Content Management Systems

5 Reasons It May Be Time To Update Your Site

These days, new colors, graphics and layout is not the only reason to get your website up to date.  For all the objectives that a website can fulfill for your business, the look and feel is really the icing on the cake.  Here are 5 other ingredients for a successful web presence:

1. Is your website fulfilling your objectives?
When you set up your website, did you know what you wanted to achieve? If you’ve never formalized your goals, take time to create a list of specific objectives that you want to achieve with your website.

2. Are you keeping visitors coming back with fresh content?
Basic internet marketing strategy is all about offering value through interesting content and information. Is your site active with regular updated content?
3. Are you using Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free tool that is easily integrated into your site. No matter how small of a brand or business you are, can give you endless insight into the visits and activity of your site. 

4. Are you set up on a conent management system?
Using static html pages that need to be changed individually, and with knowledge of code.  Content management systems streamline your site and offer many dynamic functions under one roof.

5. Is your site optimized for search?
Make sure your site’s meta data is up-to-date and that you are employing current techniques to make your site visible to more people.

Content Management Systems

How I Fell in Love with Expression Engine

You may be as alarmed as I was to discover that I get really excited about a content management system. But I do.  There are some open source CMS’s that I’ve tried.  But the one that I was originally introduced to by fellow business owner Alison Rodriguez of Wedding Chicago, who uses it from the client side to update her site and write her blogs, is Expression Engine. I’ve come to understand that the inexpensive fee that is charged for the lifetime use of an install of EE is WELL worth it.  They system is so clean, well monitored, updated and user friendly –  and the support of the administrators and community is amazing.

I spent about a 1/2 year (and part of that time nauseated in bed from pregnancy!) training myself by building a site in Expression Engine, and spent a good deal of my time scratching my head and reading the how-to and technical forums, but each time I learned something new I was like a kid in the candy store. I was just so excited at what I could achieve. I would literally jump up and down and clap hands – real dorky, I know – and exclaim that the makers of EE gave me another reason to love my job as a web designer and developer.

So, this is the reason I’ve created a blog for EE.  Aside from just gushing about it from time to time, I decided to make a dedicated place to document some of the finer points of the system.

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