How to Create Your Own Visitor's Map
You've spent a lot of time and effort to create a usable website. Though you and your friends may think that it's perfect, you may want more objective opinions. One way to judge its effectiveness is by the number of visitors it attracts. If your page is targeted to a particular region (such as a travel site for Caribbean vacationers), then the location of your viewers becomes important. You can gauge both by adding a visitor's map.
- Difficulty:
- Easy
Instructions
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1
Browse a free visitor map website like Map Loco (See Reference 1 for link) and select a map style, visitor marker (under dot, style and color), and then click "Create It." If you want to be able to edit your map, click "Register." Otherwise, to send your map to a social site like MySpace, click one of the site buttons. If you prefer to embed the map in your own stand-alone site or in a forum message, copy the code and paste it in the HTML window of your page.
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2
Go to Revolver Maps (See Reference 2) to use a dynamic, three-dimensional globe that can be rotated by the viewer. Click "Get Your Globe" from the top menu and then choose options such as map type, dimensions and marker colors. The site produces code that you need to copy and paste into the HTML window of your site.
Note that while this version does not display any more information than the free, two-dimensional map, it is far more interesting to play with and look at.
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3
Sign-up for a paid service such as the one offered by Web-Stat (See Reference 3), which also offers a free trial. While the options for creating and displaying the map are fairly standard, the statistics are more comprehensive than those offered by freebies. Countries can be color-coded by cumulative traffic; visitors can be classified by country, region and city; page views can be tallied; and individual details for each visitor, such as the entrance page, referrer, browser and number of visits are also available.
You can even track viewing of non-HTML files such as videos, music, PDFs, Flash or pictures. And you can find out what advertisements or links viewers click when leaving your site. This helps you to make money by selling banner space on your page.
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