From within Google Analytics, go to Content and then Landing Pages. From there, you can see important site usage information that will show you some of the more popular destinations on your website.  You can find:

• Visits
• Page/Visits
• Average Time on Site
• Percentage of New Visitors
• Bounce Rate

Let us take a look at the landing page information for Mitchelaneous:

As you can see, my 10 Best Paint.net Tutorials article from 2008 seems to be the most popular landing page on this website with 1,270 views in the past 30 days.  About 80% of the users are new users and it has a pretty high bounce rate – due to the fact that most of these Paint.net tutorials I link to are hosted elsewhere.

Go ahead and check out your own Google Analytics landing page section and see what interesting knowledge you can find to help you focus your website optimization needs.

This can be done with the php.ini file. Here is how you do it:

Create a file under public_html and name it php.ini (if you do not have one yet.) Put the following in it:

upload_max_filesize = 5M

post_max_size = 5M

Replace the 5 with 20or less. If you are letting other people upload, a size cap protects your storage space from abuse/overuse.

You will then need to add this line to a .htaccess file:(Please replace “yourusername” with your cPanel user name an add to the end of the command line the folder(s) to the location of the php.ini file – Also there is a space between path and /home)

suPHP_ConfigPath /home/Yourusername/public_html

Now your PHP upload limit should be increased. It should also be mentioned that your results may vary if you are using shared website hosting.  Some shared web hosting providers might limit the upload size to prevent abuse.  If you have any questions, just ask them.

Step 1- Open up a text editor (such as Notepad or cPanel’s File Manager) and add in the lines you need and save the file.

Step 2- Using the cPanel’s File Manager or your FTP client you will need to upload the file to the location you need it. This is usually inside of your public_html folder.

Step 3- Rename the file to php.ini, and save. To protect the php.ini file, you can add these lines to your .htaccess file:

<Files php.ini>

order allow,deny

deny from all

</Files>

This way, it can not be displayed when somebody types in the file path into their browser.

Step 4- Also, in the .htaccess file, you will need to add the following line:

suPHP_ConfigPath /home/username/public_html

Replace username with your actual cPanel user name. This will tell your account where your php.ini file exists.

This list includes the php.ini directives you can set to configure your PHP setup:

• http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ini.list.php

Friendly Reminder: Adjusting the memory limit on the shared hosting plans is not suggested. Since you are on a shared hosting platform, your memory limits are pre-determined by the server you are hosting on, and trying to use more memory than you have assigned to you will cause you issues in the future.

There are a lot of good choices when it comes to picking your FTP client.  I have reviewed several via the website here and I am sure there are other good ones I haven’t looked at.  Personally, my favorite FTP client is FileZilla. You could also try out WS_FTP, SmartFTP, CuteFTP or a number of other choices there are out there.

Now that you have an FTP client, how do you get started? Well, instructions may vary depending on the FTP client you choose.  Here are the basic details you will need to input:

• Hostname: yourdomain.com
• Username: your account username
• Password: your account password
• Passive FTP: ON for linux accounts, OFF for Windows accounts

Should you use a web browser for FTP? I would suggest against it.  It can be done usually by going to ftp://yourdomain.com or ftp://user:pass@yourdomain.com/ but my best advice for you would be to get a FTP client to do the job for you.  If your webhost allows it, you might also want to set up secure FTP or FTP over a TLS connection.

This is pretty easy to setup by adding this to your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^mydomain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please note, you will need to change mydomain.com to your actual domain name.

Once you have done so, both mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com will both send you to www.mydomain.com. This is usually done for search engine optimization reasons, to prevent the search engines from seeing your one web site as two different web sites.

You can also force your domain to drop the www from the address when typed in, if you would rather have it the other way around. In that situation, you would need to add this to your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mydomain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please note, you will need to change mydomain.com to your actual domain name.

This will make both mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com send you to just mydomain.com.   Hope this comes in handy the next time you are optimizing your own websites.

So, if you are using WordPress 3.2 – here is how you can get into the new full screen editor.

1. Log into the Dashboard
2. Either go to Posts > Add New or Posts > All Posts > the post you wish to edit
3. In the default editor, look for the toolbar button that has arrows pointing in four directions and click it

That is all you need to do.  This distraction free writing mode comes in handy for those of us who like to clear away all the clutter and mess around us before we start writing.  This feature clears away the sidebars, menus, and options; leaving you only with an interface to write in.

If you have not upgraded yet – why wait? You can pick up WordPress 3.2 from the WordPress.org website.

The first thing you will want to do is head over to their Google +1 create a button page.  From there, you first select the size of the button you wish to use:

• Small (15px)
• Medium (20px)
• Standard (24px)
• Tall (60px)

Once that is done, you can click on the link that reads, "Advanced options" to tweak a few more things, such as if you want to include the count, parse, JS callback function and the URL to +1.  The final step is to copy and paste the code they provide to you and place it into your own website.

Google has been grasping at straws for a while to find a way for people to share content, in the same way that Facebook does it.  You have to believe they would love to have that data in their own hands, and this is one way they hope to make that happen. 

The main index page gives you an image heavy magazine style layout that is definitely pleasing to the eye.  Each post page also displays the content in an easy to read format too.  You get a drop down navigation across the top of the layout – for your basic website links and the sidebar items also look nice.  Overall, if you are looking for a great new theme to go with your great new website idea – there might not be a better theme around.

Go check out the JournalCrunch preview, or download it directly from the Site5 WordPress themes website.

Great looking and free WordPress themes are really hard to find.  Sometimes you have to search for days, weeks or years to find the one that is right for you.  With that said, I am here to make your Monday morning just that much easier – here is EvoLve.

EvoLve is a great looking premium WordPress theme that includes a ton of advanced options to help you customize things to suit your own design needs. Here is only a handful of the great options and settings you can find in this flawless WordPress theme:

It features a modern design with up to 14 color variants, fully customizable layout, post excerpts with thumbnails, post boxes, author gravatar support, up to 10 subscribe/social customizable buttons, custom logo, header widgets, recent posts slideshow, footer widgets, custom footer, customizable font styles, custom CSS, ads spaces. The EvoLve theme also comes with custom Menus support and other cool features. Translated in Spanish, German, Swedish, Dutch, French, Russian, Turkish. Tested with WP 3.1 and major browsers – Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Chrome.

Want to give it a shot? You can go preview or download it directly from WordPress.org.

Once you do, you get all kinds of neat facts, statistics and advice on what you can do to improve your website’s score.

Just to give you an example of how this website works – Mitchelaneous got a score of 97 – which I think is pretty darn good.  So what does that mean exactly?

A website grade of 97/100 for www.mitchelaneous.com means that of the millions of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 97% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

Some of the places where it says I need improvement are the fact that I have "too many images" on the website, which I don’t really see as that much of a factor.  Also, I need to apparently renew my domain this year.

Now, like with any automated service – you have to learn how to take the advice you are given.  No website can take the place of learning the ropes when it comes to learning how to really create a fantastic website – however Website Grader can get you pointed in the right direction.

To give it a shot on your own website, be sure to go visit websitegrader.com.