| LED Digest 2634: Wordpress and Drupal as CMS |
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The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom http://www.AudetteMedia.com : the LED's Publisher Boutique Internet Marketing: SEO, SEM, Social Media http://www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. April 26, 2008 Issue no. 2634 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Basic CMS Functionality ==-- ~ Veronica Yuill "...I can recommend using Wordpress." ~ Shaun Johnston "I give them a Word page saved as html in an iframe." --== SEO for Flash ==-- ~ Kevin Jackson "..embed flash objects in the page in the appropriate spots..." ~ Jeremy Weiss "I'm a self confessed Drupal fanatic..." --== Unethical Domain Hoarding by NS ==-- ~ Steven Birk "They are being sued in a federal class action lawsuit..." --== SEO Sales Tricks ==-- ~ Barb Sybal "The competing SEO still showed creative marketing techniques I feel." --== Is Twitter Productive? ==-- ~ Dr.Mani "Ever since making the decision to follow less than 40 people, I've had more meaningful exchanges..." ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Veronica Yuill Subject: CMS > I build entry level sites for folks, and > lately some of my clients have been looking > to be able to do some content management on > one or two pages of their sites themselves. - Bill Wade, LED 2633 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2048/190/ Hi Bill If your clients' CMS needs are relatively simple I can recommend using Wordpress. Officially it's a blog package, but as Adam can tell you :-) it's well suited to creating complete websites. As well as blog posts, it lets you create "pages" for static information, e.g. "about us". A good thing about using Wordpress is that there are many, many plugins to do almost anything you can imagine, excellent documentation, and a huge community of developers and users. Most people who know how to use a browser will only need a couple of hours' training on how to add and edit content. I find the main issue with inexperienced clients is limiting what they can do, so they don't break the design with 36-point red Comic Sans, or huge pictures, so that's something that needs to be thought about during implementation and included in any training. Also, with Wordpress (and any other package of this type) it's particularly important to keep up to date with security patches. As WP is so widely used, it's a popular target. So make sure you factor into your quote the time needed for you to install and test patches and upgrades once the site is up and running -- something that's easily forgotten! Regards Veronica Yuill www.larecettedujour.org/ -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Shaun Johnston Subject: CMS I create web sites for lodgings, who need to be able to alter their rates periodically and post specials. I give them a Word page saved as html in an iframe. In Word I create a page with just their rates table or a sample special, say. I save that in Word as html and upload it (plus the accompanying folder this makes) to a folder on the web site ( subfolders will accumulate in this, so make it a separate folder). I then create a new web page and create an iframe this Word page shows in. I show the client how to access this Word page in Word through ftp. They can work in it as they would in any Word file, changing styles and colors and adding photos. Then they save back online. The file is updated, and shows in the iframe at once. They love it. I warn them to keep a backup of the Word file locally in case they mess up. No problem so far. At www.merrell-inn.com this is applied for attractions.htm, directions.htm, policies.htm, rates.htm, and reviews.htm, all with iframes containing respectively attractionsdoc.htm, directionsdoc.htm, policiesdoc.htm, ratesdoc.htm, and reviewsdoc.htm, all in a single folder with the client's name, "andrew," that the client has access to, with all the dependent folders. From frequent changes the folder has accumulated perhaps 100 backup files and folders in about a year, but the client seems to have no problem. He now wants two more pages of the same form. Soon half his site will consist of pages with iframes, that he maintains. He loves not being dependent on me for changes. Shaun Johnston -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Kevin A.Jackson Subject: Flash SEO Hi Adam, Looks like the LED is going strong! I dropped out for a few years there, and recently started following it again, only to see old hands like Barb Sybal and Shari Thurow still around and kicking up dust! I was just poking around my email archives and found LED copies going back to 1998 - scary! I find it interesting that the Flash / SEO discussion is still rampant and unresolved, at least in the public eye: clearly we can't wait for the big (software) guys to solve this; they were supposed to do that with spam and look where that got us. Shari alludes to the answer but I think perhaps she was not explicit enough. IMO Flash is fantastic for many things, all of them visual: most website content is text based, and Flash truly is not the correct media for this. If you want a website to enjoy the benefits of Flash by all means do so, but for goodness' sake, don't built the whole page or the whole website out of Flash: there are so many reasons not to it blows me away that there are still people doing it: - SEO - Usability (text scaling, browser friendliness, etc) - Maintenance - etc. The solution is extremely straightforward: embed flash objects in the page in the appropriate spots to get the effect you want and build the rest of the page out of good ole' HTML and CSS. The best of both worlds. Cheers, Kevin Jackson Biz-Zone Internet Group Inc. -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Jeremy Weiss Subject: CMS Bill, I'm a self confessed Drupal fanatic, but even I'll admit that there are times when Drupal is just too much. Another option, would be to build the site using Worpress. But again, depending on the client's requirements even this could be too much. Often times, if all the client needs is to be able to update a couple of pages, I'll just create a database with the needed fields, and then build that page to pull those fields. Then, set up a place for your client to log in and update the page. For that I tend to just put a text area on the page and then load TinyMCE into it. This gives the client the ability to format the text (there's even a plug-in to upload images and other files). So far, my clients seem to love it. If you want, drop me a line and I'll show you some examples. Sincerely, Jeremy Weiss Internet Consultant | Blue Phoenix Consulting, LLC http://www.BluePhoenixConsulting.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Steve Birk Subject: Network Solutions > Network Solutions is sequestering domain > names you search for and only making them > available for purchase through them, at > their premium pricing. > > Don’t believe it? Try it for yourself – > just not with a domain you want to purchase > elsewhere ; ) – and share your experience > on the digest. - Ivan Jimenez, LED 2632 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2047/190/ Ivan, This situation blew-up sometime around the first of the year, and I wouldn't hold my breath for someone from Network Solutions to either post here or to you personally with their explanation on why they front run a domain name. They are being sued in a federal class action lawsuit filed in an U.S. District Court in California so I don't think your going to hear too much from them at this point... http://snipurl.com/25liz [prnewswire.com] You can Google "network solutions front running" and read up more about all of this. Buyer beware... unless you want to pay 4 to 5-times the cost for a domain to use their "reservation" system. Regards, Steven Birk http://MedicalNewsCenter.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Barb Sybal Subject: Sales trick > Barb, ranking and paying for ads are > completely separate. - Michael Linehan, LED 2633 I'm quite positive that the majority of LED'ers likely know the difference, including myself. Although to the client who is paying an SEO to "rank high" in Google sees their ad at the top as the same thing ... no one in their right mind is going to try to educate their client in the nuances of organic search results. The competing SEO still showed creative marketing techniques I feel. Barb Sybal GFX Printing Services http://www.gfxinc.com | Phone: (905) 828-7399 -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian Subject: Twitter > I'm a subscriber, and I encourage every > LEDer to add this RSS feed to their reader. > Top-quality writing and unique insights are > some of the treasures here. > http://www.theparticipator.com/ - Adam Audette, LED 2633 Adam, if this post by Alex is typical of what's on "The Participator", I'm not surprised you're so up about it. I've subscribed to the RSS feed, btw :) Alex wrote: > If content is king, no matter how > small/short, context is queen. For the best > performance, content needs to be presented > in the context of your business, your > customers, as well as in a wider social > context, regardless of the tools used. The > more out of synch elements, the more time > and money wasted. - Alex Hughart In the 6 months or so I've explored Twitter, my view towards it has veered from one end to another - and my current thoughts about it are by no means final. Still, I've evolved a way of using Twitter that seems to be most productive for the amount of time and effort I put into it. One of the most important decisions that impacted this was to limit the number of people I 'follow' to 40 or less. When I was following 350+ folks, I'd spend a LOT of time scanning my Twitter timeline, exploring links others had tweeted, and responding to questions or engaging in blog discussions I stumbled across through Twitter. The deciding point came on February 14th, when I planned a big promotion for my annual CHD Awareness Day event - http://www.CHDinfo.com - using my Twitter network as the cornerstone. The dismal response and non-existent viral spread showed me what I was doing was a waste in terms of real benefits and working towards my purpose. Ever since making the conscious decision to follow less than 40 people, I've had more meaningful exchanges with Twitter members, limited my time spent on the service to no more than 10 or 15 minutes a day, on average, and kept the core benefits of meeting new friends, engaging in brief, chatty conversations, and staying up to date on the areas I'm interested in. ROI is now near optimal - for me. I wonder how many people other LED'ers are following on Twitter, and how much time on a daily or weekly basis it 'costs' each one to maintain the relationship on Twitter. Because like all 'social' media, one-way communication isn't going to work as well as a dialog. And dialog with many isn't quick or 'automatable'. And the metric that I feel is critical to optimizing your return on time and money spent on Twitter is the number of people you follow - and their type/quality. Thoughts? All success Dr.Mani (I Twitter as 'drmani') (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." - Henry David Thoreau |
