This will be an on-going post of my research, tests and experiences of setting up and using a linux distribution with the aim to replace a Small Business Server 2003 (SBS2003) in a SME environment. Expect it to be very unfinished (more…)
Archive for January, 2010
Linux alternative to Windows Server
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Get on page one in Google in two weeks
Thursday, January 28th, 2010How to achieve a page one position on a Google search in less than two weeks, these steps require the following:
- Your website domain name contains the keywords you are searching on, e.g. if I want my website to appear on page one for a search on ‘berkhamsted web design’ I will register the domain name, www.berkhamsted-web-design.co.uk.
- The site will be set-up to run on WordPress, with the All in One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps plugins installed
- You start the site off with about 10 posts, and update it daily with content that relates to the industry you are in and that is informal and non-spammy. Make sure you enter title, description and keywords in the SEO pack fields when you post
- Submit your site into Google Webmaster Tools and create a Google Analytics account for your site
- Submit your site to dmoz.org
Disclaimer: I can’t control Google and neither can you, the above worked for me and there are no guarantees that the same will work for you. It is just my opinion.
Your Weight Loss Challenge Website Build
Thursday, January 28th, 2010www.yourweightlosschallenge.co.uk
Situation
The client is a distributor of Herbalife products. A 12-week slimming challenge course is to be offered with the ability for people to book on-line.
Brief
To create a new website for Your Weight Loss Challenge in the Berkhamsied, Hemel and Tring areas to promote the slimming courses offered and provide an on-line booking system for people to sign up and pay for the 12-week courses.
Solution
The website was built on CMS Made Simple, with a custom designed template using images supplied by the client. Payment gateway integration was made using PayPal buttons, a simple solution that offered a quick and easy
MooFlow Single Click Behaviour
Thursday, January 14th, 2010Situation
To change MooFlow behaviour to single click to open and double click to slide the carousel. Default behaviour is double click to open, single click to slide. Normal web users are more inclined to single click. A production demo of this technique can be found at http://www.critical-moments.com/solutions.html. (more…)
Integrate Campaign Monitor API into CMS Made Simple
Thursday, January 14th, 2010Situation
To automate the newsletter sign-up process from your FormBuilder forms with Campaign Monitor (more…)
Website Content Management for Berkhamsted
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010There are many programs available to manage a websit. Desktop packages generally work offline, such as Adobe Dreamweaver whereas others run on a webserver managing yourwebsite in real time. Some are open source backed up by an enthusiastic community of developers. We believe in selecting the right tool for the job and therefore build sites with CMS Made Simple which is open source and has a thriving community. For examples of sites built with CMS Made Simple please see our portfolio page
CMS Made Simple has the following features
- Easy to use interface for changing content, from pages to templates
- Permission based Access Control Lists (ACL) allowing you to restrict what users can and can’t do
- Extendable via plugins
- Simple to integrate with other software, such as WordPress
WordPress Blog Integration in Berkhamsted
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Alongside our Content Management system and if your project demands it, we can integrate the popular blogging platform WordPress. It is the most effective platform for getting your blog posts up in Google searches via its easy-to-use interface.
Case Study – Blog as News
I manage a website built on CMS Made Simple that has a news section which is updated with about 3-5 short stories per week. The news section has been around since September 2007 and for a year I used the internal CMS Made Simple news tool to update it. In September 2008 I decided to move the news section over to WordPress to make it easier for non-techies to update and provide a mechanism for visitors to comment on news stories.
I used WordPress with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. About 2 months down the line of running the news section with WordPress, if you searched on the title of a news story in Google the site was appearing at the top of page one and in under a minute since posting them! Amazing. Think about it, the news story may have been re-factored from an original somewhere, after publishing the story on our blog Google gets notified of the post (via the XML Sitemaps plugin), indexes the post and puts it at the top of a search result, sometimes higher up on the page than the original. The result, prospects making contact with the company via the blog.
Right tool for the job
The above case study is a good example of choosing the right tool for the job. CMS Made Simple is a great tool for quickly creating a set of designed webpages that are generally static in nature (do not change often). WordPress is the original blogging platform, it is aimed at managing fresh content that is updated and added to regularly. The XML Sitemaps plugin can also integrate your static pages from CMS Made Simple, therefore you only need one sitemap for your entire site.
Google loves information that is new and regular, this is the benefit of the internet as a publishing platform – it is constantly evolving. Writing blog posts gives you an informal platform for telling your website visitors about your successes and recent contracts completed. It also offers your readers a way to comment on your posts, furthering visitor interaction.
We can integrate WordPress into your existing website template and set it up so that if will inform Google whenever you update your blog
Analysing your website visitors through Statistics
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Every website we build comes with Google Analytics integration, the most accurate way to gather statistical information not only from your website, but also from email marketing and Adwords campaigns. If you already have a third party website statistics provider we can integrate that as well.
Looking at you webstats allows you to fine tune your website to help target your potential customers. You can see which keywords are effective and which are not working, what pages are popular and do design tests on these pages to test and measure changes to layout.