Open Source CMS

Open Source Web CMS Distros

jim wilde — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:25:01 +0000

Open source cms web distro's, Open Atrium, Open Publishing, and PressFlow using Drupal as the base platform.

The Drupal Distro for Publishers

OpenPublish

OpenPublish is a packaged distribution of Drupal, tailored to the needs of online publishers. First released about a year ago, it has quickly gained momentum. It already has hundreds of active installations, thousands of downloads, professional support from me and my crew as well as other Drupal shops. It is the obvious choice for news publishers who want to get a head-start on Drupal.

Open Atrium - The open source web cms distro for Intranets, Teams, Groups.

Open Atrium

Open Atrium is a team portal starter package. What makes it unique is that it's extensible and customizable. This means that you - and everyone - can develop new features for it, add other modules, change the skin, totally re-factor the workflow, and do anything else that you can think up to make Open Atrium meet your exact needs. Check out the Developer FAQ to get started. OA uses open source web cms - Drupal - as the base platform. This means that many of the Drupal contributed modules will work with OA.

We open sourced Open Atrium because we see it as a seed for something much larger - a community that makes great team communications tools. And it's working. Open Atrium is being translated in more than twenty languages and several hundred people are growing its base of features. Together we can develop the most advanced knowledge management tools.

Drupal Commons

Drupal Commons is a ready-to-use solution for building either internal or external communities. It provides a complete social business software solution for organizations.

Drupal Commons helps organize content into topic (organic) groups with blog, discussion, document, wiki, and event content types. It also allows users to create (user) relationships with each other in order to follow each other's activities on a site. Authenticated users can view a personalized dashboard containing content from all their subscribed groups.

PressFlow

Pressflow is a distribution of Drupal with integrated performance, scalability, availability, and testing enhancements.

Each version of Pressflow is API-compatible with the same major Drupal version. For example, Pressflow 6 is compatible with all Drupal 6 modules. Pressflow 6 also integrates the SimpleTest system from Drupal 7 and the CDN support patch. See the wiki (linked below) for more documentation.

Features

An alternative to using these distro's is to take advantange of features that can easily be plugged into Drupal. The features.module is proving to be incredibly powerful for extending Drupal. Say for example, you want to set up a site to make and keep track of meetings.

Tags:

Social Media:

Social Media SEO - 5 Key Tips

jim wilde — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:35:59 +0000

Use social-media optimization (SMO) as a highly effective method for search-engine optimization of any website.

As the name implies, you optimize your site by advertising it through social-media sites and online communities.

The idea was introduced by, Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations. Here are five tips taken from Bhargava's basic insights to help you drive more traffic to your site using SMO techniques:

Increase the number of links to your site. A website's popularity rating continues to be influenced by the number of links it gains from other sites. Network to increase that number—and boost your perceived popularity.
Apply bookmarking and tagging. Incorporate buttons for users like "add to delicious" (or other bookmarking sites) to encourage bookmarking. You can also include relevant tags to your site's pages at bookmarking sites across the Web.
Create inbound links. Create new links on your site to the blogs or sites that contain back links to your site. The back-and-forth action should increase its visibility.
Make your content travel. Include "portable" content at your site such as PDFs, video, and audio files. Send links to them to your list, and offer them to sites related to your niche.
Allow others to use your content. Use RSS feeds to syndicate your content, so that others can use it for their benefit—and drive more traffic to your site in the process.

So, add more social to your SEO. As social sites proliferate, your site could gain a boost in popularity by linking up and networking with fans in communities across the Internet. Many of the open source cms's, especially Drupal, make all of these ideas easy to implement.

Source: SEO Traffic Spider. Read the full article.

Tags:

drupal

seo

smo

social media optimization

Social Media:

Open Source CMS

Drupal SEO

jim wilde — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:21:51 +0000

Maximizing Drupal SEO - Use your Drupal site to implement Social media to improve search results.

Drupal Consultant - Drupal SEO and Online Marketing Services for Your Drupal Site

Effective Drupal SEO and SEM demands a lot of effort. Here is an on-going list of ideas that will help improve your Drupal SEO and online marketing by driving more traffic and conversions for your Drupal site and social ecommerce site. To begin with, there are several contributed Drupal modules to consider for SEO, they are:

Drupal SEO Modules

path
pathauto
meta_tags (nodewords)
nodewords_bypath
xmlsitemaps

pagatitle
global_redirect
path_redirect
menu_attributes
google_analytics

Also, in your Drupal install don't forget the Drupal taxonomy module. The taxonomy module is great for any site, especially ones that have a lot of content and require a high level of information architecture.

Drupal SEO

Additional resources: The Druapl SEO checklist module, "This module provides a checklist of good Drupal SEO (Search Engine Optimization) best practices. " Drupal ..."

Drupal SEO do's and don'ts plus mistakes directly from Drupal site owners/developers.

If you're really serious about taking your Drupal SEO to the next level, get a subscription to SEOmoz. It is, ..."the most popular provider of SEO software. Our easy to use tools and tutorials make search engine optimization accessible to everyone."

MarketingProfs (lots of great stuff, videos, podcasts, weekly seminars, great content all around for online marketing, which is what seo is all about). One of my fav online seminars on marketingprofs was, "Monetizing the Long Tail of Search: Rethink Your Keyword Strategy", by Avinash Kaushik, blogger (Occam's Razor), author (Web Analytics 2.0 ), and The Analytics Evangelist for Google.

“6 SEO Fundamentals that Every Business with a Website Should Know” offers some great tips for optimizing your site for search engines, and also refers to some free tools to help you track how your site is doing.

Our Drupal SEO services include installing and configuring all of the above Drupal modules as well as On-Page Optimization and testing. There are additional Drupal modules for influencing searchers using social media. Give me a call, 973.433.4007 if you need Drupal SEO help.

Drupal Design - Themes - phptemplates

Also, there are a number of theme functions and over-rides that use Drupals taxonomy module system and breadcrumb trails to further optimize search results. This is great for Drupal social ecommerce websites because category terms are indexed by all of the search engines. So, take great care with your IA setup and taxonomies and make sure you Drupal SEO efforts are getting what they deserve.

Drupal SEO - Social Media Search - Real-Time Search - Online Marketing

I snagged this graphic form readwriteweb. They have a great post about, Google's New Social Search Is A Big Chess Move Against Facebook.

One of the beauties of Drupal is that I can add social media features/functions to improve search results. Read this about social media impact on searchers. A lot of social media happens in real-time, think twitter. This changes search. Google can and does display real-time tweets if you are using Firefox with a special script. Also, there is Wowd, a new real-time search company (PDF) that provides tools to help people find and discover popular content across the web. Anyway, social media is something to consider in your Drupal or CMS website if you want to improve your search results.

Update - Google and Microsoft are both in deals with Twitter for real-time search.

"How High Will Real-Time Search Fly?" from the NY Times. Does this mean keyword search is dead? No. But it has changed. Consider, Canadian searches on Google properties increased 1% from August to September, according to Experian Hitwise's latest report on search in Canada. Longer searches are on the rise, with search queries of 8+ words increasing 3% month over month.

Organic Search - Content is king - Drupal SEO.

If a tree falls in a forest... You may have the best content on the Net, but if people can't find it, it may as well not exist. Our SEO services and website development content can improve the searchabillity of your content, leading to increased hits to your Drupal site.

We provide website content development and writing services (free - yahoo style guide) to improve your content and keywords. Additionally, we take care of all of the necessary Drupal modules, especially taxonomy module, as well as setting up Drupal theme functions and accounts on the major search engines. In addition, we'll make your information more actionable (sociability) so that is gets placed on 3rd party services such as twitter, facebook, etc. Note: the website content developmentand writing services are provided by a third party service. They have assisted me on several other Drupal projects and have experience working with website content development. See also, Drupal Workflow.

Great Drupal SEO and Online Marketing Resources

The Search Engine Marketer (SEM) Toolbox: 79 Tools and Tips Every Search Marketer Must Have
Definition of SEO and other marketing terms.
The Internet Marketing Handbook, this is from SEOmoz and is a collection of articles and tools.
Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords from the NYTimes

Also from the NYTimes...

Quick Tips for Paid Search:

Set a budget, a daily or monthly amount you're willing to spend.
Begin by casting a narrow net, advertising in your local market and then expanding to additional markets like Google's AdSense network.
Try to choose keyword terms that your competition has overlooked to keep per-word costs low.
Remember that good campaigns require constant adjustment.

Drupal Workflow

jim wilde — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:03:54 +0000

Drupal workflow tied into your publishing needs and content strategy.

I attended DrupalCampNYC8. So many great sessions. One of them was about setting up a Drupal workflow using the rules.module, a Drupal contributed module. From the presenter of the session, ericg, ..."More and more modules are including rules support and in my opinion will soon be as common and relied upon as views is now." Here is a list of the Drupal 6.x contributed modules that support rules so far.

See below for Drupal 7.x. A cool video on the new Maestro Drupal workflow module. No code yet.

Stay with me here,

FYI The developer of the Drupal workflow module, has abstracted the logic form it and added it to the rules.module for Drupal 6.x. A couple of other things. Don't bother trying to set up a Drupal workflow using actions or triggers becuse the rules.module works way better. This also applies to and Ubercart for the e-comm Drupal workflow.

Drupal workflow is great.

Here is a link to a how-to video on "Drupal Workflows & Automation". This video is somewhat dated since rules.module has matured but the author does an excellent job of showing you how to set up a basic Drupal workflow. I am assuming you know some Drupal (an open source CMS) and that I don't have to explain the detailed workflow for content publishing. Although, there is much more stuff to consider with workflow.

What do I mean about Drupal workflow?

In Drupal we could be talking about any type of workflow. But, I am going to narrow this down to a content publishing workflow, which then ties in with your content strategy. My aim here is to provide an overview of what a Drupal workflow with content strategy would look like.

Workflow Overview

I work a lot on Drupal sites for companies that need to have strict control over their content. From how it is created, curated, delivered, and governed to how it is finally published. For them, having a workflow that ties into their content strategy is extremely important. For these companies, there are many people in the Drupal workflow with each having separate responsibilities (roles with different permissions and tasks), which we can control and administer using the rules.module.

How to make better Drupal sites.

What helps me do my job (senior Drupal consultant) better is learning new stuff about Drupal as well as learning new stuff outside of Drupal such as how the website delivers value to the business or organization. You know, the reason for the site existing in the first place. Here's what I do, I learn a lot about marketing and what KPI's (key performance indicators) are important. One of my sources is, marketing profs ($300 per year - great investment). Here's what I mean, they have a great video on, "Content Development for the Real World", which also covers the multi-step workflow of a content stratergy. This works perfectly for a Drupal workflow based on the rules.module. As a bonus, here's a link to yahoo's style guide, which is important for your SEO efforts as well as your content.

Content Strategy

From, Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web. "Developing content can cause some of the biggest pain points for our organizations and projects—late content, bad content, inconsistent off-brand content all cause a negative impact on your marketing programs. And here's the cold, hard truth: No matter which channels you pick for content marketing—SEO, social communities, your website—if your content sucks, you've wasted your money on everything else."

There you have it - you can watch a couple of vids and put together a kick-ass Drupal workflow tied to your content strategy and publishing needs.

Maestro Drupal Workflow module for Drupal 7.0.

Maestro seems like it was build for the workflow and content strategy I talked about above. You can read more about it here, Maestro: Advanced Workflow Module Proposal on Drupal Groups.

A short summary of some of the important features it will provide:

Build directly for Drupal 7.
Integrate and/or leverage functionality from other modules such as Actions, Tokens and Rules.
Web 2.0 user interface (like in the screenshot to the left).
Not just for content, but almost any task, including administration.
Properly manage revisions of content so old published content remains published while new version being worked on.
Making the workflow "invisible" and integrated with how creating content or performing tasks in drupal works. Which means you wont have to manually transition between workflow stages, its done automatically when you perform a task managed by Maestro.

Tags:

Social Media:

Drupal Consultant

jim wilde — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:00:44 +0000

You've come to the right place for Drupal help.

As a senior Drupal consultant, I've performed work on multiple levels> From front-end (Drupal template design or themer), backend (drupal module developer), and as a project manager (used AGILE as SDLC), a business analyst, and an implementer.

What's an implementer? An implementer is a senior Drupal consultant that knows how to select the right combination of modules to build a site, writes code to fill the gaps between them, can troubleshoot a variety of Drupal site recipes - multimedia, social networking, brochure sites, etc., scales and tunes the site for performance, knows how to read between the lines to satisfy business and user requirements, and knows what the best practices are and how to make them work in Drupal. In other words, an implementer is a hybrid position that knows the technical side of Drupal, knows a lot about exportables and staging, and other technologies as well as having an understanding of business concepts, especially marketing and business development.

My open source CMS preference and web application framework is Drupal. So I focus a lot on Drupal Module Development, Drupal Template Design (theme layer), Drupal Consulting, and Drupal Implementation as well as on migrating and converting content from older websites, CMS's, or other sources to Drupal. With Drupal, selecting the right combination of modules and knowing when and how to write that special php glue-code to fill the gaps between core and contributed modules and how to make them all perform as expected is what produces a great Drupal site.

To learn more about Drupal - an open source CMS, check out Drupal.org , to find additional Drupal consultants or developers, and of course, there is Lullabot for Videos, podcasts, tutorials, training, consulting, and guidance. Yes, they are competition but you know - it is a big world and I am focused on NYC and NJ. Besides, they, Lullabot, has kick ass products and podcasts. I'm a big fan of their podcasts. These guys, mustardseed media, have contributed some incredible modules: features, boxes, spaces, strongarm (open atrium - drupal distro). You gotta check their podcasts. I've been using the mdoules, especially features.module, to create exportables, which work great for staging.

As a freelance Drupal consultant and web developer, I have experience developing and rolling out strategic websites, Web 2.0 projects, online applications, social media tools, and open source Content Management Systems ( Drupal CMS), and I have many more years experience in IT and business development.

If you are developing any code on the module or theme layer consider these resources for module development and Drupal Template Design:

Devel
Theme Devel (great tool for make great Drupal Template Designs)
Module Builder
Lullabot API's ref (Drupal core and popular contrib modules)
Theme ( Drupal Template Design) - theme layer

The new big thing in Drupal is EXPORTABLES.

Initially, we only had exportables for cck and views but now we have features.module along with ctools and a couple of other modules that make almost everything in Drupal exportable. This is great because it solves a couple of big problems. Staging environments and the sharing of features code (these are exportables created in a module, which can then be tweaked and used in any other Drupal install).

Recent Drupal Camps: Design4Drupal in Boston 2010, DrupalCampNYC8

Our web development services are intended for any size business, non-profit, school, or government. We stay close to home, NYC or NJ, because we want to be able to meet face-to-face with our customers to get the job done. Call 973.433.4007 to learn more.

Tags:

Social Media:

Migrating to Drupal

jim wilde — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:52:49 +0000

How to migrate or convert to Drupal can take on many different faces depending on where you are coming from (an html site, another cms, flat files, or a data base driven site, etc.)

If you are new to Drupal, the first thing is to get familiar with it. Drupal is an open-source web application framework with a content management system (CMS) bolted to it. Drupal has a lot of power that can quickly get out of hand and become unwieldy. So, whether you're using Drupal or not, I hope to provide you with aggregated information on the different options to convert or migrate to Drupal (a page out of Drupal handbook on migration).

My CMS preference and web application framework is Drupal, so I focus a lot on Drupal Development, Drupal Consulting, and Drupal Implementation as well as on migrating and converting content from older websites, CMSs, or other sources to Drupal.

I've been working with Drupal for almost six years now. I have experience with Drupal on multiple levels:front-end (themer), backend (developer), and as a project manager and as an implementer (a senior Drupal person that knows how to select the right combination of modules, writes code to fill the gaps between them, scales and tunes the site for performance, and satisfies business requirements, knows what the best practices are and how to make them work in Drupal.)

Getting to Know Drupal

In this podcast, Drupal Screwups and Common Mistakes, several Drupal developers from Lullabot discuss issues they've had as Drupal newbies and frequent mistakes made when creating Drupal sites. The podcast includes a comprehensive list of common site building, coding, and Drupal project planning mistakes. New Drupal users will find this a great resource. They also delve into the Migration module, which is one of the approaches to converting to Drupal.

Other issues that site owners have difficulty with include converting from Wordpress to Drupal, Blogger to Drupal, Moveable Type to Drupal, and migrating or flat files to Drupal.

Start Your Drupal Migration.

"Migration: not just for the birds - So, your client has seen the light and is tossing out their old CMS in favor of Drupal. Their existing content, in the form of square pegs, needs to fit into nice round Drupal objects. How can this process be managed, and what tools are available to assist?"

The migrate module provides a flexible framework for migrating content into Drupal from other sources (e.g., when converting a web site from another CMS to Drupal). Out-of-the-box, support for creating core Drupal object including nodes, users, and comments is included - hooks permit migration of other types of content.

Migrate Extras is a package of modules that integrate the Migrate Module with many of the non-core modules available for drupal, allowing you to import content from other modules, older versions of drupal, or a non-drupal CMS.

How to migrate Wordpress to Drupal.

This module, Wordpress Import, imports a WordPress blog into Drupal from a WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) file.

Migrating from Blogger to Drupal.

"For starters, there seems to be no module to date that can handle the task. WordPress, however, offers a means of importing Blogger content into itself. Unfortunately, a WP.org Blogger import is notorious for failing. The importer in WP.com works, however. Here's my solutions to date:

Migrating from Movable Type to Drupal.

Follow the same scheme layed out on migrating Blogger to Drupal. Move your MT stuff into WP and then convert WP to Drupal.

Additional Modules to consider in migrating to Drupal.

Feeds - Import or aggregate data as nodes, users, taxonomy terms or simple database records.

•One-off imports and periodic aggregation of content
•Import or aggregate RSS/Atom feeds
•Import or aggregate CSV files
•Import or aggregate OPML files
•PubSubHubbub support
•Create nodes, users, taxonomy terms or simple database records from import
•Extensible to import any other kind of content
•Granular mapping of input elements to Drupal content elements
•Exportable configurations
•Batched import for large files

Node Export - The export module allows users to export an existing node and then import it into another Drupal installation. The idea is similar to the way you export/import Views or Content Types. The module itself was originally based on Node Clone and therefore is similar in configuration and limitations - with the exception that you can create the clone on another website (assuming relevant compatibility with content types and fields).

Node Import - This module allows you to import a set of nodes from a Comma Seperated Values (CSV) or Tab Seperated Values (TSV) text file.

YAMM - It is able to synchronize any type of data as long as the implementation exists. It does only Drupal to Drupal data synchronization.

Deploy - The deployment framework is a series of modules which are designed to allow developers to easily stage Drupal data from one site to another. This includes content (nodes, taxonomy, users, etc.) as well as configuration (views, content types, system settings, etc.).

Important stuff

This is open source software so keep this in mind... Don't assume that modules work the way you think they will out of the box. I run into this problem alot. Module descriptions are helpful but often the developer's idea of a feature is pretty different from what you have in mind... Besides, you never really know how well some modules will play with others until you have them installed, which in some cases could lead to trouble. On the other hand, fixing problems and filling gaps between modules with a little bit of php glue code can really make a site great.

Tags:

Social Media:

Web Content Development

jim wilde — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:51:33 +0000

Content is king. Our web content development process takes into consideration all of your requirement including SEO.

Web content development covers more than just writing compelling copy on pages. Things like link names, title tags, page titles, alt tags, task names, meta data, image names and descriptions, and call-to-action buttons all have to work together for a site to be usable and effective. Text should be concise and informative. For more details, see the .pdf file below.

Web content developers

Content developers are specialized web site developers who have content generation skills such as graphic design, multimedia development, professional writing, and documentation. They can integrate content into new or existing web sites without using information technology skills such as script language programming and database programming.

Content developers may also be search engine optimization specialists, or Internet marketing professionals. This is because content is called 'king'. High quality, unique content is what search engines are looking for and content development specialists therefore have a very important role to play in the search engine optimization process.

One issue currently plaguing the world of web content development is keyword-stuffed content which are prepared solely for the purpose of manipulating a search engine. This is giving a bad name to genuine web content writing professionals. The effect is writing content designed to appeal to machines (algorithms) rather than people or community. Search engine optimization specialists commonly submit content to Article Directories to build their website's authority on any given topic. Most Article Directories allow visitors to republish submitted content with the agreement that all links are maintained. This has become a method of Search Engine Optimization for many websites today. If written according to SEO copywriting rules, the submitted content will bring benefits to the publisher (free SEO-friendly content for a webpage) as well as to the author (a hyperlink pointing to his/her website, placed on an SEO-friendly webpage).

Feel free to bookmark, print, or download this pdf file about web content development.

Tags:

Social Media:

search engine optimization

Web Content Development.pdf

Website Promotion Overview

jim wilde — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:42:14 +0000

Website promotion is about getting visitors to come to your website.

Our website promotion services will help you get more of your target audience and improve your conversion rates.

Promoting your website using search engines and social media will grow your business .Website promotion and search engine optimization (SEO) is a big DEAL. SEO is a process - it is not a one shot activity. Too many website owners and marketing people underestimate it and miss opportunities because they don't do enough web analytics. Check out Avinash Kaushik's blog about web analytics, and website optimization. Both of these topics play a gigantic role in measuring the effectiveness of SEO.

We provide these SEO and SEM services:

Keyword Research
On-Page Optimization
Website Content development
Blogs, Social Media
Increasing the Conversion Rate of Your Website

Customer acquisition
Sitemaps
RSS Feeds
Site speed
SEO Testing
Usability and A/B testing

Making an SEO plan and figuring out the real costs of acquiring customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM - PPC).
Social Media - Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Blogs, Reviews, Recommendations, RSS - What is social media and real time search?
Newsletters - manage subscriptions, create newsletters, segment subscribers - email blasts - manage campaigns
Web Content Development, Copywriting, Editing Project documentation â€¢ Content audit/inventory â€¢ Site map â€¢ Wireframes â€¢ Style guide
Website Optimization Testing

Organic Search - Content is king - Website Content Development.

We provide website development content writing services to improve your content and keywords. In addition, we'll make your information more actionable (sociability) so that is gets placed on 3rd party services such as twitter, facebook, etc.

Great SEO and Online Marketing Resources

Web 2.0-Based Marketing Strategies for Small to Medium Businesses
Google Insights for search. See what people are searching for.
Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik. A great source for SEO /SEM as well as inspiration. He writes a lot about analyzing the web analytics data.
Don't forget to identify head keywords (ask me about the longtail of search) for your competitors! Using compete.com
The Search Engine Marketer (SEM) Toolbox: 79 Tools and Tips Every Search Marketer Must Have
Definition of SEO and other marketing terms.
The Internet Marketing Handbook, this is from SEOmoz and is a collection of articles and tools.

Feel free to bookmark, print, or download this pdf file about web content development.

Tags:

Social Media:

Web 2.0 website development

Open Source CMS

search engine optimization

Web Content Development.pdf

Website Development Overview

jim wilde — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:20:58 +0000

We've simplified the process of designing and developing an optimized website.

Attachment	Size
Content Management Systems.pdf	0 bytes

Get a smart website that works for you. One that helps your site visitors become customers.

Who will be visiting the site?
What will they be trying to accomplish?
What action do you want them to take? e.g. buy something - send you an email - download a file - call you - generate a lead?
How do you ensure this - call to action - matches up with what they are trying to accomplish?
In other words, what do they need to know/feel/believe in order to confidently take that action?

Website Analysis and design gather and organize your content and information - information architecture and taxonomy organization. From here we develop scenarios to build out the site.
Website Build > This is the stage where we install software, add wireframes, navigation, test / fix, tweak, and conduct usability testing.
Website Training > Teach users how to use the content management system. Follow up.

Each phase produces a set of documents that moves the process forward. All of these phases run concurrently. We start usability testing early and do it often. We use profiles of your prospective site visitors to answer some of the above questions in the absence of real data.

Advantages of a Web 2.0 website.

This is important. Most internet users are trying to accomplish a task, say find information or buy something. They scan websites at 60 mph. Without great website usability, your opportunities for conversions will diminish. Internet users may want what you have and will try to muddle through your website. But, don't count on too many of them completing a task or taking an action. In other words - conversions go to...

A note about web content development. We provide services for writing and optimizing website content. Content covers a lot of stuff in addition to copy on pages. Things like link names, title tags, page titles, alt tags, task names, meta data, image names and descriptions, and call-to-action buttons. These pieces of website content all have to work together for a site to be usable and effective.

Project documentation

â€¢ Content audit/inventory
â€¢ Site map
â€¢ Wireframes
â€¢ Style guide

We use CMSs Drupal and Wordpress to build simple to complex websites. More info on Drupal, QuickStudy: Drupal This open-source content management system offers a flexible way to build and organize Web sites, from Computerworld.

Feel free to bookmark, print, or download this pdf file about website content development.

Tags:

Social Media:

Web Content Development.pdf

Web 2.0-Based Marketing Strategies for Small to Medium Businesses

jim wilde — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:53:39 +0000

SMB's Plan Increase in use of Web 2.0 Features

I can certainly agree with BIA/Kelsey about the explosive growth of twitter, facebook, ect., in the enterprise. At least in the small to medium size enterprise anyhow. I do a lot of web 2.0 website development using open-source as well as website promotion for the smb market. Most of the sites are using api's to hook in to twitter and FB for marketing and cross-promotional purposes. The days of the static net are over. Web 2.0 and dynamic websites are here and growing. Advantages of a Web 2.0 website.

"9% of SMBs Currently Use Twitter to Market Their Businesses, According to BIA/Kelsey a study from research firm BIA/Kelsey.

According to the latest wave of BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor study, 9 percent of small and medium-sized businesses currently use Twitter to market their businesses. In addition, 32 percent of SMBs indicated they plan to include social media in their marketing mix in the next 12 months by using a page on a social site such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. Furthermore, 39 percent of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites, and 31 percent plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.

SMBs also intend to use a diverse range of new Web 2.0-based capabilities in the next 12 months: 39% plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their websites; 23% plan to incorporate video on their websites; and 31% plan to include links or ads place on social sites or blogs."

Here is one more article about the explosive growth of web 2.0 tools - twitter, Facebook, and others in the enterprise. It is from CW, Business use of Twitter, Facebook exploding.

Tags:

Social Media:

search engine optimization

Costly Lessons From Business Failures

jim wilde — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:23:36 +0000

The number one cause of failure is misguided strategy

Business failure is hard to swallow. I once founded a small software business that initially achieved some success but failed after we hooked-up with another software business whose products we introduced to our market. We failed because there were no synergies, their technology sucked (Intersolv - formerly Sage Software) and we simply did not change course.

I was reminded of this venture when I recently read an interview, "Examining the Costly Lessons from Business Failures", from Knowledge at Emory. From the interview, "Between 1981 and 2006, 423 major companies with combined assets totaling $1.5 trillion filed for bankruptcy. Hundreds more took huge write-offs, were acquired in fire sales, or just called it quits."

Paul Carroll: "There are a number of mistakes being made, but the number one cause of failure is misguided strategy—not sloppy execution, poor leadership, or bad luck. In Billion-Dollar Lessons, we break the strategic errors into seven categories, including pursuing non-existent synergies; moving into an adjacent market that really isn’t adjacent; misguided consolidations; faulty financial engineering; rollups, or buying up businesses to create a monopoly; staying the course instead of adapting; and chasing the wrong technology.

The one mistake I see repeatedly today is staying the course.

How can a manager avoid costly mistakes and failure? Carroll recommends that a business set up an informal devil's advocate process using anonymous surveys.

Of course, since we our in the internet consulting and software development business, we see a lot of out-of-date web sites. So, one aspect of business failure can be neglecting the company website. And, it seems, the problem is with both the site's technology foundation as well as the content that supposedly represents the business.

I wonder if this could be a leading indicator of business failure?

Tags:

Social Media:

The Business of Social Software - Social Networks - Twitter - Blogging

jim wilde — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:57:39 +0000

The evolving effects of social software and social media phenomenon on business, owners, and employees.

Social Software and Social Media - Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have changed the way individuals communicate in their personal life and increasingly in their business life.

Facebook Overtakes MySpace. eMarketer, 6/18/09
In May 2009, Facebook became the most popular US social networking site.
View article

Small Businesses Are Taking Tentative Steps Toward Online Networking. New York Times, 6/3/09
BY choice or necessity, successful small-business owners are earnest networkers. Online networking on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and newer niche sites can be instantaneous and far-reaching.
View article

Online Social Networking for Business: An Interview with Konstantin Guericke, Marketing VP, LinkedIn. Information Today, 5/20/09
Online social networking is a hot topic in Internet circles. These online communities claim to create networks of friends and business colleagues based on referrals from other friends and colleagues. They connect people based on who those people know rather than who they are.
View article

Social Networks Rescue Downsized Workers. PCWorld, 5/7/09
When you're looking for work, making the rounds at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn makes a difference. Real people share their social networking success stories.
View article

More marketers are counting on social networks. San Francisco Chronicle, 5/3/09
The Domino's YouTube incident last month provided a vivid example of why businesses and marketing experts are increasingly turning to the popular and fast-moving social networks.
View article

Firms Seek Profit in Twitter's Chatter. Wall Street Journal, 3/26/09
In the three years since its launch, the messaging service Twitter has attracted millions of users, but its fast growth hasn't translated into significant revenue.
View article

Recession lifts social networking site LinkedIn. Fortune, 3/24/09
With more job seekers on the prowl, LinkedIn's traffic has doubled and its multiple revenue streams have turned into profit. Take that, Facebook and Twitter.
View article

Social networking for business-plan less for less pain. Network World, 2/24/09
Productivity loss, information leakage, and defamation of fellow employees are all enough to get us fired from our jobs, unless, of course, it is done under the guise of a social network for the enterprise 2.0.
View article

Forrester: Social networking will be biggest enterprise 2.0 priority by 2013. ZD/Net, 4/21/08
Enterprise 2.0 will become a $4.6 billion industry by 2013 and social networking tools will garner the bulk of the money, according to a report by Forrester Research.
View article

Additional links:

Tags:

social media

social networking

social software

Social Media:

Web 2.0 website development

Open Source CMS

The Couture Catalog Site

jim wilde — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:45:46 +0000

Great Drupal site/theme for jewerly catalog industy

The Couture Catalog site was developed using #Drupal, an open source content management system. It took me about 2.5 weeks to complete the first phase. To fully appreciate the site, click through the "options" page or visit the "home page". Each option, Cover Pages, Vendor Pages, etc, has a different jquery display method which makes the site visually appealing as well as stimulating.

The second phase will start soon and involve a lot of user interaction and possible e-comm.

The site was developed to support the upcoming COUTURE JEWELRY COLLECTION & CONFERENCE 2009 in Las Vegas. This is the main event for jewelry, watch makers, and retailers to meet and make deals.

Tags:

Social Media:

Search on the NOW web with Twitter

jim wilde — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:24:16 +0000

Real time search and Twitter.

"...Twitter Search changes everything. Imagine you are in line waiting for coffee and you hear people chattering about a plane landing on the Hudson. You go back to your desk and search Google for plane on the Hudson — today — weeks after the event, Google is replete with results — but the DAY of the incident there was nothing on the topic to be found on Google. Yet at http://search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set."

"Snagged this article "Google Next Victim Of Creative Destruction? (GOOG)", from Silicon Alley Insider by John Borthwick".

Five or six years ago I heard the same ideas about how technorati was going to change search. That pretty much fizzeled out. I can't see twitter doing much either, especially against google.

Tags:

real time questions

real time branding analysis

tracking a new product launch

Social Media:

Web 2.0 website development

Open Source CMS

Tools For Crowdsourcing, Consumer Recommendations and Predictions

jim wilde — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:52:02 +0000

We use Drupal, an open-source web application framework, to build out socially interactive sites.

"The best recommendation tools perform a balancing act: They connect to consumers' sense of individuality as well as their group identification. Similarly, the tools must come up with recommendations that stretch horizons with suggestions that are new and a bit surprising, yet not off-putting. Recommendation approaches vary in how much access to the "long tail" of niche or obscure products they provide. Most recommendation engines offer a balance of the familiar and the unexplored."

The above quote is from MIT Solan, "What People Want (and How to Predict It", By Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris. "Companies now have unprecedented access to data and sophisticated technology that can inform decisions as never before. How successful are they at helping forecast what customers want to watch, listen to and buy?"

Hey, we provide open-source social software, which is rich in recommnedations, voting, feedback, collaborative filtering, forcasting and many other ways to interact with consumers and businesses.

Tags:

collaborative filtering

predictions

forcasting

decision making

Social Media: