3/09/2010

What is a Content management System?

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Internet MarketingA content management system or CMS is a system created to easily publish website updates without needing to change the HTML code of your website. A content management system can be built into a custom website design, templated site, or blogging engine enabling the user to easily make changes to their website without needing to know advanced technical coding procedures.

A CMS is very handy for someone who needs to make frequent updates to the information on their website. Potential customers will lose interest in your site if it has the same content over the years. People will get bored of your monotonous website and look for new websites with fresh information. Implementing a content management systemis a great way to keep your website content new and up to date without having to pay a professional to make the changes for you.
On the other hand, if you have a static website, without a CMS build into it, you would need to edit the code of your site to incorporate any changes. Modifying a static website takes technical expertise to make simple changes and a single mistake in the code can cause your site to go down. But it doesn’t mean that static websites don’t have numerous benefits. Let’s compare a CMS website vs. static website.

If you have a small site which rarely needs to be updated, a static website will be a better choice.  Static websites are easy to maintain and take less time to load than a code heavy CMS. The file names and coding logic is much more search engine friendly with a static websites. Static websites offer more design freedom and allow for better search engine rankings.


The main disadvantage to a static website that advanced technical knowledge is required to make modifications and updates without hindering SEO and code integrity. Another problem is that you need expensive software to incorporate any change into the webpage of your static site. Sometimes, people experience problems when they try to integrate various add-ons in the website without consulting a professional web designer.

website design Fernandina BeachCMS has overcome many of these problems. It is more user friendly than static websites and even a non-technical person can change the content of his website. Basic content management systems tend to have less cost development cost since there are many open source applications available. Using a CMS to make frequent updates to your website is much easier and less expensive than having to send your updates to a professional.

The main advantage of a CMS is the ease of making updates, but along with this great feature there are some important disadvantages. You have limited options for designing the site compared to a static site. CMS’s are usually database driven and are less secure and more susceptible to hacker attacks. Load times are much longer with a CMS and they are also much harder to optimize for the search engines than a static website.

A custom designed static website and a content management system both have advantages and disadvantages that must be considered when choosing which option is right for your website. A professional internet marketer can help you plan a strong internet strategy and assist you in deciding which option will best fit your needs.

3/02/2010

The Benefits of a Custom Website Design

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website design Fernandina BeachIf you are interested in internet marketing, you need to build a website that is appealing to your target market and professionally built. The website should be attractive yet have all the required features for an effective internet marketing strategy. The design of your website should depend entirely on your objectives or your online goals. Having a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with your website is the first step to creating an internet strategy. It is always recommended to go with a custom website design to build a unique and powerful website rather than a cheap cookie cutter site.

When you want to build a website you have many options. The least expensive option is to use one of the many cookie cutter website building services out there. You can get this service for a low cost but what you will get is a cheap ineffective website. Cookie cutter websites typically offer a few basic templates to choose from. You then have to select a preformatted template and try to figure out how to combine the various elements to build out your website.

Cookie cutters are used for making basic predetermined designs that may already be in use by several other people. This option got its name due to the fact that all the templates look the same and have very little customizable features. Cookie cutters also use a data structure that is not very search engine friendly and most are relatively difficult to figure out and good rankings in Google should not be expected.

Internet MarketingEvery website has different objective and in most cases the cookie cutter websites fail to supply some tools which are essential for creating an effective website. Naturally, cookie cutters are not of much help for business.

Custom website design allows you to focus on your objectives and build the website based off of a professional internet strategy. It not only gives a unique look to your website but also helps you in designing important tools and features. For example, the website for an online store, a doctor's office and an online education program will be totally different in their design and will need to implement different elements that most cookie cutter websites don't offer.

First of all custom websites should look totally different from one another, since they are designed for the intended target market if done properly. Moreover, the online store should not look like you are on a totally different site when a user tries to purchase a product. A professionally designed ecommerce site will have a consistent design between the main website and the website design Fernandinashopping cart. In the case of a doctor's office there may be a need to have an online scheduling system for appointments, this should be designed in a way that is consistent with the website and is easy to use for the customers and administrators. An online education website might have various online tests by which the students can measure their learning. To make sure these different types of features are developed professionally and stay within the design of your professional website a custom website design would be needed.

One of the main advantages of a custom website design is its flexibility. It offers exact solutions to your specific needs and helps you in building an attractive and effective website. Remember one thing, if you want to build your brand online, you need to make your customers comfortable while browsing your website. This is possible only by custom website design that uses a properly optimized page layout, easy to follow page navigation, a search engine friendly data structure and an appealing user friendly design.

Contact a us now for a FREE web site analysis at info@NassauWebDesign.com