Posts Tagged ‘Content Management System’

Website Building - Do You Need To Master Web Programming?

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

If you are going to do business online, you need to have your own website. Although it is possible to make money online without it, your website is your identity in the world of Internet. Moreover, having your own site may open up many possibilities that you could never have imagined.

Nowadays, getting a website onto the internet can be accomplished very easily. Many hosting companies now provide website builders which are very useful to help you build your own website. Some even provide a collection of templates that you can customize with your own links and content. However, you still need to learn a little bit of HTML so that you will not depend on someone else in case you want to edit your works. This skill is very important to make your site stands out from the crowd.

It is nice to know a little bit of web programming language if you want to build a dynamic website. However, keep in mind that it is usually the concept or the idea and not a programming tool or language which can make you money on the internet. Unless you plan to become a professional web developer, there is really no need to learn coding. Just leave the development up to other experienced developers or use a content management system which can be installed for free.

Buidling a website with CMS means you do not even need to touch any HTML editor. There are some content managements systems which can be configured easily. Mambo, for instance, is already supported by many ready-to-install modules and templates. But you still need to become familiar with the script that you will use to run your site, both on the front end and in the admin area. Spend some time before launching your website to get to know how to make some important configurations properly.

Today, many web hosting providers have already provided a wide range of facilities in their hosting plans. Fantastico, for instance, is a feature that enables you to install various scripts very easily. But if you want to use a script which is not currently provided by your hosting company, you might have to follow the installation procedure provided.

Commercial scripts usually come with installation instructions, that can be a as simple as uploading the files to your server, setting the permissions for each file and folder, and finally opening the config file and setting the options to dictate how the script functions. Installing the script yourself is actually a handy way for getting to know how it works. In the future, in case the script needs to be updated with the latest version, you do not have to hire anyone to do it.

Having the very basic knowledge on the functions and the tags of HTML is actually enough for building a website. But depending on what you want to build, you might need to know how to setup a database on your server. With phpMyAdmin this can be accomplished easily. Additionally, commercial scripts usually have an ability to create required tables automatically. That means at the very minimum you only need to find out how to create a database and an authorized user.

How about other technical aspects such as configuring .htaccess file? .htaccess is a file that can be used to perform various tasks. One of the most popular uses of .htaccess is to make a website search engine friendly. But, although important, most of the time you will never touch the file. Many scripts today can create this file for you automatically so all you need to do is to follow the installation procedure as outlined in the manual.

In summary, building a website does not require you to be very knowledgeable about web programming and other complicated technical knowledge . However, at the very least, you need to be able to create HTML code and to utilize some features of your hosting service. Reliable hosting services will provide you with some useful facilities that you can use to create various types of websites easily.

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Search Engine Friendly

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Frames are becoming a way of the past what with the use of DIV layers and the slow onset of incredibly flexible AJAX coding. The long and the short of it is that if you have Frames on your website then you are starting off at a disadvantaged position that cannot be truly search engine friendly no matter what you do. There are, however, some remedial fixes that will tie you over until you can redesign your site; yes I said redesign. The fix that I recommend is to use a noframes tag whereby you place another version of your web page inside of your framed page. This ‘backup’ page is what the search engines will view; here you can place relevant content and navigational elements so that the search engines can at least navigate portions of your site that are (hopefully) not framed.

There was a big brouhaha that Flash had become search engine indexable and you no longer had to worry about its search engine issues. Frankly, I have not seen the fruits of this ‘improvement’ to a respectable degree yet so I still consider it a kiss of death for websites designed solely in Flash. If you have a Flash-only website then I recommend one of these two options; one is to design an html version of your website and make the home page of your website html rather than Flash where you can then allow users to choose between html or Flash. The second option is to redesign the site so that it mixes both html and flash together. For example, this might mean implementing Flash amidst content on an HTML page as you would an image. I realize there are certain limitations to this option but if you can create a slick site in this manner then you will have the best of both worlds; clean search engine friendly content along with an interactive, multimedia feel. Just remember that the majority of relevant text should be in HTML format for the search engines to index.

Unfriendly dynamic URL?s are a common side effect of using a Content Management System that is not designed with search engine rankings kept in mind. Here are some examples of some unfriendly URL?s. Sample 1: http://www.mydomain.com/myproducts.php&354=prod333&subproduct

These URLs are problematic because a search engine may consider these addresses too complex to spider. Why too complex? Suffice it to say that the more complex the URL, the higher the chance that a search engine robot will consider the content too dynamic to read; it changes too often to be valuable to a search engine.

The way around these types of URLs is actually not so difficult; it may only require a small investment of time and money. The ‘time’ will be required when researching which URL fix is right for your system. The money may be required to pay a programmer to implement and test the new URLs. Here are how the URLs might look once they are fixed to be search engine friendly. Sample Fixed: http://www.mydomain.com/myproducts/354/prod333/subproduct/

These URLs are better because they do not include the extraneous characters that are so telltale on dynamic websites. In addition, the URLs are designed to appear like normal website directories when in fact they are dynamic URLs. It is vital that you minimize the length of the URLs that you use. Search engines may stop crawling a website if there appear to be too many subdirectories. The samples above show fixed URLs that have about as many subdirectories as I would allow (4).

Are the menus on your website spiderable? If not you may be hiding major areas of your website from search engine spiders and missing out on additional search engine rankings.

The fact is there are very few menus out there that a search engine will have a problem following, but there are definitely some worth avoiding. For instance do not use a JavaScript Jump Menu (example) as the core mode of navigation of your website; search engines cannot index this type of menu. Also be careful of Flash menus, they look slick but they will impede the progress of a search engine spider especially if they are the only means of navigation within your site.

The ideal menu would be text based and each text link would include the keywords you are targeting on the destination page. Setting up a menu with this much forethought requires that you determine the layout and content for your site before web design begins. Once you have a clear picture of the content for each page you can then research the keywords that are best to target per webpage. This essential keyword research can be done in house easily enough using systems-like keyword research tools that provide you with a glimpse into how your customers think by showing how many searches there are per month (or year) for a particular term.

Remember, almost every page within your site has a very real opportunity to gain a top ranking; all you need to do is ensure that the design, content and site structure is optimized. Ensuring that the menu is carefully thought out and designed is a crucial step for top rankings. Finally, if you are at all uncertain whether your menu is search engine friendly then be certain to back it up with a text menu in the footer of your page using the same keyword targeting principles noted above. A simple text menu may be less than desirable for you; in this case I recommend DHTML menus. These menus use text but in a manner that is quite appealing and very search engine friendly.

Sitemaps can dramatically help the visibility of your website by allowing search engine spiders easy access to all of the pages in your site. Place a link to the sitemap on every page within your site to ensure easy access no matter where a search engine or user enters your site. Just having a sitemap will help but how you build your sitemap will also play a role in how well the search engines catalogue it. For example, if you have a twenty-page website it would be ideal to create a sitemap where each page is represented by a title along with a short description. Ultimately, the page may be a bit long but it will have content that the search engines like to index and it will boost the relevance of the linked pages because the titles will accurately represent the content. So in effect, you will now have more than just a sitemap; you will have a table of contents for your site that has the potential of getting a ranking and provides an extra boost to the ranking worthiness of each page.

Search engine robots read a webpage from the top of the source code (the programming that made your page ? see “view source” in your browser) all the way to the bottom. As a result, it is important to ensure that both of the following elements are found as close to the beginning of code as possible: A short sentence introducing the topic using the keyword targets you have chosen for the page. Your text menu and other navigational aids, or if this is not possible it would be even more beneficial to start with a paragraph or two of relevant content followed by the navigation. By placing this information near to the top of the page, you will promptly present the search engine robot with relevant text that backs up the page title and backlinks. You will also provide an immediate sitemap of sorts for the search engine to spider, which includes keywords relevant to each page.

With the odd exception Splash Pages are a kiss of death for a website because the home page (the first page seen when someone visits your domain), your most important page, is often converted into nothing but an excess entry point with little or no relevant content on it. Aside from reducing your chances for ranking, you are also making your visitors take another step to get to content or sales material in your site. Any additional steps you add will lessen the likelihood of a successful sale.

If you think you need to use a splash page then you need to talk to someone who will change your mind. No, honestly, give me a call if you want because there is nothing more painful to a SEO or search engine friendly web designer than to see a Splash Page in use. If, in the unlikely scenario your splash page is required, there are ways to make it slightly more search engine friendly. Add a highly relevant and well-worded paragraph to the page so that the search engines have something to index that shows them they are in the right place. Either provide a link to your sitemap or implement a text menu in the footer of the page so the search engines can access the internal workings of your website without having to take an extra step.

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Let’s Hear It For Web 0.1!

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

It’s November 2006. So far the Web 2.0 bubble hasn’t burst. Here’s my attempt to put a pin-prick in it.

Don’t know what Web 2.0 is? It’s the notion that the next phase of web development is based on user-generated content. _You_ don’t have to write it, your visitors will.

- You get a CMS (a Content Management System, like PHPNuke).
- Users write reviews, blogs, forum posts (Webmasterworld.com).
- Search engines index this stuff (Google.com).
- Users tell their pals about it (MySpace.Com).
- You spend a few thousand bucks, or a few million, depending on how good your chief coder is.
- The thing sells itself (Digg.Com).
- You add contextual ads (Google Adsense).
- Fire off a couple of emails a day, and bank your cheques.

For the small-to-medium webmaster, this can be the route to disaster. Here’s my experience.

See, I was in favour of user contribution. Gives people something to _do_ on a site. If it’s any good, they’ll tell their pals. More traffic.

So I have chat rooms, a forum, a MySpace clone, a dating service, contact forms, ebooks, free software, the whole shebang. All humming away, all bringing in links, all keeping my visitors amused and informed.

Only problem is, the set-up time. The maintenance. The customisation. The search engine optimisation. The hacking attempts. The anti-hacking. The bug fixes. The security updates. The swearing filters. The troll kicking. The screeching. The spamming.

More bandwidth, more databases, more time, more money, more worry.

YouTube.com is a good example. Their business model is using pirated content. They have to police users. Bandwidth costs must be huge. Where’s the money going to come from: ads in pirated videos? Gimme a break.

For any web business, the basic questions are:

- What makes the money?
- What helps make the money?
- Where is the net profit coming from?

Could your site be better served by static HTML pages which you update once every six months? If your site is purely informational, it’s worth considering.

My epiphany came when first some Bahraini hackers clobbered a site of mine. I fixed it. Then some Turkish ones had a go. So I changed to a different CMS. So far, so good, until I realised I would have to constantly update this thing.

It then dawned on me that using a text-to-HTML converter (Text2html) and an index generator (dirhtml) meant simple text files could be turned into a basic site quickly.

You write it, format it, tart it up in Dreamweaver, index it, FTP it and voila!; a mini site without the upgrade headaches.

A CMS has some handy features, but pure HTML lets you sleep easier. Easier to move when the poop hits the air-conditioning, too.

Put it this way: which would you rather own when the Nazis are closing in? Damien Hirst’s ‘Shark In A Tank’ or the Mona Lisa?

I’m starting to think before I put stuff up now. Would simple HTML do just as well? Suppose I have to move web hosts? Will I be able to find one that’ll give me ten MySQL databases at the same price as my current host? And all the other features I need? (Answer: No, I’ve looked).

The first rule of computing is KISS; Keep It Simple, Stupid. With all the brouhaha about Web 2.0, I say, let?s hear it for Web 0.1!

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Strategic Internet Marketing? Your Online SEO Needs Article Marketing

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Effective SEO Links (clickbank): will cause your website?s pages to increase in rankings and help you make and save money. If you don?t have the money, but do have the time and effort, implementing these basic SEO tips will make a world of difference within the initial launch of your online business.

The importance of SEO implementation in today?s online climate is growing faster than the evidence against Roger Clemens. Steroids aside, if you are attempting a start-up company, you will need to strap on your SEO boots. SEO provides any start-up with a low-cost opportunity to get their online site?s links in from of the target audience. Effective SEO will cause your website?s pages to increase in rankings and help you make and save money. The only cost to learn these tips is the time and effort required to implement them.

Find the most popular keyword terms relevant to your website or service using Google?s AdWords keyword tool. This tool will show you what keywords and phrases are being used by online ?Googlers? to find content in your category. It will also show you the number of searches on Google for the words and phrases you enter, or for phrases associated with the URL that you enter.

Once you have established your keywords and phrases, you need to use them in your HTML title tag. This is the most important place because that is where search engines look to classify and index your site. The content of the title tag also holds the most weight of any single element on your page, so your most appropriate keywords need to be included. If you use a content management system, like Drupal, usually the input field will be called the ?headline?. The second place for emphasis on keywords should be in your URLs, whenever possible.

Once you have maximized your tags, you should start focusing on your written content. When you start publishing articles on your site, be sure to never publish the same article under two or more URLs on your site. It?s perfectly fine one piece of content with multiple tags and from multiple index pages, but they should all lead back to the same, single URL when referencing a story or blog post. If you have to change or retire a page URL, you need to provide a 301 redirect. This tells the search engines what the new URL is so that people who are trying to find the page don?t get wind up crash landing on an empty site.

If you don?t have the money, but do have the time and effort, implementing these basic SEO tips will make a world of difference within the initial launch of your online business. You shouldn?t get worked up over more difficult SEO techniques until you?ve mastered these basic principles to improve your website?s search engine performance. Volacci is the leading Drupal SEO company and very passionate about your online success. By the end of your contract you will have at least as much additional business from your web site as you spend on our services… or we’ll work for free until you do.

Volacci.® Your Profit. Our Passion.

Ethan Luke. search engine optimization - Volacci is a Drupal SEO company providing marketing services to your Drupal website ranging from Search Engine Optimization, PPC Management, and SEM consultation.

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