ServiceCycle » Hosted CMS

Choosing A Content Management System For Your Website

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:34:46 +0000

Currently, there are many content management systems (CMS) out there to help you with your website building. Examples include Wordpress and Joomla. All of them have different strengths and weaknesses. Hence if you are planning to launch a website, it is imperative that you choose the correct CMS. Without the right tool, you are likely to waste much time setting up and maintaining your site in the long run.

So what should you look out for?
1. Ease of Installation
Whichever system you choose, it should always be easy to install. Nowadays, it is usually not a problem as many web hosts are now providing automatic script installers such as Fantastico. These installers usually offer an automatic installation of CMS and with it, you should be able to set up your site within minutes of installation.

2. Ease of Use
The CMS you choose should allow you to quickly and easily build and manage a website. Many web-based open source content management system (CMS) such as Joomla, Plone, Drupal and Wordpress allow you to do just that. In fact, the core purpose of many of these CMS is to allow non-technical individuals to build and organize the content of their website with great ease. Most CMS enable a user to edit the site directly in the browser window. The user can add pages, edit pictures, change links and perform other web-designing tasks very easily. Their user-friendly administrative interface is represented by graphics and even a person who has no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. can understand it within a short span of time. When a website owner decides to add pages or alter his site, he can do so using easily without needing to seek the help of a programmer or a designer.

3. Able to Build Great Looking Website
This is a no-brainer. Not many webmasters would want to build a plain website that would not attract any attention or traffic to the site. Many of these tools feature a huge range of aesthetic templates that can make a website look like it was designed by a real pro and the best thing is that many of these templates are offered free over the internet.

4. Open Source
Many of these CMS are open source tools which mean that any interested developers can add components to them. Presently, there are many talented developers who do that and they kept adding interesting components to these CMS.

You may not realise that the biggest advantage of all is that most of these powerful CMS are actually FREE. So do consider these powerful tools before building your site. I do not think you will be sorry if you do.

Discover the secrets of making a killer website in less time. Learn how to build a Joomla website today at UseJoomla.net.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelvin_Ho_Wee_Min

Joomla vs. Silverstripe

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:33:53 +0000

Most of the average internet users are aware of Content Management System. A CMS deals with managing the contents of a website by different users. This provides a flexible mechanism and extra comfort to website manager who lacks technical knowledge.

CMS are differentiated by its functionality and user-friendliness. The most common features provided by a CMS can be managing pages, articles, news flashes, blogs, poll, email accounts and users with a graphical user interface.

Joomla and Silverstripe are the most popular amongst different content management systems. Joomla is an open source content management system which is licensed under GPL. Joomla provides interactive features such as page caching, RSS feeds and language internalization. Apart from these features, Joomla provides interface for managing and publishing content, user management modules and some add-on modules to the CMS.

Joomla is mostly used by average internet users. It is now considered as old and outdated CMS by some people. Some pro users comment on the poor backend usability and template restrictions. Webmasters need to change the design of template from the old left-top menu design and predefined columns.

These extended needs of users are satisfied by Silverstripe content management system. Silverstripe is a simple, intuitive and user friendly content management system. It is licensed under BSD license. It runs on a flexible MVC framework named as Sapphire. Silverstripe is more compliant because of the Ajax support. Best of all, it is open source.

There are a lot of common features in Joomla and Silverstripe. It includes blogs, RSS feeds, administrative panel, easy installation and support in every platform. The basic difference between Joomla and Silverstripe is extra functionality added to Silverstripe regarding to website themes and backend reusability.

If a user is satisfied by the old pattern design provided by Joomla then he can use it to maintain contents on his website. But if the user needs extra functionality over these ends, he must try Silverstripe. Silverstripe is not recommended for beginners as it may confuse the newbie. You can try hands on Joomla or directly to Silverstripe. More or less, both CMS provide the same functionality and can be used by anyone.

Best Open Source Java CMS

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:33:11 +0000

There are many Java based content management systems available for use. Most open source Java CMS are free to use. However, many content management system users stick to a PHP based CMS. Java based content management systems are also easy to use and to rely on. An average internet user might not be able to see the technical aspects of a content management system, but he is able to see the simplicity and power by the interface. Therefore a content management system is judged by the amount of facilities with simple interfaces.

Amongst all Java based CMS, the best content management system is Magnolia. It is known for its power with simplicity. The best portion of its power can be seen on the administrative interface. A powerful administration is provided so as to make things happen very quickly and easily. It is based on Java content repository standard (JSR-170).

Magnolia combines the power of a Web content management system and document management (DMS). The whole system is managed by a single interface has some AJAX capabilities. This content management system provides enterprise architecture to satisfy all the needs of customer. Being open source, the content management system is updated and tested in a regular manner. A bug or problem regarding to any module can be eradicated within seconds.

SiteDesigner facility of Magnolia creates your website in a browser window within few clicks. Custom templates are not used in Magnolia SiteDesigner, so there is no stress involved while updating the website.

So if you are interested in an open source Java based content management system, then Magnolia should be top on your list of options.

Building Your Community Website in Silverstripe CMS

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:31:28 +0000

Many of us think about building a customized community website, but we are back stepped due to lack of technical knowledge and web development skills. Well, it is easy with the help of a content management system. The website can be fully customized and be proven a valuable asset for the group to share their knowledge over a wide platform. And best of all, most CMS are open source and the cost of webspace and domain name is worth.

A little description of content management systems can give you a better idea on this matter. CMS provides a basic platform to manage website content. A content management system can give you an easy-to-use administrative panel to perform basic and advanced administrative tasks over a website. This way, maintenance of website is quite easy. You can choose Silverstripe CMS for making your community website.

Silverstripe CMS is a renowned name between webmasters. Silverstripe is used because it is simple, yet very powerful. It is built on a PHP MVC framework (known as Sapphire) that provides a flexible content management as well as easy editing to the source code. Since it is under BSD open source license, it is free to use.

Silverstripe satisfies all the basic needs of a website. Additional features can be added as modules to enhance its features and functionality. There is a long list of features that can be used in Silverstripe. Most common amongst these are blogs, forums, flickr gallery, youtube gallery and maps. You can also provide external authentication such as LDAP and AD.

One more important term that is associated with a CMS is a “Widget”. These are small features that can be dragged and dropped from the administrative panel into the website; advantageous widgets include featured videos, Digg and language translation.

Silverstripe provides all the features that you will need to build a good community website. You can share information or other piece of data and manage users within few clicks. Silverstripe is a recommended part of solution when building your community website.

Reasons to Choose Radiant CMS: A Ruby on Rails CMS

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:30:23 +0000

When choosing the best content management system for your project, it is important to weigh both the technical and non-technical pros and cons. Both technical and non-technical reasons can ultimately affect the bottom line cost. Therefore, it is not recommended to simply choose a content management system based solely on technical language or feature set. In this article, we will take a look at an open source content management system called Radiant CMS.

Radiant is a Ruby on Rails based solution that works with a variety of databases. It has a few years of development and a couple noteworthy deployments. There are technical and non-technical reasons why Radiant CMS is a good choice for a content management system.

Technical Reasons to Choose Radiant CMS:
It’s Ruby on Rails based which can speed development by taking advantage of the convention over configuration paradigm. In addition, the Radiant code base has excellent automated coverage in unit tests. This means the code is well tested and robust. Unit test code coverage can be one aspect to measure when considering open source content management systems. In fact, we could suggest the amount of code covered by automated unit and integration tests should be considered when choosing any open source library and/or framework. It is an easy indicator to measure and compare. But, that is an entirely different conversation.

Radiant CMS also has an excellent extension system. This allows customizations required by your project to be made. When choosing a content management system, the ability to add and maintain any customizations should be an important factor. This point should be considered not only from the beginning, but how your customizations will evolve as upgrades and enhancements occur within your chosen content management system. In other words, if the core CMS is modified to provide the custom functionality, how can upgrades or patches from the core CMS developers be applied to your modified version. Radiant’s extension system provides this separation of concern.

The Radius tagging system of Radiant is fantastic for adding dynamic functionality. It is nice that tags can be added directly to page content rather than some kind of comment or special character sequence in order to indicate non-static content.

Non-Technical Reasons to Choose Radiant CMS:
Radiant has an elegant, intuitive administrative interface. It is not intimidating to the non-technical user. In fact, the design encourages people to embrace using the system, because they assume it is going to be easy to pick up and learn.

The lack of workflow functionality can be considered a feature in many cases. In competing CMS products, workflow can seem like an attractive feature at first, but is often hindrance to configure and work around for projects which require only a few administrators of content.

An additional, non-technical reason to choose Radiant CMS is cost. The project is open source and the community of ruby on rails developers and ruby on rails hosting providers is growing, so your cost risk of obtaining these resources is minimized.

Conclusion
From a technical perspective, the open source, Ruby on Rails based Radiant CMS makes an excellent choice. From a non-technical perspective, Radiant CMS makes an excellent choice as well. When combining both perspectives, we have had many positive project experiences and deployments using Radiant over the past year and a half.

Best Ruby on Rails CMS

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:29:45 +0000

If you are looking for the best Ruby on Rails Content Management System (CMS), then Radiant should be on your short list of options. Radiant provides all the facilities of a content management system in a very easy and powerful way. It can help you by creating a nice, clean, organized website for personal or corporate purposes.

A content management system provides the foundation for an easy to maintain a website. Unlike most CMS, Radiant is not a PHP based CMS. Radiant is written in Ruby and utilizes the Ruby on Rails framework. As you would expect from a Ruby on Rails based solution, it is very efficient for developing websites.

Radiant fits well into projects that do not require document management or complex publishing workflow scenarios. In other words, Radiant is a great fit for the majority of websites.

A key factor in deciding which CMS to use should be the customization factor. When I say “customization factor”, I mean the how difficult it is to develop custom functionality particular to your project. Some CMS systems make this easy while others present more of a challenge. Based on my experience, a key element in the customization factor is the amount of out-of-box functionality. Out-of-box or default functionality is both a pro and a con. On the pro side, you might be able to take advantage of existing functionality. But, a con can be an environment/code base that is difficult to customize and maintain. This con presents a low customization factor.

Radiant makes adding custom functionality straightforward. Developers add additional functionality by adding what Radiant developers call Extensions. The Extension system enhances the functionality capabilities of the website. (Extensions is sometimes analogous to “plug-in” in other software) There are numerous Extensions already available and more appearing every day.

Extensions can also be used to customize the administration interface of the CMS. This is of particular interest to independent software vendors who choose to use Radiant as part of an overall solution.

Radiant includes all the features of a good content management system. A real strength of the software is simple, intuitive administrative interface. This makes the software easy to use for both seasoned CMS users and beginners alike.

The three key components of the administrative panel are Pages, Snippets and Layouts. It looks similar to three functions used in blog software, but it possesses more functionality and enhancements when compared to blog software. Different page content is managed through the “Pages” area. Common content, such as headers and footers is managed through “Snippet” area. And the overall website design templates are managed in the “Layout” area.

Radiant also comes with a macro language called Radius which works in the form of custom tags. It provides a variety of useful dynamic functionality; example: manage parent-child page relationships and inclusion of content from a snippet.

For those concerned about performance, page caching is also available in Radiant content management system.
With all these features, it is possible to create an easily maintainable and customized website. As it is open source, you can use the content management system without spending money on license fees. So, if you want to use a simple, extensible, easy to use, ruby based content management system, you should consider Radiant Content Management System.

Community Driven Website Tool: Drupal CMS

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:29:01 +0000

To develop your community, a website is required to provide flexible communication options and ease of use. These websites can contain blogs and polls as means of communication between different users.

The development process comprises of page designs and programming modules. This can prove a little bit hectic, but it is the basic need of every business. You can make this task easy by using content management systems. Content management systems can be used by a non-technical user.

Content is one of the basic requirements of membership website. So, we need a content management system to fulfill this basic requirement. One CMS which can provide these community building facilities is Drupal CMS.

Drupal has the power to provide an easy interface for a single user or community of users to publish content over a website. Drupal can be used to create a web portal or discussion websites for a community. Many people use Drupal to incorporate their business ideas. E-commerce websites and resource directories can also be created using Drupal CMS as well.

Drupal is based on a extensible framework. Core functions can be enhanced by adding modules in the CMS, so that it can work according to the user’s requests. Simple, clean theme designs are provided with this CMS and all the code is written in PHP. Further, software developers can tweak the code to introduce new functionality according to your requirements.

Although new functionality is not practically implemented by average users, nonetheless, the development option to enhance functionality is available within in the content management system. Best of all, the content management is open source. This means you do not have to spend a single dime on your website (except the hosting and domain name).

SEO with Silverstripe CMS

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:27:43 +0000

Often SEO is defined as the most important part of your website marketing efforts. If your website is found in a search engine results, it can turn prospects into sales leads. With search engine optimization, you can optimize your website to appear on the listings of search engines.

High ranking in search results without paying for ad placements is often referred to as organic search engine optimization. It is being listed in the top results naturally which will pay tremendous dividends in both end user perception and maximizing your marketing budget over time.

To understand the basics of search engine optimization technically, you might need to learn a bit of HTML. But, you don’t want to do that! It can be quite daunting to edit all pages of your website if you have a really big website. But, if you are using a content management system (CMS) to manage your content, then you should find SEO very easy. In fact, the SEO process might even come naturally to some CMS.

Silverstripe is considered one of the best open source CMS. It provides many facilities regarding search engine optimization. Page keywords and descriptions can easily be entered through a couple of text input boxes.

Everything in the Silverstrip content management system is designed for the ease of use. Search engine optimization features are now included in Silverstripe, so it is not a hard task anymore.

Silverstripe provides Gsitemap support to enhance the search engine optimization capabilities of the content management system. It can become very difficult to submit a XML sitemap file associated with every entry on the content management system to Google, Yahoo and/or MSN. Silverstripe’s functionality creates a gzipped sitemap XML file that is automatically submitted to Google. Some people need this facility to keep some pages away from the reach of Google bot as well. Excluding such pages from sitemap can provide the possible solution to this issue.

Silverstripe produces SEO friendly URLs. SEO friendly URLs are a critical component of organic search engine optimization. An example of SEO friendly URLs is a page name of /page.php?id=4 compared to /fishing-toys-for-kids.html. /fishing-toys-for-kids.html is going to enhance your SEO efforts to your Fishing Toys for Kids product line while page.php?id=4 will do nothing. With Silverstripe, SEO enhanced URLs are built in and do not require complicated configuration.

Of course, search engine marketing most often involves a CPC campaign(s) as well as organic result efforts. You can also use Google Adwords integration to enhance the SEO capabilities and advertising budget tracking of your website. All the campaigns can be easily tracked and managed within the content management system. So it is very easy to manage everything related to SEO in your content management system itself.

It is straightforward to achieve marketing results within Silverstripe CMS. You will feel very comfortable when implementing SEO for your website. Silverstripe provides a solid foundation for keeping content fresh and easily managed. But, as an added bonus, Silverstripe can be utilized in your search engine marketing efforts.

Radiant CMS Hosting

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:23:05 +0000

We have been pleased with our real-world usage of Radiant CMS. And now, we are pleased to announce Radiant CMS hosting and support options for your company. Radiant CMS hosting provides you with the setup, customization and maintenance services; along with uptime guarantees and daily backups.

To learn more, give us a call or send an email.

SEO Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Search Engine Results (Lessons Learned)

john — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:20:58 +0000

The reality is that you don’t know what you have until you look for yourself. For those who have experience with Search Engine Optimization, you can often look at a webpage and determine what is good and what is not and why. Additionally you need to look under the covers (view code) and evaluate search result rankings to make a complete assessment.I recently did some work for a medium sized company, evaluating their website that ranked in the top 50 for specific keywords. Not bad you might say. However, recent studies show that about 80% of people never make it past the first 3 search results and of those who do, only 16% make it to the second page.

I guess what I’m saying is that if your Search Engine Optimization results don’t have you on the first page of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, then you’re not doing enough. So what did I find when I analyzed this website (which will remain anonymous)? And what were the mistakes this company made – keeping them off the first few pages of major search engines?

1. Java script. Java script. Java script. In fact, the first 600 lines of code were java script. I came to find out that all of this java script was part of a content management system to update a very small section of the page under “What’s new?” Nice job guys… this is the fastest way to make the content of your webpage difficult to find. I also came to find out that this section was never updated. That’s right, never. The code was created for functionality that was never used.

Editor Note: Agreed. This point is a case study for choosing the right CMS. Take a look at ServiceCycle CMS for a hosted content management system

2. No H1 title tag. Search engines love H1’s. If your key words aren’t enclosed in an h1 tag, then you’re not doing what you can to fully optimize your site. H2 tags are valuable as well and you should use them for subheads if possible. 3. Speaking of keywords – probably the most important thing you can focus on (keywords)- and this website didn’t have any. That’s right. The keywords that would be ideal for their service were not enclosed in the title tag, an H1 tag, or even within the copy of the page. Give me a break. I was told that this site had already been optimized! 4. Missing anchor text. I know this is pretty important for Yahoo! and other engines, and the keywords didn’t appear on the page as text, as anchor text, or within the first and last 25 words of the page.

Ignoring the fact that nothing was done for on-page optimization, I assumed that when the company told me that the site was “optimized” they were referring to off-page optimization factors. Okay, fair enough I said. And then I actually looked at the apparent off-page optimization effort. And what did I find?

As far as I could tell, I didn’t find more than a handful of links from pages with a Google PR of zero that included link text with the proper keywords. The gem in all this is that the company owns a number of website with PR6 ratings. Holy cow! Eureka! This makes link building easy. Of course I instructed them to link to the site from their other high PR sites with the specific link text defined. This made an immediate impact. Coupled with a slight redesign of the page, newly optimized web copy, cleaning the code (remove java script, W3C validation, etc.), and the addition of proper anchor text, this company is well on its way to increasing its search engine results rankings.

I’m still working with this company to improve their SEO but the greatest lesson I learned was that you can’t assume that others Search Engine Optimization know the basics. Do the analysis on your own and draw your own conclusions. This is the only way you can be sure of what truly exists.

About the Author

Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert with more than 12 years of marketing experience. Visit his website for more free marketing articles.