There are a lot of people who would like you to believe that the whole subject is complex and mysterious.  It isn’t.

They would like you to believe that only they have the secrets to Google’s search engine.  They don’t.

The basics are these.

1) Write for people first.  if you were to arrive at a page that mentioned “blue widgets” 8 times in the first paragraph, don’t you think that you would feel a little conned that you had been gotten to the page under false pretences?

2) Make sure that the keywords you want to promote for that page are in the title, keywords and description meta tags of that page.  Also make sure that they are mentioned in the <H1> tag, and the actual text content on the page, as part of the natural flow of writing on the page.

That’s it.

Yes, of course there are other things to know.  Yes, of course other people linking back to your page will make a difference in the long term.  But the above things truly are all the real basics that you need to know to make your page Google Friendly in the beginning.

Raise Your Search Engine Rankings
While no one knows the exact formula that search engines use to rank websites, having a blog attached to the site is a definite advantage.

Updating your blog adds new material to your site. That fresh material keeps your site active and raises its ranking.

If your blog is especially interesting, other bloggers may link to it, which provides you with incoming links.

As a bonus, you can link from your blog back to pages on your own website. Those backlinks can help raise your ranking as well.

Bring People Interested in Your Product or Service to Your Website
Backlinks do more than raise your rankings with search engines; they bring people to your website. Since those people are already interested in your topic, blog readers are more likely to be converted to customers who will purchase your products or services.

Establish Yourself as an Expert to your Readers
By sharing genuinely helpful information with your readers, you are establishing yourself as an expert in your field.  People may feel more confident buying from someone who is knowledgeable.

Create a Personal Bond with Your Readers
Who would you feel closer to—someone you heard giving a talk, or someone you had a conversation with? Blogs can offer the opportunity for readers to post comments and engage in conversation, which may make them feel as they know you better. People tend to buy from people they know.

You Can Reflect the Personality of Your Company
How do you want people to perceive you and your company? Are you a professional?  A professional with a sense of humor? Having a blog allows you to share you and your company’s personality with your readers.

You Have a System to Communicate with Customers and Potential Customers
If you are offering a new service, or decide to offer your products at a sale price, you can add that information to your website. But how do you know that your customers and potential customers will come across your website and see it? You don’t.

If you have a blog, you have a ready-made system of communication that you can use to tell your customers about specials and other timely news from your business that interests them.

We can help with installing a blog on your web site, with creating content if you need it, and with making sure that it is being used to promote you and your company effectively.  We are based in Sussex, South East England.

The News, Menus and Photo-Gallery are all working just fine.

And as the framework already has the WhiteDragon CMS built right in, any sites built with the framework have a super-sexy semi-transparent admin menu which floats at the top of every page when the admin is logged in.

A pity we are not selling it yet, so you can’t see it unless you are a client and we have built a site for you.

As we only have two people who have actual systems analysis training, it’s a bit of a squeeze to get it all in.  I personally find myself working further into the night to catch up, as that’s the only time the phone doesn’t ring, and I can give the specifications the unbroken periods of concentration that they deserve.

But then I can’t take on any more people unless I expand into a larger office… Which would mean a new phone system.  And more computers.

Oh dear, it all just seems like more work!

I like Facebook.  I have Facebook friends all over the world.  But my sister in Australia just isn’t interested in the problems of the town that I live in, just as I am not really interested in the problems of the town where she lives.  The same with my relatives in Canada.  Then when you add in different local cultures, council and national laws, and the immediacy of my problems in my town, East Grinstead, get swamped!

So I was pondering on this and realised that we at WebDesigns Ltd could make a whole web site just for our town.

So we did just exactly that.  We called it VillageCow, mainly because we couldn’t stand the idea of a bland name like “townvoice”, or “localchat” or whatever.

I think it’s a nice idea.  I am hoping that local people, talking about local issues, can reach better solutions, or at the very least get better agreement on solutions!  I figure that it has to be better than just reading about what solutions other (outsiders) have decided.

You can also update all meta tags on any individual page, again by simply clicking on an icon on the page.

I will be making some tutorial videos for the site that should help a lot in getting a buzz going once people see just how easy it really is to integrate into the HTML.  The CMS market has been made quite tough for web designers by the requirement for a great deal of technical knowledge needed to get other CMS’es and working with an existing design.

I think that the majority of design companies, once they have decided to go the Joomla route, are resigned to the fact that the site is going to look like a Joomla site no matter what they do.

In fact, my hardest task has actually been getting people to see how simple the WhiteDragon can really be, once they have been exposed to other CMS’es. Nobody can really believe it can be that easy.  I can’t blame them.  I remember installing one particular extension for Mambo.  I thought it would be real easy and had a Monday deadline.  I started early on the Saturday morning so I could get it out of the way and have a good night out and not worry about trying to get it done on the Sunday with a hangover… What a “happy” weekend that was. I got a massive headache, but not from any booze!

That had to be one of the contributing factors for the creation of the WhiteDragon, although there were many such straws for this camel over the last few years.

More updates as I get the videos done.

What it means to us is that we can add a whole new module (like Newsletter management or a shopping cart) by just dropping in the needed code.  Then create a page with just one line of code in it, and all the CSS, templates, etc. are applied instantly and automatically.  Presto, existing site plus new module plus new page(s).

It does things like – picking up the template to apply from the sub-directory name itself, so you can either change the template, or just move the file to the relevant sub-directory and update any links.  Job done.

Well done guys!

Tags: CMS, easy CMS, content management, application framework, development framework

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Tags: CMS, content managerment, white dragons den

So I decided to write a real primer for real programmers. One that consists of techniques and tips that are uniformly workable to any computer language on any platform. There is a lot of rubbish and false data promoted under the guise of “the right way to do it”. If there ever was a programming mistake that could have been made, or a bug introduced where it could have been avoided, then I have surely done it. They say that experience is what you get, right after you needed it.  That makes me a very experienced programmer.
So I feel I have a responsibility to write it all down for all the newbies and not so newbies in the field so that my hard won experience is not wasted. If anything I write down can save someone else just an hour of their time, then it will be worth it.  If you can learn from someone else’s mistakes then you should be able to get a doctorate on mine!

I will keep you posted of the progress on this and other things that I am working on during my waking hours.