Getting Started

SmarterStats is a full suite of business analytics tools that helps a business manage its online presence. For example, SmarterStats cost-effectively delivers accurate and detailed website statistics and log analytics for websites on Windows and Linux Web servers. Next, it allows marketers to create Search Engine Optimization reports to help improve a site's search rankings and increase traffic. Finally, web developers can use the Site Tuning features to help find issues with how a website is contructed, identifying things like broken links or multiple redirects that can adversely affect how a site is indexed and spidered by Google, Yahoo!, Bing and even international search engines.

Use this Getting Started section of the SmarterStats Online Help as a quick resource to help you set up the application.

Note: This section assumes you have already downloaded and installed SmarterStats from the SmarterTools website.

Setting Up SmarterStats

This section explains the various steps associated with getting SmarterStats set up after it's been installed.

1. Getting Started Page - After SmarterStats is installed, a Getting Started webpage will load. This page includes a video that provides some additional information about SmarterStats as well as a walkthrough of the Setup Wizard. Next to the video link is a link to launch the Setup Wizard itself.
2. License Setup - The Setup Wizard will ask you for a valid license key that will activate the Professional or Enterprise edition of the software. If you choose not to provide a license key at this step, the product will run as the Free edition. For more information, see Activating SmarterStats.
3. Create System Administrator - The system administrator account will be used to manage your entire SmarterStats installation. (You will set up site administrator accounts when you add a new site to SmarterStats.) The Setup Wizard will ask you for the username and password you want to use for your system administrator. By default, the username is 'admin' but you can use any name you like.
4. Default System Settings - Here you'll provide information that SmarterStats uses when processing reports. The Setup Wizard will ask for the directory in which you want to save your "SmarterLogs" - the log file data SmarterStats generates for processing reports. By default, SmarterStats will save the SmarterLogs in the root of the C: drive, but you can change the default location to any physical drive you want. In addition, you'll set the default time zone that should be used for calculating reports. If you need to use a different time zone for each site in SmarterStats, you can do so after completing the Setup Wizard.
5. Default SMTP Settings - Here you'll provide the default email address SmarterStats will use to send reports. You'll need to know your SMTP server, SMTP server port and the username and password you use to authenticate with the SMTP server (if SMTP authentication is required) to complete this step. SmarterStats can even test the SMTP settings to make sure they're correct. If you don't have this information, you can to contact your email provider to get it, or skip this step and configure SMTP at a later time.
6. When you click Finish in the Setup Wizard, you will be automatically logged into SmarterStats using the system administrator account you created in an earlier step. From here, you'll be able to watch configuration tutorials, add sites and customize your Web analytics and SEO software to meet your unique needs.
7. NOTE: If you plan on deploying SmarterStats Enterprise in a distributed environment and will have multiple remote servers processing logs, you will need to add those servers to SmarterStats as the system administrator. For more information, see Manage Servers.
8. Now that the initial setup of your Web analytics and SEO software is complete, you will need to add a site to SmarterStats. Any websites that you want to import log files from should be added as a site in SmarterStats. This will allow you to review reports about visitor behavior and spider/bot activity. When you add a site in SmarterStats, you will also designate the site administrator (the account responsible for managing the site) and create any users you want to have access to the site. For more information, see Adding a Site.

Recommended Step to Secure Your Installation

1. Set up SmarterStats as an IIS site, if necessary. For more information, see Running SmarterStats as an IIS Site.