The Wonders of Content Management Systems

The Wonders of Content Management Systems

Word Count:

298

Summary:

As you get serious about your web site, your time will become invaluable. A content management system is the best way to maximize your efforts.

Keywords:

content management, style sheets, includes

Article Body:

As you get serious about your web site, your time will become invaluable. A content management system is the best way to maximize your efforts.

What A Content Management System Does for You

A good CMS system will allow you to update can entire site by making a change one time in the admin that can carry over to all pages of your site. This means you can change the menu, side bar, page bottom, site design, or other sections of your site all at one time. So while some webmasters are changing every page, others can have the task completed in minutes.

Includes, Style Sheets and Content Management Systems

For the do it yourself webmaster, or a professional web designer looking to easily improve update efficiency, there is a middle ground between plain HTML pages and full-blown CMS.

Includes

By simply using an include on your sites, you can allow your entire site to be updated with one change. Includes are files that are included in a web page with one line of code. This allows all pages with that file included to be updated by changing the include file one time.

Style Sheets

Style sheets operate in much the same way as includes. One line of code calls a file capable of determining the look of text and graphics on the site. Entire site designs can be created with style sheets. An example of the power of style sheets can be seen at http://www.csszengarden.com/. Using style sheets can allow webmasters to change the entire look and layout of the site by changing one file.

In Closing

Manually changing a web site is for the birds. Use a content management system and you’ll actually have time to have a life beyond your site.

Original Web Content

Original Web Content

Word Count:

513

Summary:

Original content is one of the most important components to a successful website. Find out how to check how original your content is, and how it stacks up to your competition.

Keywords:

web site, content, keyword, page ranking, keywords, business, fresh content, webmaster, browser, internet, web,

Article Body:

One of the most overlooked and misunderstood portions of web site designing and set up is the content. What do you actually fill the pages with, is the most common question today. Well the answer is rather simple, content and lots of it. One of the biggest problems with content these days is there is not enough original web content for your site. Why would you have an article that 500 other sites already have on theirs? This will not keep you in the race if you do not have original stuff.

As every good web site designer knows, it is the use of keyword rich content that can make or break your site. These keywords are what are considered a beacon for the page, when the keyword is typed into the viewer’s browser. Not having keywords or very poor ones will not generate traffic to the site, leaving the site virtually in the dust of the competition. This is where creativity comes into play, you need to keep sharp to stay on top of the competitors and keep your site flooded with traffic. The more traffic you have the higher the page ranking. When your page ranking is high, you will have your site up around the top page or pages where most people surf.

Many people for one reason or another rarely venture past the first few pages in a search engines listings, if your site is not in high rankings chances are you are not going to be seen. There is word of mouth yet someone actually has to stumble onto the site and view it for it to be noticed. For this one reason alone, you need to have content that can generate hits. Now there are many sites where you can grab free content for your site, yet this free content rarely has any keyword rich value to it and is surely not going to make you financially stable anytime soon. You need to find the stuff that no one else has in order to be original. Having fresh content that a viewer is actually looking for and has not found everywhere else online is the key to bringing in more business.

This is not restricted to merchant based sites or affiliate sites, this goes all the way down the list of possible web site designs. Many people today write their own content with their keywords in it, to ensure that the indexing is updated regularly. If you do not have any writing skills or have no programs to ensure that the content has not been used before, this could easily be a daunting task. There are however, many sites dedicated to this very problem. You can go to a site such as Elance and employ a hired gun to do your content development. This is a site where web designers congregate, and you can simply put out ads on what you are looking for. Then a writer has the option of taking on the task of filling your site with proven content that will sell for you.

Article Directory Website Design: Clean Up Your Content!

Article directories have taken the internet by storm. That is a good thing, as it allows authors to distribute their content and allows publishers to grab content for their website, but unfortunately, many article directories are offering a huge disservice to authors and publishers due to poorly designed directories. Listen up article directory owners; let’s think about some ways to serve our visitors in our article directory designing!

Style Elements

I have stumbled across many article directory websites where there are a number of mixed alignings, ten different color combinations, excessive bold and italicized fonts, and numerous style “enhancements”. While these different design elements can be good, there comes a time when, as the webmaster, we need to be okay with simplifying the visual end. When a visitor enters your directory, or website for that matter, their eyes cannot help but to expect unity and clarity. If they are presented with a jumbled, disorganized mess, they will do one of two things. They will either (1) quickly jerk the mouse to the back button or (2) continue to browse your site but grow frustrated from the chaotic presentation and then eventually leave. You obviously want to prevent both of those things from happening.

When applying style elements such as colors, size, and images, we need to make sure these things help bring the visitor in contact with the content and message of the website. There comes a time when a line is crossed between beneficial and distracting. I have visited some article directories in which images and graphics push the navigation bar down the page. You do not want to have your visitor scroll down the page to have to find where click to other portions of your site. Make it easy on your visitor to get around your directory. Keep your navigation bar towards the top of your site. If your visitor does not know how to get around your article directory they will get frustrated and leave. Bring your visitor in contact with the content!

To expound more on the use of font colors and styling, remember to maintain consistency. Choose three or four colors to create a color scheme for your article directory. Stick with this color scheme. This provides unity in your content and makes the visitors viewing experience a lot more pleasurable. Continually ask yourself the question, “Is my article directory home page easy to read? Is it organized? Is the directory inviting?”

Advertisements and Images

As the webmaster of your article directory or web content site, it is obvious and understandable that it is a must to push your ads and affiliate programs so you can generate income. However, do keep in mind while placing your ads that you want your visitor to receive your web site’s content. Your visitor wants to find valuable information. That is why they visit your website. They do not come for the ads! Understanding that, make sure your ads relate and apply to your directory’s content. It is vital that your ads do not block your website’s content. Integrate your ads so they do not intrude on your website content.

Before you start plastering your article directory with ads and “cool” styling, keep it mind that your website’s content is first and for most. Overall, people are coming for your content—they could care less if you used pastel pink or neon green!

Joomla Content Management System For Your Business

Joomla Content Management System For Your Business

Word Count:

630

Summary:

Is Joomla the content management system for your business? Exploring the benefits of a well known web based content management system.

Keywords:

Web Design, Joomla, eCommerce, Website Designers, Development, Websites

Article Body:

I am a Web Developer & I own a Web Design & SEO firm based in Melbourne, Australia. Over the last 9 years, I have developed many websites and worked with many different content management systems. I have designed and built my own content management systems and I have seen many half done open source systems come and go. So, it comes as no surprise that over the last 9 years that the calls by many clients for a more complete open source CMS solution have been answered by an open source solution. This article is about one of the best open source content management systems available, Joomla and I walk you through the potential benefits that Joomla can provide for your business.

So, what is Joomla! ?

Joomla! is an award-winning, web based, Content Management System(CMS) that provides its users with the ability to add, edit and delete content. Content is the meat of a website, everything on the site, from page titles and images to text and placement on the page. It is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the vital data that makes your company run. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site. So what this means to the many non-programmers in the business World, is a freedom. The freedom to modify your website without need of hiring a html developer or web programmer just to update one image or change some text. So what is the catch? well, there really isn't one! Joomla! is open source and is released under the GPL/GNU Licence so that means its free for anyone to use as long as licenses within the code remain intact!

Currently Joomla powers millions of websites Worldwide, from the United Nations and Porsche Brazil to websites for smaller businesses with more modest design budgets. Joomla offers a versatility in how it can be used and who it can be used by. Of course for more complex jobs of modifying design and your own look and feel you might need to hire a designer, however this task is made easier because Joomla is so popular. To find qualified web designers who have used Joomla in the past, it is very easy, a simple search on one of the many freelance designer-for-hire websites on the Internet. You can even post your individual project and have designers bid on your project and you can make your selection from the bidders.

From my experience most people have no trouble understanding the basics necessary to edit content and pages and given that Joomla has such an active and growing community of more than 40,000 users and developers it is quite easy to find information online. Using the simple, browser-based interface you will be able to easily add new news items, manage staff information, job listings, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your website.

From my web design experience I know that with very little configuration, Joomla! does a fantastic job of managing the web content needed to make a business website run. However for many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in its ability to be modified with components and modules. There are literally hundreds & hundreds of component addons and plugins that add to the base Joomla website system framework so that it can be molded into suiting your business processes better. For example, there are extensions to make the website an ecommerce website, to make the website a property management website or a complex download repository.

In few short words it might be worthwhile exploring Joomla for your next website as it provides you with diverse flexibility and a level of control of your content not present 5 years ago.

Design for Your Content

Design for Your Content

Word Count:

1292

Summary:

Design is important, but content is king. If you publish something on the web, you want your message to get across. You can’t afford to let your words be overshadowed by your flashy new website. Designing for your content will help make sure that your site looks good, without interfering with what you’re trying to say.

Keywords:

Design for your content, web design, web copy, web content, freelance copywriters, herds of words

Article Body:

By Sam Roberts - Website Copywriter, Internet Researcher and Advertising Copywriter

Why design for your content?

I remember putting together my first website - when I was about 14 - and how long it took me to get the design just right. I planned it all carefully in my head, working out all the pages I thought a site should have (Main, About Me, Pictures and Links!). I even drew out a sitemap on paper, to make sure everything was perfect!
Then I painstakingly taught myself .html (this was back in the days before WYSIWYG editors were around), and drew out each .jpg from scratch. It took me several weeks, but eventually the site was finished. All I needed to do was to write the content to fill it. It was only then that I realised that I didn't have a single thing I wanted to say.

I designed my second website when I was in High School, and it was a far more ambitious affair. I made a page for each of my friends, and filled it with things I knew would make them laugh. The home page was little more than a list of links, because I wanted people to be able to find their pages easily. The design flowed naturally from the content, and unlike my first website, this one was a huge success. Because I had written it with my audience in mind, rather than trying to fit the content around the design, it was more accessible, and people took the time to read it. As a result, the site became very popular, and people still talk about it now, even though the site has been offline for years.

Both of my sites were very basic, amateur efforts, but the principle applies equally no matter what size the site. Design is important, but content is king. The web is a communication medium - if you publish something online, you obviously have something you want to say, and you cannot afford to let your words be overshadowed by your flashy new website. You need to learn to design for your content.

Design to communicate

The most important part of your website is the content itself. You have something to say, and you must make sure you say it, or all your effort has been wasted. But there's no point in just regurgitating a few paragraphs of marketing hype - web users are surprisingly savvy, and they can see through that in an instant; an instant in which they will have hit the back button and moved on down the list of search results.

You need to find out what people are looking for, and give it to them.

Do some research; think about which terms you would use to search if you wanted to buy your product, and then look them up. Have a look at who your competitors are, and what they are doing. Research on Wordtracker and see if there are any other keywords you could try.

Then use your imagination. Think about why people might be looking for your product and write for them. If your site advertises a skiing hotel in Switzerland, don't just advertise for 'hotels in Switzerland', provide useful articles about skiing, and then point them to your hotel in the middle of a ski resort.

When you know what content you require, you need to write it. The key to this is that it must be written well - you want people to read it and find the information useful. There's a lot of rubbish out there, and if people find a genuinely useful article they will remember it and come back for more. With that in mind, here are a few ideas for writing better content:

• Write clearly. Write succinctly. People get turned off by huge blocks of text, so keep it as short and sweet as possible.


• Don't feel you have to explain every little thing, but don't assume that your readers know everything that you do. If they did, they wouldn't be reading your article.


• Use references to strengthen your arguments, and link to sources where people can get more information. Don't be afraid to link to sites other than your own. It will only make people trust you more.


• Talk as yourself. It's the web; you can and should be informal. People like feeling that they are listening to a real human being. However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar.


• Don't overuse colloquialisms - not everybody is from the same country as you, and it's easy for things to get lost in translation.

Design for ease of use

People don't like reading as much text on a screen as on a page. Therefore, you must make things easy for them. Design your website to complement and enhance the text, and be careful not to overwhelm it with fancy menus and images that distract your readers from the important stuff: your content.

Split the text into easily digestible chunks; use short paragraphs made up of short sentences. Give each topic its own separate page if it makes things easier to read. Five concise pages are better than one single sprawling mass of text.

Use bullet points and lists to make things simpler. Emphasise important things using header tags or bold to make them stand out. Basically, try to break things up as much as possible into smaller sections that people will be more inclined to read.

Design for accessibility

Not everybody who uses the web can see perfectly. Some are visually impaired; others may even be blind. Yet they are still quite capable of using the Internet, provided that web designers follow a few basic rules to make things easier for them.

• Fonts should be resizable - it is tempting to restrict fonts to a specific size in order to preserve your design, but it is important that you allow users to choose for themselves. There are a huge number of articles on the web about creating layouts that will respond dynamically to changes in text size.


• Many visually impaired people use screen-readers to navigate the web - one way in which you can improve their experience of your site is to make sure you use proper .html, improving the accuracy of the screen-reader.


• Don't use images to as a source of information, but to reinforce the information given in the text. Ideally, your site should work just as well with images off. Try viewing your site with a text only browser, such as Lynx, to get an idea of how it will be seen by a screen-reader.


• Make sure you make good use of your image alt tags. Give a concise description of the image contents. If you include a lot of your site's meta keywords, you will help your SEO too.

You need to make sure that everybody can access and view your content, and that it looks the same on everybody's computer. That means testing. Get as many people as you can to test out your site in different browsers, different resolutions, and different platforms. Make sure it works in the same way in all of them.

Conclusion

As with my first site, if you emphasise design over content, your users will get bored and move on, and your site will sink back into anonymity. By following the suggestions in this article, your website will be rejuvenated, and your content will get a chance to shine. People will read what you have to say. If they like what they hear, they'll come back again and again…

The Future Of Web Design Is Content Management!

Web Design

Web development has greatly increased in popularity over the last 5 years. Many new design concepts, code standards, and technology advances have happened in a short amount of time. With that, so has the knowledge and demand for better, more independent and functional web design packages.

More and more we are starting to see a shift in consumer demand for the increasingly popular website content management system.

Most website owner's are typical business entrepreneurs who don't have the time to chase down their web design company for some minor updates that usually cost an arm and a leg. Updates for websites are becoming more and more necessary. It's now a reality and a trend that in order to make something happen with your website online, you need to stay on top of things and create new content to keep visitors coming back.

As entrepreneurs, we all get new creative ideas almost every day on how to improve our products or services. Without the ability to update our own website's, those fresh, new ideas may not become a reality for a long time.

Website Content Management Systems Are The Future:

This is somewhat of a call out to all web design companies. If you cannot offer content management to your clients, you may be left in the dust within a few years. The more affordable content management becomes, the more in demand it will be. Without giving your prospects this crucial option, you may lose a great chunk of your potential clients to the next web design company that has a fully automated system that states: "all the consumer has to do is login and get started."

Granted, there will always be a need for web designers. That is an understatement but with the option of content management, you can also decrease the amount of work needed to put into each project and concentrate more on marketing your business and it's services.

Content Management Gives The Consumer The Freedom They Need!

Without giving too much freedom that may make the website look bad, there is a high demand for the ability to update a website when needed, not when convenient. People like to have power over managing their own company, content management gives them the freedom they need to expand on their own terms, without extra costs.

Here Are Typical Features Of A "CMS":

- Add/remove/edit pages.
- Update content within each page.
- Add images where needed.
- Update contact information.
- Show updated listings (i.e. Real estate listings, Mortgage rates).
- Add new tips on their industry everyday (The spawn of blogging).
+ Many extra features not listed here.

Take The Real Estate Industry For Example:

In the last 2 years, "Real Estate Content Management Systems" are popping up everywhere we look. I can recall reviewing over 50 websites that offer this style of service. And why not! Real estate agents as a whole spend a great deal of money marketing themselves. Just in the last couple of years, real estate agents have seen more value in marketing online than they have through regular print media. Many real estate agents I know would rather spend $4,000 for a website rather than spend $4,000 getting listed in the local telephone book.

In Conclusion:

If you offer web design services and have (CMS) Content Management Systems available to your visitors, this might be the time to consider this ever growing popular service for your company. You won't regret putting in the effort of developing your own system and marketing it, there is a shifting demand for this ever-popular freedom online.

Tips For Writing Website Content

Online businesses nееd tо reflect thе concept thаt "Content іѕ King" іn thе design, marketing, аnd writing оf thеіr web sites tо trulу bе successful.

At Swift Media UK, wе аlwауѕ аѕk thеѕе 3 questions tо online business professionals tо ѕее іf thеу rеаllу understand thе concept оf "Content іѕ King." Wе find thаt іf thеу саnnоt answer thеѕе 3 questions immediately, thеn thаt gіvеѕ uѕ а clearer idea оf hоw prepared thе client іѕ tо bе online.

Whу ѕhоuld I visit уоur web site (without spending аnу money)?

Thе #1 reason people visit web sites іѕ fоr information. Thus, іf уоu provide information fоr people ѕuсh аѕ free marketing tips, а how-to section, оr tips fоr buying уоur product оr service, уоu hаvе gіvеn а benefit fоr visiting уоur site.

Thе tips fоr buying уоur product оr service аrе раrtісulаrlу beneficial bесаuѕе уоu аrе helping уоur potential customers mаkе thе bеѕt decision thеу can. It shows thаt уоu аrе thinking оf уоur customers ("Let mе hеlр уоu mаkе thе bеѕt purchase fоr уоur budget"), nоt уоurѕеlf ("Buy mу stuff bесаuѕе I'm thе best").

Whу ѕhоuld I return tо уоur website?

People uѕuаllу won't buy frоm уоu untіl thеу visit уоur site 4-5 times. Sо уоu ѕhоuld give people а reason tо return tо уоur site. Updating product оr service information, timely how-to tips, оr аn upgraded software demo аrе good reasons fоr people tо return tо уоur site оr mауbе еvеn bookmark it.

Thіѕ question аlѕо іndісаtеѕ web marketing savvy. Coca Cola dоеѕ nоt show thе ѕаmе commercial year аftеr year аftеr year bесаuѕе people wіll gеt bored wіth thе ѕаmе commercial. Nоr ѕhоuld аnуоnе show thе exact ѕаmе web site month аftеr month аftеr month. A site ѕhоuld bе updated аt lеаѕt еvеrу 1 tо 3 months, еvеn іf thе сhаngеѕ аrе minimal. (Search engines re-index/re-catalogue changed pages).

Whаt separates уоu frоm уоur competition?

Wе expect tо hear company's unique selling proposition (USP) hеrе аnd trу tо design оr market thе site based оn this. Wе аrе uѕuаllу amazed whеn people tеll thаt thеу аrе thе *best* аt ѕоmеthіng but саnnоt bасk іt uр wіth customer testimonials оr data. Wе аlѕо gеt mаnу potential clients thаt hаvе nо unique selling proposition.

Wе оftеn hear thе "best customer service" аnd thе "lowest prices" together. Frоm оur standpoint, іf уоu wаnt tо hire а rеаllу talented customer service staff, уоu hаvе tо pay thеm well. Thаt wіll affect уоur overhead and, thus, уоur prices. Also, wе hаvе fоund thаt thе lowest prices rarely gеt thе bеѕt quality.

Online businesses whо саn answer thеѕе questions immediately dо extremely wеll оn thе web bесаuѕе thеу аrе giving people reasons tо соmе аnd return tо thеіr sites. Thеу show thаt thеу аrе wіllіng tо listen tо thеіr visitors аnd adapt thеіr site tо hеlр thеіr visitors gеt whаt thеу want.

No HTML Required: 5 Free Tools to Help You Build Content Rich Websites

Content Rich Websites

There are so many ways to build a website that sometimes it can be confusing.

The first thing you need to decide when building a website is, what is its primary purpose?

Will you use your site only to build a list, will you provide content, do you want to generate passive income?

These are all questions you want to answer before you begin to build your website.

Once you decide what type of website you want to build, then choose the right tools. This will save you a lot of frustration in building a new website, and it's not really necessary for your to understand HTML in order to build an effective website.

1. Landing Pages
Landing page builders are effective if you want to build a list. You can also use them to help you promote on sites like Google Adwords or Overture.

Most of these sites require some type of landing page now because they won't allow you send your traffic directly to an affiliate program.

You can use these tools to help you build landing pages for your pay per click campaigns.

Landing Page Builder - http://www.instapage.com - Free tool to help you build landing pages.

Google Publisher - http://www.net-results.com - Offers a free and paid version. The paid version allows you to create unlimited pages and add your Google Adsense publisher ID.

2. Content Pages
Content will make your site sticky. This is especially effective if you choose to use some type of program like Google Adsense to monetize your site.

The easiest way to make your site sticky is to use articles. Make sure that the articles you choose are valuable to your readers and solve a problem.

You also want to choose keyword rich articles targeted to your market.


3. HTML Editors
Choosing the right editor will determine how quickly you can get your site online.

If you don't know how to write HTML, there are editors available to you that will do this for you.

NVU - http://www.nvu.com - This site building tool is similar to Dreamweaver or Front Page. You don't need to know HTML to use it. Since it's open source, it's free. You can also use it on MAC and PC.

Easy Web Page Creator - http://www.easy-web-page-creator.com/ - This free tool will allow you to create web pages with a few clicks of your mouse.

4. Content Management Systems

If you plan to build a content rich website, you will find a content management system to be the best choice. With a few clicks of your mouse you can totally change the look of your site.

It's also much easier to add and organize content.

The most important aspects of a content management system are ease of use and search engine friendly.

Open Source CMS - http://www.opensourcecms.com - This site allows you to try out all types of content management systems including blogs before you use them.

Since it's open source, they're all free to install and use.

5. Other Scripts

If the thought of creating or writing content makes you crazy, let others create it for you.

The easiest way to add content to your site is to offer an article directory. Then all you have to do is monetize and promote your new site.

Article Dashboard - http://www.articledashboard.com - is a free article script you can use to create your own article directory. It's very easy to customize, and very search engine friendly. It also incorporates RSS, as well as email, allowing you to build a list, as well as promote in RSS directories.

Regardless of what solution you choose for building your website, make it search engine friendly, well organized, and rich in content and resources.

Choose your tools before you build your website, and you'll build a better website.

Web Design And Content Management

Web design or Web development has become immensely popular over the last few years. In these short few years, many new code standards, technology and design concepts have come to the fore. There has also been an immense amount of knowledge distribution and with it the demand for more functional and independent web design packages and tools.

The knowledge distribution has also led to shift in demand to the content management systems which facilitate content updates. These updates have become immensely necessary to keep the consumer’s interest for visiting the web site again and again and also to keep the consumer abreast with latest happenings regarding the company and its products and services.

CMS or Content Management Systems are becoming more and more popular with web design organizations. They have come to realize that CMS is the future of web site design and may be left behind in the industry if they do not begin offering CMS services.

CMS does not in any way spell doom to web designers. CMS certainly saves the company’s time it spends on web design and allows tem to put more efforts into marketing. CMS gives the company the freedom it needs by providing them with an ability to update the site when needed, not when convenient. CMS also saves the company’s costs by not having to run to the web designer every time an update is needed.

Any typical CMS consists of the following features:

- Provides an interface to Add/remove/edit pages.
- Provides easy interface to update content of each page.
- Capability to add or remove images where needed.
- Interface to update contact information.
- Display updated listings (ex: Mortgage and interest rates).
- Facilitates addition of news on the industry everyday.

Inference

A web design organization should seriously consider offering CMS to their clients to prepare for the future. It is still at a nascent stage, so if a web design and development organization is considering developing a customised CMS and marketing it, they can still see success in the near future.

The Success of your Web Site with King Content.

There is of course a huge amount to learn in setting up and running a Web Site, which is why, I believe, that most newcomers tend to put their trust in a web designer, aka webmaster and leave them to get on with things hoping that all will go well. Big Mistake!

It’s only when, having spent quite a lot of money, you find out that your pride and joy is not giving you the results that you imagined, that alarm bells can start to ring. In my own case this took approximately four years to sink in. After a promising start, with some enquiries from the other side of the world, things not only didn’t get any better but got worse!

Of course, if you are running and developing a new business, which takes a colossal amount of time and commitment, you don’t initially have time to worry too much about the success of your web site. After all, a web site will make you a zillionaire quicker than you can spell the long version of SEO! Big Mistake!

I believe it is just as important to designate sufficient time to understanding how a web site is developed, promoted and maintained as it is to spend time on all the other many facets of a fledgling business.

Many new business owners, myself included, thought in the past that just by having a web site and on-line presence AND a webmaster, that everything would be fine. Visitors and sales would surely follow and increase exponentially. Not So!

Probably the pace of change on-line is more rapid than most businesses realise and therefore if you are going to build a site AND do some reasonable level of commerce from it, you have got to study and learn a number of basics.


1. Key word research should really begin before you set about building your site, because it can help with the choice of a suitable Domain name and continue to assist in the titles and scope of your eventual articles.


2. Original and fresh content related to your prospective field is a necessity, and needs to be uploaded on a very regular basis. Unless you are a very large company with an in-house webmaster, this is probably the most crucial aspect of developing a site in terms of getting good search engine results.

3. Writing new pages can be extremely time consuming and unless you have a suitable S.M.S. package installed, enabling you to become your own webmaster, it’s highly likely you will commence the slow but inexorable slide to oblivion, other wise known as Zero traffic.

4. Build your site by all means but make sure that you become your own webmaster, having taken a crash course in the do’s and don’ts. You absolutely must have the facility to control what goes on within your site. If you miss out on this vital aspect of developing a site, the chances are that you will lose interest and stop creating ideas and content.

5. Learning to write your content, even if this seems a bit beyond your reach to begin with is another essential skill to be fine tuned and believe me, once you have got under way it will become easier with each passing day. Looking at how other web sites operate and the standard of their content will help you along the path.

6. Articles on your area of expertise, submitted to a number of reputable Directories, will almost immediately get you noticed and start to build credibility. These can be modified for use as web pages and will provide ideas for new content on a never ending basis. It has been my experience in the recent past that articles can have a very advantageous effect on search engine results. Credibility is something you can never have too much of.


7. Search engine optimization, a very fancy term, with nearly as many, so called, experts as there are sites on the Web and similar in number to the droves of Web site designers! This is a thorny topic and one best left to the experts, for the behind the scenes work. However, it is my belief that the best results come from fresh and original content put up on your site on a regular basis. Results from my blog of only two months existence, in terms of link popularity, are outstripping my web site that has been on-line for five years. This is all down to regular articles on my chosen topic.


8. A newsletter or ezine, is a very good way of encouraging traffic to your site and building your subscriber list that you can eventually turn into clients, customers and sales. Offering an incentive for your visitors to part with their e-mail address can be by way of a free mini course or e book.. In the case of your newly published E-Book, offering a free download of one complete chapter is something worth considering and is a very popular technique. This is all part of the credibility building process. Once you get used to making regular posts to your newly set up Blog, a newsletter should be relatively easy to produce, without too much stress.


9. A Business Blog is I think, the way forward, for many web site owners who would like to see an increase in traffic of a targeted nature. They are easy to set up and have the advantage of being virtually instant. One of the great things that can help you in becoming more adept as a webmaster, utilising your own blog, is that learning the rudiments of html is not the nightmare that it may appear to be. You can practise away to your heart’s content adding and subtracting code from a blog post and see immediately the result in the preview pane. You don’t even need to publish this post. Again, getting used to viewing the source code of other web sites and seeing how they do things will give you no end of inspiration.
of weeks, with a little effort!



10. Control is the key to success in developing your skill as a webmaster. In a follow–up article on the experiences of a complete Blog novice we will have a look at some of the more interesting facts, figures, and activities that will take you where you want to go, and contribute to the success of your web site, providing you are prepared to allocate sufficient computer time
and are not expecting to retire a millionaire in six months!

It is, however, an achievable goal to go from Meek to Geek in just a couple

10 Ways of Getting Content For Your Site

Content is really important for webmasters. Why? When people surf the web, they are looking for information. They aren't looking for you specifically, unless you're well-known. If they visit your site and don't what they're looking for, they will leave quickly. And they probably won't return to your site. Well, they might stumble back onto your site, but not on purpose.

Content For Your Site

Quality sites provide quality content. Quality content helps you retain visitors. Visitors may spread the word about your site and thus attract new visitors.

Adding new high quality content to your site regularly is also beneficial. With more content, you will have more pages indexed by the search engines. More pages indexed means you will have more opportunities for people to find you via search engines.

So how exactly do you get content for your site?

1. Your unique knowledge

Everybody knows something others don't. Use your own unique insight and knowledge to provide content. Think of what activities you've participated in the past. Think of what you've learned through past experiences. Any experiences can help, whether at home, school, work, or anywhere else. Of course, providing your own content regularly can be very difficult.

2. Personal stories

Personal stories are the basis of some sites and blogs. Want to connect with your audience and let them know more about you? Use personal stories. However, if you don't want to be too personal, make sure you inject your personality into your writing. Personality differentiates you from the rest and can keep visitors coming back.

3. How-to guides

People have problems and like to figure out how to solve them. Had some problem you struggled with for a while? Did you eventually solve it? The way you solved it could be written into a how-to guide. Or write a how-to guide about your expert area. For example, if you're a technical computer whiz, you could write a how-to guide for fixing computers.

4. Do research

Do some research on the web. Use search engines, search directories, and follow links to find relevant sites. Do some research at your local library. Grab some books about your site's topic and start digging through them. Find local experts, teachers, and professors and ask them questions about your site's topic. When you research, note down interesting ideas and you'll undoubtedly learn more. You'll have more unique knowledge that you can turn into content. You might even discover something earth-shattering!

5. Subscribe to newsletters

Good newsletters are a great way to keep informed about a particular topic. They can keep you informed of offers that you may be able to provide on your own site. As well, they can keep you on top of what's happening in your area by providing time-sensitive content.

Is your website content delivering you results?

The Importance of Keeping Content Up to Date
Imagine you're the owner of a successful car dealership but when your customers look at the cars listed on your website they notice that the cars are a month or so old or, even worse, they call you only to find out that that dream car they were looking at sold a week ago? This is hardly going to give them much confidence in the rest of your offering. On the other hand, imagine your web site has information that is accurate and up-to-date, where you can update car listings after a sale to respond to visitor queries and do all this easily, painlessly and without even phoning your website company? That, in a nutshell, is an effective website content management system.

The website is a work horse
I often ask people, do your sales people sleep at night and take breaks for lunch during the day?... They look at me like I’m strange or something, but then my point is made! People realise that, when designed properly, a website works for you twenty-four hours a day, doesn’t take sick leave and proudly sells your business and handles support enquiries from your customers wherever they are, at any time of the day or night.

Give your website the attention it deserves
Just like sales teams require training, websites require attention too! In order to keep your customers interested, they need to have up-to-the-minute information to remain effective. You’ve spent all that money marketing your website, now you need to make sure you don’t mislead people with poorly structured, old and boring content. The last thing you want is for this update process to take time, in fact, it is vital that you have the flexibility to control and change the content of your web pages when you want, not when your web design company gets around to it.

By providing a service where customers can DIY their content, website companies are getting wise to a real competitive edge. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise the web design company that can provide quick and easy-to-use web content management systems will have an edge over those who can only see this as a threat.

You should have the power to choose
Web site companies should provide their customers with two choices. Concentrate on providing customers with the best tools to make changes easily, quickly and when they want while also giving customers the flexibility to continue to receive a service for updating their site (for those not quite so urgent updates). Giving customers more choice and more control very rarely fails.

Relevant information is the key to success online
When it comes to potential customers searching for your products and services, we should all understand that on the web CONTENT IS KING. Without great, well thought out content customers can’t and won’t find your website and will never do business with you. Search engines require great content to be able to find your website. A content management system bridges this problem. Otherwise your website investment is wasted!

You should now find and start using a content management tool to place in fantastic content that is kept up to date and fresh. Now you can start putting your website on the map.

Next article - Information to keep your website ahead of the competition
Watch out for my next news article which will be how a simple database can help you save hours and hours of time in keeping your website fresh and new.

For comments and enquiries about this article visit http://www.datumconnect.co.nz

Some Ways to Improve Your King Content

There are thousands of articles, books and forum posts which showed that content is king in search engine optimization (SEO). In this article, you can find some ways that can help you improve this king content for your web site.

* Content for people first, not for search engines - Some webmasters make a common mistake that they optimize everything for search engines but forget about web visitors. The goal of our website is not only to get high search rankings, but also to sell our service. So you should give your website visitors what they are really looking for. Make sure your content flows naturally and you're not just trying to stuff more keywords in the interest of search engines. If users don't find your content convincing they won't buy from you.

* Studying popular search terms - High search engine ranking is meaningless if your website only ranks high on terms nobody searches for. You need to ask your colleagues, vendors, competitors, clients, ... or use online tools (e.g.: wordtracker.com) to identify what keywords which potential customers would use to search your web site, then try to use them often, in titles, and throughout the body.

* Building article directory - How can you optimize the content if your web site only offers a simple service? It means there are just several pages in your whole website. So, to increase the content in quality you should write some articles, reviews which are related to your service. A site with more web pages means there are more chances of different terms that will become findable in search engines. You may consider adding free articles to your article directory. On the Internet today, one can find a lot of websites which provide articles free for republishing. Of course you must accept the policy of these web sites and authors before using these articles.

* Making a clear website organization - Build a site which is simple to navigate with a well linking structure. Every page should be accessible from at least one text link. It's better to be sparing with image links, Flash, JavaScript drop-down menus, or other codes that are not HTML based... because the search engine crawlers cannot recognize text contained in these kinds of display. In case using them is required, then make sure a text based menu or a sitemap is also included in the Web site. Last but not least, you should use meaningful words in your URLs, use as simple a web page layout and design as possible.

In conclusion, it is undeniable that content is king in the kingdom of search engines. The quality of your content is the main factor which decides the success in Internet marketing. So improving your content is very necessary.

Content, Links, Relevance And Page Rank

SEO experts are constantly telling us about the importance of good quality content and good quality back links from web sites with relevant content. They also tell us that reciprocal links and page rank are of decreasing importance. They then instruct us as to how to go about getting good links by personally contacting other web sites and proposing a reciprocal link! Confusing! As is much of the advice given to prospective site designers.

Personal experience with our own web site has shown that the following is correct and works;

· Content is the key. Lots of it, with constant up dates to it, and it should be well written and informative not just a sales pitch.

· The more pages you can create the better. Upwards of 100 pages will highlight your site as an important one. Sites with only a few pages rarely appear on the first page of search engine results.

· As the site ages its importance will increase. Those who got in early generally outperform the later sites. Google also have an ageing process for links. As these links approach six months old they become of more importance.

· Reciprocal links once gone through the ageing process are still being counted, even with Google’s updated algorithm.

· Article writing and publishing will produce huge numbers of backlinks. You should be looking to produce upwards of 30 articles and aim for around 250.

· Attaching a weblog to your site which is updated daily will increase the rate at which the search engines visit your site and at the same time adds valuable content and links.

· Page Rank has still some importance in determining your position in the rankings because it is based on the links and the content of your site. However the page rank as given by the Google Toolbar is not necessarily accurate. A more accurate page rank can be gauged from using the detail supplied by the Google Sitemap statistics. Consequently generate a sitemap and submit it to Google.

The most important piece of advice is to design your site for the visitor and not the search engines. Have as much information within the content as possible and keep the graphics to a minimum.

Seven Simple Ways to Optimize Your Site for the Search Engines

Would you love to know the secrets of search engine optimisation? Here's a seven step guide to improving your ranking in the search engines.

First you need to find what people are looking for when they visit your site. Researching what actual words people type in to search engines is vital, these are your “keywords”.

Do your research on your keywords using Overture and Wordtracker. Overture will tell you how many people are searching on particular words or phrases. Wordtracker gives you an idea how much competition there is for those keywords.

Once you have your list of keywords, then you are ready to optimise your website. I say keywords as, with increasing competition on the internet, you are more likely to have success with keyword phrases or a group of keywords, than with just one keyword.

There are just seven easy steps:-

1. Name your site appropriately - if your site is about cat food, then include the keywords “cat food” in the title of your site
2. Ensure that your keywords are included in the page title
3. Add a Header tag using H1 tags
4. Use your keyword in the first line & last line of your content
5. Add an Alt Tag to your pictures which includes a description of the picture and includes your keywords
6. Ensure that your keyword is included in the outbound links from your site, an easy way to do this is to link the page back to itself.
7. Sprinkle your keyword a couple more times throughout your text and ensure that you have at least 250 words on the page. If you can't write this much, then write an introduction and then add a free article from one of the Article Directories, such as Ezine Articles.

If you include most of these on each of your pages, you'll find that you should move up in the search engine rankings over time.

All of these methods are what is called “on page” optimisation.

You can also optimise “off page” by building links to your website, using one of the many link swapping sites available.

You can also create quality links to your site is by leaving comments when you visit other people's blogs. When leaving a comment, ensure that the “name” you leave includes your keyword, where possible, and a link back to your site. For example, you could leave a comment from “Jo @ Cat foods”, linking back to your website address. If you're not sure where to find relevant blogs, either type in your keyword and the word “blog” into any of the search engines, or visit Blogger . com and run a search for your keywords.

Another great way of creating links to your site, is by writing and submitting articles to sites such as Ezine Articles.com ensuring that a link to your own site is entered in the Resource Box.

You may not see immediate results from your efforts, but with patience you will find that you see more visitors coming to your site as your rankings in the search engines improve.

You can find out more about starting and running your internet business, visit Start your own online home business.

This article was submitted by Jennifer Carter, why not build links to your website today.

Content is Not King

It may be Queen, but it is definitely not King and I'll tell you why. I'm really tired of hearing the virtues of content when all of the search engines put more value on off-site influences. If content really were king and you had ten sites that were all on the same subject, well written and optimized, how would the search engines determine which site was most relevant? One of those sites is going to have to be first and one of those sites is going to have to be tenth. Well, Google found an answer for this and that is off-site influences, specifically link popularity - sites linking to your site. Each site linking to you is a "vote" for your site saying, "this site is about so and so."

This off-site influence is so strong that sites can rank extremely well for terms that don't even exist in the site's copy. If you search "miserable failure" on Google the #1 site is Biography of President George Bush. If you search the copy on the homepage you'll find that the term "miserable failure" does not even exist on the page. If content is king how can a site rank #1 for a term that doesn't even exist on the page? Isn't this telling us that content really isn't king and that link popularity is really the reigning power?

I have a site that I put up for my mom's book all about chastity, sex and relationships. The whole book is available to read online either on html pages or pdfs. The content is relevant and beautifully written. Is is #1 for chastity in any of the search engines? No. Why? Because it lacks link popularity.

Content is not King and probably never will be. It definitely helps, but it will never give you the weight in search engines that link popularity does now.