traffic" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/radio-500x333_c.jpg" />

Website owners are constantly looking for ways to increase website traffic and reach new customers without spending thousands on advertising. Whether you have a large advertising budget, or you’re starting on pennies, Internet radio is a unique medium well worth looking into.

Knowing Your Demographic

Radio stations, even Internet stations, typically provide you with information on their average listening, peak listening times and which shows get the most traffic. This creates a powerful advertising tool for you, because you’ll know exactly who your ad is reaching, or at least their general profile information, and how many people you are reaching for the money.

Traditional radio may reach more people overall, because most listen to the radio on a commute to and from work and possibly while at work, but Internet radio has the ability to target a specific group of people who want to listen to a specific topic, such as amateur golf tips or quick cooking tips.

rel="nofollow" href="http://www.targetspot.com/research/" target="_blank"> TargetSpot, an Internet radio ad agency, estimates that there are around 42 million people listening to Internet radio, and the number keeps climbing.

Recall Rates

In a research study conducted Harris Interactive for href="http://www.radioadlab.org/studyDocs/radioInternetSummary.pdf" target="_blank"> Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab , people better retain what they hear on Internet radio stations and see in an ad at the same time. When a visual ad is combined with an audible ad, the recall rates rise to 27 percent versus only 6 percent for sound only ads. This is powerful information for businesses who utilize radio advertising, because Internet radio offers the opportunity for complimentary banner ads.

Traffic Behavior Patterns

In the same Harris Interactive study, researchers found that out of those who listened to Internet radio, a whopping 57 percent visited a website mentioned during the program. Even better, the site was visited almost immediately. Internet browsers are getting better and better at multi-tasking, which means a user might listen to the radio, open a new tab to visit a site mentioned and check e-mail all within a span of a few minutes.

So, What Does This All Mean for You?

If you’ve overlooked Internet radio and felt uncertain how it all works, don’t despair. Getting involved in online radio is quite simple. There are several ways to utilize online radio to increase website traffic:

• Buy an Ad – Most radio shows sell advertising space. Find a show that compliments your product or service and inquire about advertising rates. Remember that combining a graphic ad with a spoken ad is most powerful, so inquire about the possibility of a banner and radio ad running simultaneously.
• Be a Guest – Radio shows need material. If you’re an expert in something, contact radio talk show hosts with your information and try to book an interview.
• Start Your Own Show – Starting your own online radio show is quite easy through companies like Live365 and BlogTalkRadio.

Have a Lot to Say?

If you have a lot to say about a particular topic, starting your own radio show could be your best option. Although you may have to pay a small fee for airtime, there are many advantages. You can sell advertising to others to help pay for the fee and you’ll be able to run your own ads for free. In addition, you’ll build a listening audience and can plug your product or service here and there as you chat about related topics. You can also record the shows and offer them for download, so you reach people listening on MP3 players or who want to listen at a specific time that is most convenient for them.

Best Sites to Help You Host Your Own Show

I have used all three of the following Internet radio services listed below either as a host, guest or station owner. Where possible, I’ve offered my semi-unbiased opinion.

Live365

class="border" alt="Internet Radio Guide - Attract More Web Traffics" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0930-1.jpg" width="750px" />

Live365 offer a truly affordable option that starts at about .95 a month. Other than that, all you’ll pay for is your time and effort in uploading your radio segments to the site. Users listen via media players (various ones work with their software). You can also air live shows online and record them at the same time, so you’ll reach live listeners and those who prefer to download the show later.

Live365 has more of a learning curve than the other two options. For Internet savvy website owners, picking up the recording process should be fairly easy.

class="meteor-icon" style="font-size:12px !important;">
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Link: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.live365.com/index.live">http://www.live365.com/index.live

BlogTalkRadio

class="border" alt="Internet Radio Guide - Attract More Web Traffics" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0930-2.jpg" width="750px" />

BlogTalkRadio offers a simple solution for those just getting started in radio hosting. Their free package isn’t big on features, but is a great place to start for newbies. Try it out to make sure you understand how everything works and if you need more features, packages start at /month and go up from there as of July, 2012.

I have been on BlogTalkRadio as a guest in the past and the system was very simple to use. The host provides the guest with a phone number to call and a pin number. The guest phones in and the host will see a note on their dashboard that the guest is calling in and can easily accept that call. The system also allows you to very easily add in music and transitions.

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class="icon-angle-right" style="color:inherit !important;">
Link: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com">http://www.blogtalkradio.com

Global Talk Radio

class="border" alt="Internet Radio Guide - Attract More Web Traffics" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/images/2012/0930-3.jpg" width="750px" />

Global Talk Radio uses a platform where you call in and record the show via telephone (landlines work best for call clarity without static or dropped moments). I worked with this company quite a while back and the thing I liked as someone just starting out was that they did hold my hand a lot and teach me the business. Someone tech savvy can likely get a cheaper rate, but you also need to consider built in listeners you might gain with any of these services.

A monthly fee at Global Talk Radio will run in the hundreds of dollars, so decide if it is worth the cost to you or you prefer to do a bit more study and go with a less expensive option. No matter which program you choose, or if you just put a few ads out on other hosts’ shows, Internet radio is a unique advertising medium that can reach potential site visitors you might not otherwise have reached.

class="meteor-icon" style="font-size:12px !important;">
class="icon-angle-right" style="color:inherit !important;">
Link: rel="nofollow" href="http://globaltalkradio.com">http://globaltalkradio.com

Page 22 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Increasing a Site’s Rank with On-Topic Content

alt="Increasing a Site’s Rank with On-Topic Content" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-1-500x780_c.jpg" />

Years ago, you could find a keyword that people were searching for, make sure you used it on a page of your website and use a few other tricks watch the traffic roll into your site. Unfortunately, some unsavory web owners figured out these tricks and put up pages that contained things like all keywords, a ton of ads or content that simply wasn’t on topic.

Like most things, a few people doing the wrong thing with this information ruined a simple solution to href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/category/blog/seo/">search engine optimization for everyone. You’ve likely already heard about the algorithm changes Google has implemented with Panda and other updates. One thing the search engine also looks at these days when choosing how to rank your site is many different aspects of your content, including href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/compare-best-five-hosting/">whether or not it is on topic.

In a video by Matt Cutts, teaching website owners how to rank better on Google, he indicates that as of 2012, there were over 200 factors that Google looks at to see if a site’s content is a good match for a user’s search term.

“You want to find reputable documents that are also about what the user typed in. And that’s kind of the secret sauce, trying to figure out a way to combine those 200 different ranking signals in order to find the most relevant document. So at any given time, hundreds of millions of times a day, someone comes to Google. We try to find the closest data center to them.”

Why Quality Counts?

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter wp-image-563 border" alt="Google Ranking Factor" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-1.jpg" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-1.jpg 1280w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-1-192x300.jpg 192w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-1-750x1171.jpg 750w" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" />

One thing that webmasters have noted since Google Panda came stomping onto the scene is that quality content gets you a gold star. However, there is quite a debate about what exactly quality content entails. Since Google isn’t realizing all 200 plus points it looks at to determine this, we have to make a best guessed based on work ranking Google pages, what webmaster’s have noticed, and some information that has been leaked here and there by former employees or during interviews with current employees.

Matt Cutts, the head of the webspam team at Google, often shares thoughts on how webmasters can improve their sites. On thehref="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html" target="_blank"> official Google blog in January 2011, Cutts wrote:

“As we’ve increased both our size and freshness in recent months, we’ve naturally indexed a lot of good content and some spam as well. To respond to that challenge, we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly.”

It is actually beneficial for serious webmasters that Google is dealing with the spammy sites and low-quality content. However, knowing what to do to fix the content on your own site and improve your SEO can be quite a challenge.

3 Ways To Improve Your On-Topic Content Instantly

Writing on-topic content sounds simple, doesn’t it? Choose some keywords, make sure the article is about those keywords. Easy peasy! Not so fast! Remember that Google looks at hundreds of different points to decide how your website should be ranked. Writing great on-topic content that will rank well in the search engines is about so much more than just writing on a particular topic.

1. Unique Content

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter wp-image-564 border" alt="TurnItIn - plagiarism checker" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-2.jpg" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-2.jpg 700w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/0404-2-300x211.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />

Your on-topic content also must be unique content. Gone are the days where you can publish an article across several sites for the exposure, because those sites will take a hit in rankings for what Google will tag as “canned” content.

Making sure the content on your site is completely unique can be a real challenge. While Google won’t rank you down for using a quote here and there (as long as you source it properly), they will catch it if you grab articles from content mills and those articles are on several different sites.

If others are writing for you, you need to be sure the content is unique. Unfortunately, some inexperienced writers do not understand the difference between copying entire pages and passing it off as their own work and creating writing of their own. Make sure any content published on your site is unique by running it through a quick and free online plagiarism checker, such as href="http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/" target="_blank">Dustball.com or href="http://turnitin.com/" target="_blank">TurnItIn.com.

2. A Fresh Angle

If you’re writing an article about duck decoys, try to come up with an angle that hasn’t been covered before. Start by doing a Google search on the topic. What comes up first in the search engine? Are there five articles about how to buy the correct decoy for different hunting situations? Good, now consider how you can cover the topic in a different way.

Could you interview a duck decoy creator or a duck hunter and include some advice from an expert to give your article a new twist that isn’t already out there? Maybe instead of writing about how to buy the perfect duck decoy, you could write about how to restore an old decoy to like-new condition.

Come up with a fresh angle and follow other excellent SEO principles and you’ll see your rankings rise over time.

3. Indicate Duplicates Within Your Tags

There are some instances where content will be repeated across your site, such as when you have a readable version and a printable version. Google can easily recognize the difference between this and copied or nonsensical material.

One thing you can do is to create one of the pages with a noindex meta tag. However, if you do not include the tag or you forget that you need one with duplicate content, Google will still recognize that the files contain the same material, albeit for different reasons and will index only one of the pages. Unfortunately, if you forget the tag, Google will choose which page to index.

If you are running a WordPress site, then you can automate this process with plugins such as the All in One SEO plugin. Otherwise, you may want to write a simple code such as this:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, follow”>
<meta name=”robots” content=”index, nofollow”>
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>

Quality Tips from Google

Even though Google doesn’t release the secrets to its algorithm, we can get a glimpse of what they are looking for in on-topic content by reading the blog, listening to the instructional videos and paying attention to what information Google does release.

On their website, Google states:

“In general, Google News aims to promote original journalism, as well as to expose users to diverse perspectives. There are no human editors selecting stories or deciding which ones deserve top placement. Ranking in Google News is determined based on a number of factor.”

The factors that Google has stated it looks at are:

• How fresh the content is
• Is the content diverse? Do you cover all aspects?
• Is the text high quality and on-topic?
• Is it original?

It’s About the Quality

Although some topics are better suited to a longer article, Google does not count words when choosing a ranking status. A shorter piece can rank just as high as a long piece, if you follow the tips above and make sure your content is unique, on-topic and has a fresh perspective. Edit for grammar errors and put the absolute best product out you can for your readers and the Google ranking gods will reward you.

* Image credit: title="Google Search Ranking Factors 2012" href="http://www.tagseoblog.com/google-search-ranking-factors-2012-infographic" target="_blank">Infographic by Martin Missfeldt.

Page 21 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

How To Run A/B Testing On Your WordPress Sites

alt="How To Run A/B Testing On Your WordPress Sites" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0523-3-500x250_c.jpg" />

I bet you want to get the most out of your site. Sometimes we take some decisions based more in our feeling than in actual data or tests and there’s where the danger lies.

What if I tell you that you are losing sales because of the color of your button? You’d call me crazy, sure, but how do you make sure that everything in your page is in the optimal setup in order to increase results?

Let me introduce you the href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/inbound-marketing/what-is-ab-testing-and-how-can-it-help-your-site/">A/B testing method.

This simple method help you testing different versions of your site with your real visitors and measuring results, so you’ll know which version is better than the other.

Today we’ll understand more this process and learn how to set this up in your WordPress site.

The A/B Testing Method

As we said before, the main goal here is to test 2 versions of an element in order to define which one you should use.

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter wp-image-1432 border" alt="A / B Test" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0523-3.jpg" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0523-3.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0523-3-300x150.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />

A key word in this process is style="text-decoration: underline;">conversion (or conversion rate). It measures how many users have achieved the goal defined in that page. So if you have a sales page the goal is certainly click the “buy” button. But you could also have a newsletter subscription page, then your goal would be the “subscribe” button (with a valid email address would be even better :D). If you have a posts listing page you can assume that the goal is getting the user to read one post, and in the post page the goal may be amaze the user so much that he’ll share or comment (hey, multiple goals!).

You get the idea, right? So in the A/B test we measure the conversion rate for the A version, and the conversion rate for the B version so we’ll know which version we should keep after some time, in order to increase our results.

But there are some rules. In order to understand what is causing the difference in the conversion rate you should only test one element at a time. This is important, because you may have conflicting elements, if you change more than one you simply can’t ensure that the A or B is better and the goal here is to have all key elements in their better shape (if you change everything it’s harder to test and analyze results).

Why Should I Test?

One question that may pop once a while is: why should I waste my time on this?

The answer is quite compelling, style="text-decoration: underline;">increasing conversion is the easiest way to improve results. Your final result depend on traffic (how many users you have) and your conversion rate (how many users have done what they should do there in order to make you happy).

Traffic is much harder to build, it depends on marketing budget, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/category/blog/seo/">SEO knowledge, and href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/category/blog/socialmedia-marketing/">social media marketing skills. Conversion on the other hand in your full control. You can change pretty much anything in your site in order to increase the conversion so you’ll have more results with the same traffic.

Why Do I Test Only 2 Versions?

As the A/B name suggests the recommendation is 2 versions per test (the control / original and the variation). But why can’t we test 2, 3 or 4 variations? The truth is, you can but that will require a lot of traffic.

With 2 versions you need small traffic to mathematically ensure that your conversion result isn’t an exception, but the tendency (pretty much the same science that helps us in polls, to define that a sample will represent well the whole).

What Should You Test?

The first thing, dear Padawan, is defining your goals. Of course we want to improve everything but you should define a single element or a small set of elements to test.

Here are some suggestions:

• Your “buy” button font size, color, background and position
• Having a moneyback guarantee message or not
• Adding a “Verisign-like” badge or not (those badges that “ensure” that your site is safe)
• Labels above the fields, in the same line, as mad-libs (this is quite awesome, we will certainly talk about this in other articles)
• Having optional fields or suppressing them (and adding somewhere else, like in the profile edit page)
• Search box position
• Number of posts per column (a single post, 2 posts, infinite posts?)

And, here’s an infographic quoted from the

So, after you have defined your goals we can start the implementation. We can use quite a few tools to help us there, let’s see them.

WordPress Plugin For A/B Test: Max A/B

The first plugin we’ll see is href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/maxab/">MaxA/B. This is an awesome free plugin to test your versions. Install and activate it, and you’ll see a new menu item in your WP admin panel.

Before actually using it you need to create your control and test versions (A and B page). Create 2 simple pages, here what I’ve done is a simple page with a link to contact us like this:

style="text-align: center;">class="size-full wp-image-1348 aligncenter" alt="Max A/B" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1.jpg" width="615" height="408" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1.jpg 615w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1-300x199.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />

In this case you can use pretty much anything you want to test, as per defined in your goals. Then let’s get our hands dirty, go to “experiments” and you’ll see this screen:

style="text-align: center;">class="size-full wp-image-1345 aligncenter" alt="2" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.jpg" width="615" height="308" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.jpg 615w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2-300x150.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />

Now you can imagine how this will look like when we actually fill up our data :) Well, go ahead and add a new experiment. Add a cool name, your control version and your first variation. You can add up to 3 variations, which is good but remember that the more variations you have, more traffic you need to validate the conversion rate.

The conversion page is an important concept, it’s the goal of your conversion. For instance, if you have a “buy” button, the conversion page is the “payment” page. If you have a subscription page, the conversion is the “thanks” page and so on. This simply tells to the plugin that every time a user goes to “contact” page from our “test page” it means that he completed the goal and that should count in the conversion rate.

Then you can set when your experiment ends and you’re good to go.

Here is what I’ve done there:

style="text-align: center;">class="size-full wp-image-1346 aligncenter" alt="3" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/3.jpg" width="615" height="308" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/3.jpg 615w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/3-300x150.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />

After you create, you’ll let your users access your pages. After a few access your results table will look quite close to this:

style="text-align: center;">href="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/4.jpg">class="size-full wp-image-1347 aligncenter" alt="4" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/4.jpg" width="615" height="429" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/4.jpg 615w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/4-300x209.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />

Here you can see that the “Improvement” between our control and the variation is actually negative, which means that the variation page is worse than the original. You can check also the statistical significance of your results.

This is a cool approach, but sometimes what needs to be tested can be in a sidebar, homepage or any other place. Then we’ll need a different tool.

WordPress Themes For A/B Test: SES Theme Split Test

Here you can use the href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/wordpress-blog/getting-started-with-wordpress-child-themes/">child theme concept in your favor. You can create a variation in a different place of the theme (sidebar, custom page template, number of posts called in the homepage) and compare the performance between the themes.

As I said before, avoid modifying a lot of things, otherwise you don’t know what exactly improved your performance.

After you have installed or created the child theme you can actually use the SES plugin. After installing and activating the plugin you can go to Settings > SES Theme Split Test where you’ll see this screen:

style="text-align: center;">class="size-full wp-image-1349 aligncenter" alt="5" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/51.jpg" width="615" height="337" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/51.jpg 615w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/51-300x164.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />

There you can select which themes you’ll test. Then you’ll need to use a different tool to track your results, in our case we’ll set this up via Google Analytics.

This is quite an easy step, create your account there and set up your site’s analytics. After you’ve pasted the analytics code and validated it you can go to the “Advanced Segments” section of your GA panel, in the top menu (beneath date). This is the screen that you’ll see:

style="text-align: center;">href="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/61.jpg">class="size-full wp-image-1350 aligncenter" alt="6" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/61.jpg" width="615" height="252" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/61.jpg 615w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/61-300x122.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" />

Let the “User defined values” then check the “Matches Exactly” option and you’ll see that it automatically loads plugin data. Now “create a segment” and then we’re done to get our data.

Wrapping up

So, what do you think about this method? Would you use it? Share your thoughts with us!

Page 20 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Top 5 Little Known Social Media Sites You May Have Overlooked

alt="Top 5 Little Known Social Media Sites You May Have Overlooked" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/social-media-sites-500x272_c.jpg" />

Think back to five or six years ago. Who were the networking giants online? People hadn’t heard of Instagram (growing in popularity with young people today) and many didn’t know how to tweet. Now, “hashtag” is a part of people’s everyday vocabulary.

You can be sure that there will be new social media sites launched this year and that some of the older players may fall out of a favor (think MySpace) and newer players will take over in popularity.

id="attachment_11396" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright">href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/socialmedia-marketing/top-5-little-known-social-media-sites-you-may-have-overlooked/attachment/social-media-history/" rel="attachment wp-att-11396">class="size-full wp-image-11396" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/social-media-history.jpg" alt="social media history" width="300" height="300" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/social-media-history.jpg 300w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/social-media-history-150x150.jpg 150w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/social-media-history-130x130.jpg 130w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />class="wp-caption-text">Photo Credit: href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47681660@N06/12199321103/">Cendrine Marrouat