Adding a Counter to Your 'About Us' Page

You've put flyers up all over town and are promoting your group like crazy. Perhaps you are looking for sponsors and want to show them how active your group is. Ever wonder how many people are viewing your group's About Page?


You can put a counter on it that may look something like this:

There are several websites that offer counters that you can use on your group's About page. This tutorial covers Site Meter (http://www.sitemeter.com), which is free and easy to set up.


To get a counter for your group's About page, you first need to create a Site Meter account. Here's how to do it:


1. Go to http://www.sitemeter.com and click 'Sign up' for a free Site Meter.


2. The next page shows the Site Meter policies. Read them over and click 'Next.' (Nothing you do in placing a counter on your About page will ever violate any of these terms.)


3. The next page asks you to tell Site Meter about the page you're placing the counter on.

• Your URL is just the URL of your About page, such as http://scifiwriting.meetup.com/2/about/
  
• For the name, use the name of your Group: "The NYC Red Sox Meetup Group"
  
• The Codename is a unique ID that Site Meter uses to identify your site. Since it has to be unique, something like meetup-boggle-1 would work well. (meetup-yourtopic-yournumber)
  

4. You're then asked to give Site Meter some information about yourself. Most of these are optional, but you do have to give them a valid email address. Fill out as much as you'd like and click 'Next.'


5. The next screen asks you if you'd like to sign up for any Site Meter email lists. You probably wouldn't, so make all the boxes unchecked and click 'Next.'


6. Finally, review the information you entered and click 'Next.'


Now that your Site Meter account has been created, you can customize your counter to use any of the styles available. To do this, click 'Manager' in the top navigation bar, then click the 'Meter Style' link on the left.

To add the counter to your About page you need two pieces of information: your account name and your Site Meter code. Getting your account name is easy — just click on 'Overview' in the left navigation and it's the first thing on the top of the page. (If you don't see an 'Overview' link on the left, click the 'Manager' link at the top of the page first.) Your Site Meter code is just the first part of your account name, and should be the letter "s" followed by a number. Examples are "s20" and "s21". So, if your account name is s14meetup-redsox-96, your Site Meter code is s14.


To add the counter to your About page, just copy the following code and substitute your information for the text in bold:


[img]http://YourSiteMeterCode.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=YourSiteMeterAccountName[/img] [url=http://YourSiteMeterCode.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=YourSiteMeterAccountName]See more stats[/url]


So, for example, if your account name is s21meetup-redsox-96, the code you paste into your About page would be:


[img]http://s21.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=s21meetup-redsox-96[/img] [url=http://s21.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s21meetup-redsox-96]See more stats[/url]