September 1st, 2010 by Alayna
Using a CMS gives businesses the freedom to update their website as often as they want. Some use this ability more than others by creating targeted landing pages for visitors. With landing pages available, people who search for a specific product or service will get directed to a page that provides just what they are looking for. Plus Google likes seeing distinct landing pages, since it includes specific keywords and is on-target. How can you not create a landing page when both your visitors and Google approve?
So How Exactly Does This Work?
A landing page includes content that is specific to a certain product or audience. It is on topic, to the point and should always provide a conversion action that visitors can take.
Some examples of what a landing page is used for include:
- introducing new content or products
- providing more details from an ad or email
- customizing content for an audience based on location
Whether users get to your page through searching, clicking an ad, continuing from an email, or finding it through social media, the landing page should be able to quickly show them that your website has just what they want!
Landing Page Tips
Once you decide to create a landing page, think about what you want to promote. Start small by picking one topic or item and focusing on that. With a CMS, you have the ability to create as many landing pages as you want, just make sure they all align with your web strategy! When creating your landing pages keep the following in mind:
- Keep it simple – You have one page to grab the visitor, so include just what you need to say. By using one relevant message you will be providing useful content that lets users know they are on the right page with the information they need.
- Use a clear headline – Quickly get to the point so that visitors are not wasting their time figuring out what they are reading about.
- Add multiple call to action items – It is very important to include an action that the user can take, such as signing up for a newsletter, contacting your company, purchasing a product, or downloading a resource. Make sure to put the action item throughout the page in obvious locations so that users can follow through at any point.
- Have a helpful thank you page – Your follow up message is just as important as the main page. Make sure to give information about how you will follow up and what other actions the user can take. Give them something else to do!
Finish it Up
Once you have created your new landing page(s) don’t just forget about them! Keep an eye out on the conversion rates through your analytics goals and tweak the pages to make them work better. If users are staying on the page for a while but are not converting, you can try changing the call to action elements or simplifying your form so that it is easier to fill it out. If people are not reading your content, try updating the headline or revising the text. With a CMS you have the power to do what you want with your landing pages!
Robots.txt files are very basic in structure but play an important role in telling search engine crawlers what content they can and cannot crawl for indexing. The main purpose of this file is to prevent certain content within your website’s directories from being indexed and displayed in search engine results pages.
While there is no governing body that enforces whether crawlers are accessing content they shouldn’t, most crawlers are good and abide by the rules set forth in the robots.txt file.
When a crawler reaches your site, it first looks for this file which should reside in the main directory of your site only and nowhere else. If it finds one, it quickly scans the contents and its rules and proceeds if it is allowed.
Here is an example of how Google’s robots.txt file looks. You’ll see on the very first line some text that says “User-agent: *”. In simple terms, User-agent is a web crawler and the asterisk is a kind of “wild card” that states that ANY crawler can access the site for indexing purposes. There are ways to tell some crawlers they have the green light but block others within this first line, but for today we are just focusing on the simpler method of allowing all crawlers.
In order to determine if your site should be using a robots.txt file, take a look at your remote files and folders for your website. If you see directories such as /admin/ or /includes/ then they should probably be blocked from crawlers since they do not have any relevant content specific to search. An example of how this would look in your robots.txt file would be this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /includes/
Here’s an example of how the URL would look if you wanted to review it in your browser:
http://www.yoursite.com/robots.txt
And that’s it! There are some other elements, however, that you can include in robots.txt such as your xml Sitemap location. This should not be confused with an HTML site map that lists the URLs of your site for easy navigation, though! I’ll be talking more about the importance of an xml Sitemap and how they differ from “site maps” in my next blog post.
July 7th, 2010 by Alayna
If those words in the title are thoroughly confusing, don’t worry, I had no clue what they meant a few years ago either. Since then I have had the opportunity to dive into each one and see what they are all about. Whether you are involved with your company’s website, or you work on your own, you have probably heard of at least one of these three open source content management systems (CMSs). While there are hundreds of great systems available (just check out the CMS Matrix to see), Drupal, WordPress and Joomla are typically the most talked about. Have you ever been curious about exactly what each one is and which CMS is right for your website? Starting this month, I will present a 3-part webinar series, answering your questions and giving you an introduction to each system.
Drupal
This CMS is a full scale website creation and management system. Drupal, which was released as an open source project in 2001, is built for easy web community integration and allows for large scale customizations. It has a large following, especially among developers who are very passionate about the system. Because of this, there are many custom built add-ons (known as modules) available. There are also many sites available for support and tutorials, which is helpful because of the steep learning curve associated with Drupal. Websites that require a lot of customizations will find Drupal to be a good solution.
WordPress
WordPress is another open source CMS that is often used as blogging software. With the recent release of version 3.0, there are new features that allow users to have more freedom when adding content other than blog posts, making it a robust content management system. Similar to Drupal, WordPress has add-ons called widgets that can be customized and placed in different areas on the site without having to use code. WordPress has a versatile templating system with many themes available. This CMS is perfect for blog-based websites with additional information pages and some unique functionality.
Joomla
Another popular open source CMS is Joomla, which was released in 2005. There are many free and commercial plug-ins available for the system that allow for customization of your website. Multiple templates are available for Joomla sites, which are easy to install and switch between. As with Drupal, there tends to be more of a learning curve, but it can be easily mastered with the proper set-up. Joomla can be a good solution for simple websites, member based websites, and sites that need a little bit of customization.
If you are interested in learning more about any or all of these systems then keep an eye out for the upcoming webinars on our webinar listing page. The Introduction to Drupal webinar will be held on Tuesday, July 13th and you can register for it here. I look forward to talking CMS with you!
June 8th, 2010 by Kyle
Technology evolves once again with the gradual release of HTML5. With HTML4 being the standard for about 10 years, there has been long anticipation for an updated structure and more flexibility in relationship to popular online technology (multimedia, api’s, etc.).
Creature feature, the browser gods approve!
This new language has been given the thumbs up by major browsers with the guidance of the W3C organization (although not all support every single feature 5 has to offer). HTML5 is not a completed product, however it does lend some excellent features for developers to use.
- Specific tag names (header, nav, section, article, footer)
- New Doctype specification
- Specific field types for forms (url, email)
- Geolocation support
Dive-Into-HTML5 does a great job aggregating all of the functional detections for the new language.
Nice job, nerd…what does this mean for our company website?
Whether you have personally created and maintain your company’s website or if you have a web company do it, HTML5 creates the opportunity for your company website to give your users a more interactive experience using simplified code tags and multimedia compatibility.
The important thing to remember is that you don’t NEED to switch your entire company website to HTML5! You are able to use HTML5 attributes as they are fully compatible with HTML4.
What’s this all about Steve Jobs and Adobe Flash?
Basically, Mr. Jobs has a major problem with the proprietary animation software and it’s inability to function on his products. Touting his products compatibility with open standards languages (HTML5), Jobs gives a detailed description of Apple’s relationship with the animation software provider in an open letter this past April. What does this mean for HTML5? Widespread community support for fans of the major operating systems.
Want to see HTML5 in action?
First, check to see if your browser is HTML5 compatible with a compatibility test.
View some HTML5 demonstrations.
For news on HTML5 features and updates view these resources:
