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Why WordPress Could Be The Best CMS for Your Business – But Only If You Consider The Help of a Developer and Search Engine Optimization Consultant

There is a reason why WordPress was voted Overall Best Open Source CMS in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. With thousands of themes and plugins that do just about everything any other website can do, what started out as a solution for bloggers ended up being the world’s favourite open source CMS. To say it is the best would be to overlook some serious competition from Joomla, Drupal and Modx, and as mentioned in a previous posting, CMS is all about the requirements of the user. But let’s look at this from a modern perspective. When you need a stable, secure, user friendly, one-click solution WordPress is undoubtedly a leader in this field.

Customisability

WordPress is primarily blogging software, but its customisability makes it a potentially great ecommerce or general information site. Starting with a pre-programmed basic theme you can customise your site to be unique from any other WordPress user. Depending on how deep you want to go, you may need to enlist the help of a developer, especially if you require static content or manipulation of the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). As with all CMS, there are limits if your knowledge is limited.

Community

The WordPress community houses a plugin for everything you could want to do with a website. Support is never-ending with threads providing step-by-step guides on every aspect of building a WordPress site. When it comes to CMS, WordPress offers pure freedom. When you post a question on the WordPress forum, you can guarantee a reply within 12-24 hours – this community is a loving and sharing one.

Stability

I have never seen a WordPress dashboard crash, neither have I seen work lost – other than through stupidity. You can run WordPress both from your desktop and via a server, meaning that a full back up can be kept at all times.

Security

When it comes to ecommerce you need security, yet nobody can guarantee you unhackable software – WordPress however, comes close to the mark. WordPress is very secure and offers a number of security features as default and through plugin software.

Free

Best of all WordPress is free. You can have a fully functional website up and running within the hour for zilch dollars. It doesn’t take long to familiarise yourself with the dashboard and from there its plain sailing.

SEO

WordPress is SEO friendly, but as mentioned in the customisation section, if your knowledge is limited so will be your optimisation without a search engine optimization consultant. Therefore my advice is this; enlist the help of a developer to tweak your site exactly how you envision it to be, from there you can manage the back end (admin dashboard) without needing to constantly pay a developer for changes (the beauty of CMS). Similarly, pay out for search engine optimization consultant to help give the site a kick start and to learn some valuable tips from an expert.

24/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Joomla or Drupal? My Opinion as a Search Engine Optimisation Service

If you are thinking about a Content Management System (CMS) then both Joomla and Drupal will have crossed your mind as choices. It’s a difficult question considering that users of both platforms always claim their system works better for them, and that makes perfect sense, because the reason you choose a CMS should be based on your needs.

Although it is a difficult choice there are some clear advantages for both platforms depending on your requirements.

Drupal is generally rated higher than Joomla for its support of social networking, multimedia, SSL and blogging and document management. Drupal is also rated highly for ease of external integration and developing large, complex websites. However, Drupal themes aren’t widely rated, yet most Drupal users tend to customise the templates or code a new design.

On the other hand, Joomla is considered more suitable for non-technical persons. The CMS interface is relatively easy to get to grips with and carrying out maintenance and upgrades is fairly straight forward. Joomla is cited as being “user friendly” and the best choice for newbies looking to get a site up very quickly.

Comparing these two CMS platforms is a bit like comparing BMW and Mercedes, or apples and oranges. It really does depend on the client’s needs, experience and time available to dedicate to learning. To provide a general answer to the title of this post, as a search engine optimisation service provider I would say that Drupal is great for those with some developing experience or those who don’t mind a slightly steeper learning curve. Joomla on the flip side is good for beginners who want to tackle managing their own website and content without too much learning and site customisation.

When it comes to SEO Drupal is said to be more equipped (for those who know what they are doing) whilst Joomla takes a little more tweaking time, yet essentially both provide a high level of SEO competence. SEO is largely down to skill and knowing the tricks of the trade, in fact all CMS platforms provide pretty much the same SEO capabilities it’s just a case of knowing how to optimise your site. No matter what CMS you use it is always advisable to seek the advice of a search engine optimisation service.

24/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Content Management System, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation Help – Manipulate Your Title Tags in WordPress and Broaden Your Appeal.

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that allows people to get lazy, it doesn’t really offer search engine optimisation help unless you ask for it. This is because many aspects of WordPress are set to default and already fairly SEO friendly. Unless you physically change specific aspects of your blog/website then you will not be running at optimum SEO level. Your WordPress site might look like its singing and dancing but in reality it is SEO shy.

Considering title tags are one of the most important aspects of SEO, it is a surprise that so many people run along with default tags on their posts. Don’t allow your title tags to be auto generated in WordPress because seldom are the permalinks SEO friendly. Manipulate your title tags and get the most out of your blog posts.

Optimise your post title or category name by using synonyms and multiple verb tenses. For example, a post titled, “Search Engine Optimisation Marketing” is neat and to the point, but doesn’t exploit keywords or carry mass appeal. This title could be changed to, “Search Engine Optimisation Marketing Tips – Optimise Your Site and Rank Higher In Google”. A title like this has a broader appeal and will attract more attention if you place the article on Digg, Scribd or social bookmarking sites.

There is a great search engine optimisation help plugin to manipulate title tags in WordPress called SEO Title Tag. This plugin allows for mass or individual edits across all the pages of your blog/site. If you don’t use this plugin or a similar plugin, you should at the very minimum hand code the title tag on the home page, and then on the rest of the blog place the blog name at the end of the title tag rather than at the beginning. By doing this you will create more uniquely focused title tags.

22/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Blogging, Internet/Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Security & Privacy, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Social Media Optimisation (SMO)

How Much Does Google Know About You

Last week I wrote about the full launch of Google’s Social Search facility and the positives and negatives of ‘results from your social circle’. Not long after publishing that post I was contacted directly by a few of you voicing concerns about just how far Google intends on going in terms of violating a persons right to online privacy. This got me thinking, and it is only really when you take time out to think about Google that you realise they know a hell of a lot about us. Perhaps our online privacy has been completely lost, but in all honesty it’s a little too late for us to bolt the stable door.

On one hand we love the Internet for its freedom, and whether the latest leaked document on U.S. operations by Wikileaks or the exposure of a celebrity involved in a nude act, the fact is Read more

22/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing

Google CEO Starts to Lose His Marbles Over Internet Privacy

Internet Marketing Services Rub Palms As ‘No Anonymity’ Policy is Prophesized

If you don’t want you private life shared on the internet then you clearly have something to hide, either that or you are doing something illegal that the government should know about. That is, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who when speaking with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC recently, explained:

“People who have something to hide shouldn’t be doing things online that might potentially expose them if law enforcement seeks access to their search histories. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”.

Google has already run into rocky ground in Europe where such big brother information harbouring and sharing with government authorities is viewed by most a violation of civil rights. In the US, Google hides behind the patriot act and its duty to supply the government with information on any person who poses a potential threat to society. The definition of “potential” remains loosely defined. The fact that most of us simply don’t want internet marketing services getting hold of our details and plaguing us with emails, mail-shots and pop up adverts doesn’t seem to cross Mr Schmidt’s mind.

Speaking yesterday at the “Techonomy” conference in Lake Tahoe, California, Schmidt went one step further with his controversial remarks and explained just how easy gathering intelligence on people is:

“If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence,” Schmidt said, “we can predict where you are going to go. Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos! People will find it’s very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot…But society isn’t ready for questions that will be raised as result of user-generated content”.

“The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a verified name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

Internet marketing services will be rubbing their hands together after hearing the search engine master speak his prophecy of ‘no anonymity’. Consumer transparency enables better targeted advertising.

Evidently Schmidt is losing a grip on reality. In his world everyone might view the internet as ‘real life’ and the saviour of humanity, but for many it serves as big brother’s obeying little brother and is nothing more than a controlling force in a world monopolised by power hungry organisations. Some people like their privacy; they have nothing to hide yet nothing significant to share. Privacy is an individual choice and individuality is what makes the world special. Perhaps retirement is looming for a man who has spent the majority of his life in a digital bubble.

22/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The Tied Goes Out On Google Wave

The internet has once again proved to be the true liberator of choice. Users have rejected Google Wave and sent it back with the tide whence it came. Two years in development for little return, surely someone must have been wrapped on the knuckles for this giant failure.

Google were majorly excited a little over a year ago when beat version invites were selling for £55 on eBay. At the time they were quoted as saying:

“After months holed up in a conference room in the Sydney office, our five-person “startup” team emerged with a prototype. And now, after more than two years of expanding our ideas, our team, and technology, we’re very eager to return and see what the world might think. Today we’re giving developers an early preview of Google Wave.

A “wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more”.

CEO Eric Schmidt insists the development work has not been a waste of time, stating, “We liked the user interface and we liked a lot of the new features in it but it didn’t get enough traction, so we are taking those technologies and applying them to new technologies that are not announced, we’ll get the benefit of Google Wave but it won’t be as a separate product.”

As previously discussed in other posts on this blog, the one stop shop isn’t necessarily something internet users want. The enjoyment of the internet is freedom to choose and place loyalty in different corners of the web, rather than being bullied into using one service for all aspects of internet life. Complexity is also a consideration, although we are an internet savvy generation, many people are easily stressed by technology and Google Wave was, at a first, daunting to say the least. Google has its roots firmly set in SEO, search engine marketing and advertising. Therefore, aside from Google mail everyone associates Google with search which is perhaps another reason Wave was ignored.

Whatever the reasons, Google Wave is to be developed no further. Google confirmed this with the following statement.

“We were equally jazzed about Google Wave internally, even though we weren’t quite sure how users would respond to this radically different kind of communication. The use cases we’ve seen show the power of this technology: sharing images and other media in real time; improving spell-checking by understanding not just an individual word, but also the context of each word; and enabling third-party developers to build new tools like consumer gadgets for travel, or robots to check code. But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects”.

With a few billion in the bank, I am sure Google will get over this hiccup and get back to SEO, search engine marketing and advertising, yet when you have that much money it isn’t always about the money. In the case of Google Wave both pride and image have been dented, for now at least.

22/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Facebook Questions Ignores Google and Blocks All Search Engines

Last week we explored the new Facebook Questions application which is newly built in to the wall of your user account. I received a few emails after the post asking me whether Facebook Questions would be searchable in Google. Understandably clients wanted to know how effective this would be for website business marketing. Naturally I presumed the facility would be searchable, but surprisingly it isn’t.

A Facebook spokesperson made the following statement:

“Currently, search engines cannot access questions and answers through our Questions product. That may be something we consider for the future but have no current plans to allow it”.

This comes as a surprise and a small blow for website business marketing, yet it seems strange that Facebook would want to ignore all this traffic. Facebook is currently avoiding the search engines by only allowing logged in users to access questions and answers. Perhaps Facebook is concerned with not allowing the facility to become simply a base for web site promotions.

I did a quick search of a site:facebook.com/questions/ within Google and only a few results came up, none of which linked straight into any questions or answers. See the results below:

Considering that 62% of Yahoo Answers upstream traffic comes from Google there must be a tactical reason Facebook are ignoring this traffic stream initially. Don’t be surprised if this policy changes suddenly in the near future.

It’s not all bad for web site promotions though; you still have 500m users to target which should keep you very busy.

21/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing

Twitter Suggestion Tool Helps You Find Suitable Tweeters and Avoid Online Marketing Services

The developers over at the Tweet Camp have responded to the historical difficulty of securing a good network of industry suited or personality matched followers. Many people end up quitting Twitter after just a few weeks or even days because they can’t find enough interesting people or Tweets to hold their attention. Initially one follows people back out of courtesy, only to be followed by more and more affiliate marketers and Online marketing services with nothing inspirational to say except “get rich, leave your day job and retire 2m”. If only…

Twitter is all about networking but many find themselves retreating back to Facebook, tail between legs for some familiar friendship bonding that does more for the soul than sell or quote Einstein, Gandhi or Socrates all day.

Enter the Twitter suggestion tool. This neat little function will soon be appearing on your “find people” toolbar and will suggest users you may be interested in. Amongst other things, suggestions will be made on who you currently follow and who follows them, quick! I hear you gasp as you rush to clear out all those annoying persistent marketers plaguing your tweetdeck every day. But it works both ways. The new suggestion tool will come as a pleasant addition for Online marketing services who will be able to carry out more targeted marketing with suggestions rather than having to trawl the Twitter database for victims. The image below shows how the tool will; there will also be a mini suggestion version in the top right hand side of your home page.

20/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

If You Don’t Have Time to Build Quality Links Then SEO Outsourcing Could Be For You

How are your website marketing strategies going? Judging by how much the phone has been popping off this week I am guessing not quite as you had hoped. My tip of the week for all those struggling is quite simply to start building quality backlinks. The emphasis here is on the word quality. Don’t get stressed building hundreds of links with no improvement to your SERPs, think logically – 1 PR6 link is easily worth 200 non-ranked links. It’s that simple, so stop wasting your time and try the following.

Create 1 link a day, 7 days a week. That will mean 365 quality backlinks in a year. Document every link you make in a spreadsheet and track your progress. Now I know what you’re thinking, you can’t wait that long for the links, but believe me, by the time you get 20-30 high quality links you will already see a drastic improvement in your popularity within the SERPs.

If you honestly can’t wait or don’t have the time, then consider SEO outsourcing. Just let your provider know exactly the quality you want and the sort of sites you need to be associated with. Try a mixture of classifieds, local business listings, forums and .gov and .edu sites. I know many forums are set to ‘no follow’ for URLs, but traffic is still traffic so don’t simply ignore the chance to place a link based on not getting any link juice out of the site.

Building quality links isn’t easy, and it does get annoying when all the SEO professionals are saying “just build better links”. It takes time and effort, which is why SEO outsourcing isn’t a bad idea; there are plenty of other areas of your web marketing strategies you could be getting on with whilst the SEO professionals handle that area of your campaign.

20/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing

Facebook Questions Looks to Topple Yahoo Answers

A couple of weeks ago I spoke about the benefits of the new Yahoo Answers search facility as an internet marketing solution. YA search allows you to search via keywords related to your industry and get a daily notification email so you can be reactive. Yahoo Answers announced it had reached 200m users in 2009, and they probably thought they had the whole Q&A thing locked down, that was until Facebook unravelled their latest plans.

With 500m people already using Facebook, the new Facebook Questions facility could make Yahoo Answers look a little shy on followers. Then again, as internet marketing companies know all too well, quality beats quantity every time. It’s all good having 500m potential users, but just how many of those users will ditch a game of Poker or Farmville or even an IM to ask a question on Facebook?

When Facebook Questions is rolled out to users the question facility will be on the wall page as follows:

As you can see, “your question will be visible to everyone”. This is a smart tactic to ensure people know the facility is there and that others are using it. Facebook automatically tags the question using words from your post. Your question is then freely available for the community to answer

Once the question has been posted you have three options that only show up after the initial question has been posted:

Add description
Add photo
Add poll options

This adds another internet marketing solution to the armoury of SEO soldiers. This facility will work nicely as a freebie alongside Facebook PPC. No doubt internet marketing companies will be focussing heavily on this feature over the coming months to monitor its performance against Yahoo Answers.

Obviously the social aspect of Facebook is where it has a distinct advantage over rivals. Okay, Yahoo does have a friends’ network but the familiar “x has just answered a question”, or, “x has just asked a question”, will promote interaction amongst friends and drive the popularity of the Facebook Questions facility.

The question herein lies, do we as the consumer want a one size fits all website, or do we like having different pockets for different activities. Personally I feel the latter suits my personality. Facebook for global friendship updates, questions at Yahoo, analytics at Google and videos at YouTube. What do you think?

20/10/2011/by Ash Mehta