So you are finally online. You have a great new custom designed website but now you want to make some content changes, so what’s next? It can be easy or it can be hard, it is entirely dependent on how your site was developed. Keep in mind I am only talking about content here, changing the design of a site can be much more involved.

If your website was built to be dynamic (your website content is stored in a database and served up as it is requested – usually done using ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion or some other type of interactive programing language coupled with CSS or standard HTML), you may be in luck. Most of the time when web developers put together this type of site, they also usually build a content management system (CMS) as an easy way to input, edit or delete information on your web pages. This is great for you because that usually means that no coding knowledge is required to make simple updates to your website. If you can use a word processor, you will likely be able to update your website. But keep in mind that not all CMS’s are created equal. They can range from a simple web based form that allows you to enter raw HTML to a full on system of forms to handle all aspects of your site (up to and including uploading images and changing menu items). It is important to discuss this with your developer during the construction process to ensure that what is being built has all of the functionality you need for your (or your designees) skill level. This level is usually pretty low (that is why you hired a professional) so you will want to make sure it is as easy as possible to update without the need for the developers help on an ongoing basis. These types of sites are more expensive to build but save you money in the long run if you plan to update the content on your site as often as you should.

If you are like the majority of site owners out there, your site is static (using basic HTML and/or CSS to build everything). In this case it can be a bit more involved to make your changes but fear not, YOU CAN DO IT!

So what do you need to make a go of it? For starters you will need an HTML editor but don’t be afraid, you don’t need to have the fanciest WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, you can get by with little more than your basic text editor (like notepad).

Next you will need a way to download the files from your server so you can edit them and re-upload them when you are done. This sounds complicated but FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is far from it. In many ways it is no different from moving files around on your own computer and the interface is very similar to how things work in Windows Explorer or the Finder (for you Mac people out there). On a budget, no worries, there is a free tool out there just waiting to be downloaded. Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) is a free download for both Mac and PC and it is very simple to use once you figure it out.

Now that you have your tools, it is time to get to work. The first thing you need is the FTP information for your site. This can usually be found in the control panel for your sites web hosting. What you need are the URL, ID and Password for your hosting. In general your URL will follow this structure ftp.your_domain_name_here.com (you need to check with your web host to be sure). That along with your ID and PW is generally emailed to you when you set up your hosting initially.

Once you are confident that you have the correct information, the next step is to launch Filezilla (or the FTP client of your choice) and add a new site. By default most FTP sites use port 21 for this protocol so don’t freak out if you see that it is required in your client. After the info is in, click connect and what you will see is kind of a split screen. On the left you will see the files on your local hard drive and on the right you will see the files on your server. You may have to drill down into a “www”, “public” or “your_domain_name.com” folder to fine the files you are looking for.

So now you are connected to your site, you have found your files, now what? Well, it is all down hill from here. You can simply drag and drop the files you want from the server (the right side of the screen) into the folder you have chosen on your local hard drive (the left site of the screen) and watch the magic happen then rinse and repeat for each file (or if you want to be tricky you can highlight a group and move them all at once).

Once you have your files, it is editing time. Open up your spiffy new HTML editor (or Notepad/Text Edit for those of you on a budget) and find your way to the memorable location where you downloaded your site files. Once you find it, simple open the file you want (you may have to change the files of type to “all files” to ensure everything shows up in the window) and start editing. Now, I know what you are thinking, why oh why did my word processor choose to throw up in this file? Well, that is not all just bits and pieces of undigested parts of speech, that is the code that makes your site a living breathing thing. Embrace it! Roll around in it, but whatever you do, don’t change it (unless of course you have an idea of what you are doing). Just look through or even search it to find the content you want to change and change away. And if you need to make some basic formatting changes there are a number of simple primers available to tech you the basics of bold, italic, line breaks and more (although if you site was done using CSS, you may need to understand what each style does before you decide to make changes).

Once you finish changing your file, it is good to test what you have done before uploading it back to your site. And remember that since you do not have all of the files on your local machine, things may not look exactly right over all but your chief concern to reviewing the changes you have made. If you want to make sure that what you see locally is exactly like your site, you will have to download all of your files (including and scripts, style sheets and graphics) exactly as they are online to ensure that the site will work offline. This is not a guarantee that it will be exact, differences in the ways pages are coded can result in things not looking right offline.

Now you can then go back to your FTP client and reverse the process to upload your files. Make sure you drill down to the proper folder then Drag from the left, drop on the right.

Once your new files are uploaded you can take a look at your handiwork and marvel at your own brilliance! Then email all of your friends and business associates and tell them about the awesome new update to your site.

Whether you are dealing with a custom dynamic site, or a simple home grown static HTML site you should be able to make the changes you need to keep your content fresh. If you are not comfortable making the changes yourself, there are many qualified individuals out there who would be happy to help but it is always good to try so you know how you want to proceed with ongoing changes.

Finding content for your website is not so much about quantity as it is about quality. And quality content can be hard to find.

So where does quality content come from?

First things first,  lets define “Quality” in this context. Quality content is any information that your target audience will find of value and therefore want to read. Quality content can come from many sources but the best person for the job can largely depend on the subject matter. If there is a great deal of information already available on the subject, you can choose to turn to free sources (which can vary depending on the subject) or to license content from another provider. Although these options will provide you with information to fill the holes in your site, it is not likely to win clients or influence sales the way you were hoping for your online venture.

You may be the right person for the job.

If you sell a specific product that you know better than anyone else or have a great deal of experience in a certain area, you may be the best person to write your own content. The problem is that you may not have the writing chops to turn your knowledge into effective content for your prospective clients and I am not just talking about grammar and punctuation either. Sure, you need a decent grounding in those things to communicate effectively and not make your company look bad in the process but the larger issue is the ability to make the information interesting for your average intended reader. If your prose read like stereo instructions, you will lose more people even if your information is the best available source for it.

To write or not to write – that is the question.

Many people can communicate well and in an interesting fashion in text (even the ones like me who have a tendency to write like they talk) but there are an equal or greater number of people out there who should “Just Say No” to writing their own content. Once this realization occurs, it is time to bring in a professional. There are varying degrees of skills out there just waiting to be found. You can find writers with skills ranging from basic press releases all the way up to the ability to write full on technical white papers with web content specialists falling in between. And many of them can do it all end to end so you if find the right person, you can get everything you need all in one place. The thing to keep in mind though is that what you need for web content is a writer who understands how to distill information into easily consumable blocks of content while understanding enough about SEO to help increase the keyword density in your pages. Just because you find a highly skilled writer, does not mean they are automatically skilled at web content.

When it come down to it, the right person is relatively subjective, but if you are going to make the investment (be it with time or money), you have to make sure that whoever you chose is  the best one  for the job.

A very common question asked by internet neophytes and veterans alike is “how often should I update my website?”. Well, that question is kind of loaded. What do you mean? Are you talking content or are you talking design?

Even though I am a website designer, I know that when it comes to being successful, content is king. A good design is also necessary but when it comes to recurring traffic, it comes from the content. So how often should the content be updated? Well, the simplest answer is as often as possible. However often you are looking to have people return to your site is how often you should be updating it. Think about it like a periodical. If you want daily traffic, think newspaper (although you don’t have to update quite that much content, you get the idea) or if you want people to return weekly or monthly you can think Magazine. Either way, you need to offer something new to your visitors to keep them coming back. One of the simplest ways to do this is by starting a blog (like this one 🙂 )  where you are able to offer potential clients information that is useful to them. And the best advice I have heard related to blogging is that you should add at least one post a week for no other reason than to keep the search engines coming back for more.

Updating the design of your site is still necessary but does not have to be done nearly as often.  The best way to do it if you already have a solid design is in small tweaks and changes over time so it slowly changes and has more of the continual updating that works so well with content but is not as shocking to the system as a full re-design. Complete overhauls should be done at most annually and more likely every other year to keep from seeming unstable. Constant re-designs of a site is roughly akin to changing your logo constantly and have a tendency to make your business seem unstable. When it comes to a complete overhaul you just need to make sure that the new deign is fully thought through and when it comes time for the new site to launch you can get a lot of PR mileage out of layout, navigation and functional changes that can help drive new traffic as well as bringing back visitors that may have been lost over time.

No matter what type of site you run, the more often you content is updated (assuming that content is valuable), the more likely you are to see repeat visitors to your site and the more likely those people will tell others with similar interests about your site. This type of viral behavior is essential to many business sites and can be the difference between flat and increased sales. So just remember content, content, content, deign (had to throw that in there), and more content. Publish well and often you will be enhancing the success of your online endeavors.

WordPress is a blogging platform that has been around since 2003 but has really seen an explosion of use recently. A lot of the explosion is due to the proliferation of blogs that have popped up over the last few years but that is not all of it. WordPress was originally developed for blogging but it has evolved into much more over the years and is now what I would consider to be a full fledged CMS or Content Management System.

So you can use it to manage your blog, big deal!

Well, it is a Big Deal because it is not JUST for blogging anymore. Don’t get me wrong, WordPress is one of the easiest and best bloging platforms out there but its real power lies behind the scenes. WordPress allows you to create static pages, upload and manage media (graphic, audio and video files) and is one of the most extensible systems I have ever seen with thousands of free Plug-ins to help it do pretty much anything you want from enhancing your SEO to having an online sotre.

So what do I care? Why is WordPress so special?

It has a lot going for it here are three solid reasons to use it:

1. WordPress is Free to install (even to host if you don’t mind having a wordpress.com domain on your site) and easy to implement as an add-on application through many Web Hosting Control Panels.
2. WordPress is supported by a huge community of Open Source developers that are constantly adding and improving the already impressive and modular system.
3. WordPress is focussed on usability and user testing (something that is not often found in an open source application)

The most recent explosion of use is not by bloggers (although they may have a blog on their site as well) but by businesses looking for an inexpensive way to get the most out of their website. And you really can’t beat WordPress for that. There are hundreds of Free “Themes” that allow you to essentially Skin your installation of Wrodpress any way you want. And if you are looking for something more customized to your business, WordPress can handle that too. Many web developers can develop a WordPress theme as easily as coding any other type of website but the beauty of WordPress is that once the design is done and set, you don’t have to depend on a third party to update your site, you just dive right into the password protected admin area of your site and update pages as easily as using a word processor. No coding knowledge required.

More and more WordPress is becoming the most economical way to either join the internet age or to enhance the online properties you already have and no matter what it is you are doing on the web, WordPress is a great place to start.

The ability for users to find their way around a website quickly and easily is one of the most important elements of any website design. If a user cannot find what they are looking for, they leave. It is as simple as that.

So what can you do to avoid bad navigation choices?

I harken back to my days in the Boy Scouts when I heard an acronym that has served me well ever since. The acronym I am talking about is K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid. People visiting your site should not require an advanced degree in computer science in order to figure out how to find the information they need. The easier you make it for people to find what they want, the more useful your site will become. And the easier it is to use (assuming you have what people want) the more likely you are to make the sale.

OK, then what are the keys to good website navigation?

When considering navigation for your website there are three keys that I recommend: Placement, Depth and Consistency.

Placement – Where to put the menu
The first thing to consider when designing a website is menu placement. The most common place to find primary menu navigation on a website is at the top of the page because it is the first place the majority of users will look to figure out where they want to go. The left side was the old stand by for years and with the proliferation of blogs and sites built using WordPress there are a good many out there that still use the left (and the right for that matter) but I still feel that the strongest position for primary navigation in most design structures is still the top. And while you are putting your menu there, another good practice is make the logo of your site a link back to the home page. Even if there is a Home link in the menu, 80% of people will still try clicking the logo as a means to navigate home.

Depth – How many licks it should take for people to find what they want
The biggest trick to successful navigation is to make the menuing as shallow as possible. The fewer number of clicks to get to the information people need, the better. As a rule, the more clicks it takes a person to get where they want to go, the less likely they are to arrive there on your site. Many times people just get frustrated and move on to the next site. The sweet spot is to have any available information on your site no more that two levels deep. This means no more than two clicks to find any page on your site. I can’t tell you the number of sites that I (as an experienced web developer) have gotten lost in because they were just too deep. Three levels would be a maximum but I have run into sites that can take you four, five and six levels deep all the while changing the navigation as you go so once you get where you are going, you have absolutely no idea how you got there let alone how to get back.

Some sites rely on breadcrumbs, those little tags at the top of a page that try to show you exactly where you are on the site (for example you might see something like Home > About Us > Mission to indicate you are on the mission page in the about us section), and in general these work well, but only if the primary navigation is consolidated in such a way that it is very easy to get to where you want to go without having to click the back button twenty times.

Consistency – Keeping it together
The goal with any navigational menu should be to make it as simple as possible for users to get where they want to go. A great way to do this is to consolidate your main menu and sub-menu items together so that no matter where a person is on your site, they can easily figure out where there are because when they know where they are, they are more likely to be able to figure out where they are going. Above all, once they are consolidated, leave them alone! If you change the menu items every time someone clicks, you run the risk of a bad experience that can drive users to your competitors.

The bottom line for any website is that you want your content to be read so don’t hide it.

Business owners, no matter their size, are encouraged to develop a logo or some kind of identity when setting out their wares in the open marketplace. No matter whether you offer good or services, are a man or a woman, have 100 employees or are a sole proprietor, you need a way to be identified. Everyone seems to know they need it but many are not sure why.

So what’s a logo good for anyway?

Here are my top 5 reasons to have a logo for your business:

Identity is everything to a business but a logo may only one part of a larger picture. If you are in need of a full branding campaign to get your company where it needs to be and have the budget to support it, an Advertising Agency is the best place to start because they can offer end to end service across a variety of media. But if you are just wading into the waters of the marketplace with a new business, there are a number of online companies that can design the perfect logo for your business and augment it with other identity materials for a very reasonable costs and you will never have to leave the comfort of your own computer desk.

For most business owners, designing a website can be a very daunting task because your website is a representation of your business in the global marketplace. In the beginning, everything from the initial concept outline to the completed design is considered very carefully, but many times during the process of building and finalizing the site, the scope of the site changes. These changes can occur for a variety of different reasons: a new product has been added, something has changed in the marketplace, new players are added to the game and the list goes on and on.

So how do you know when it is ready?

The simple answer is that it will never be 100% ready. A website is an interactive medium meant to inform and engage your audience. The site content (text, graphics, animations, downloads, all of it) should be changing regularly to keep it fresh and evolving as your business and/or the medium (the internet) changes.

Don’t be a creep (or a victim of one)!

The idea of declaring a site as perfect then putting it up and walking away is just silly. Don’t allow your web project to get stymied in the mire of scope creep. Stick to your original concept and see it through to the end all the while taking notes on all of the great new ways you can enhance your customer experience going forward. Just don’t let those new ideas distract you from your goal (and this goes for site redesigns as well). Once the original vision of your site is complete, reviewed, tested, etc, step up and join the ranks of the the millions of other sites that make up the world wide web and begin the task of differentiating yourself from the pack.

Only after you have established your online presence should you go back to your list of brilliant ideas that came up during the building process and begin to integrate them into your ongoing website plans. Pick out the jewels and make sure they are polished before they are set. Doing things this way will not only allow you establish yourself online faster, it will help you keep your site fresh so customers will return over and over again.

Remember, if you keep waiting for your site to be absolutely perfect before launching it to the masses, it will NEVER never find its way to your waiting global audience.

When you start looking into internet marketing, you start to hear a lot about three little letters…S.E.O. but what do they mean? SEO or Search engine optimization is the process of enhancing website traffic (volume or quality) from search engines through organic (also known as “natural” or un-paid) results.

That’s great, but it sounds complicated, so what can I do about it?

Well, surprisingly enough there is quite a bit you can do to give your site a leg up without spending a ton of money. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a place for the big SEO companies out there. But when you first go online or even if you are just small and want to give your site a boost, there are several things you can do for free to enhance your sites traffic.

First things first, before you even consider starting your SEO, you need to understand your company and your customers. Creating an analog for your ideal customers can help a great deal. Sex, age, geography and socio-economic status are a good place to start. Once you have the basics, it is time to get inside their heads because when you do, you will begin to see your business the way they do and that will help you better communicate and anticipate what they want.

Now that you know yourself and have a better idea of your customers, you are ready to make use of your new found knowledge.

The best way to prepare your site for SEO is to build your pages with keyword density in mind. Even if you plan to hire an SEO company to bring you to the top of the heap, this is where they will start to get the ball rolling so why not beat them to the punch and make them work for the money you plan to spend. Keyword density is a way focusing the content on your site toward using the search terms you know your ideal customers will use when searching for a product or service like yours.

Lets start with your Meta Description and Meta Keywords. These two items are the basis for most everything else you will do. The meta description is a very succinct statement describing your business while the meta key words are a list of the search terms and phrases that you feel will get the most play with your customer base. Meta keywords are widely considered to be useless anymore but entering them here is a good way for you to get everything straight as you develop your content.

Meta descriptions should be no longer than 156 characters including spaces while keywords should be limited to 256 characters including spaces. Google crops anything beyond these amounts so refine your keywords and descriptions accordingly.

Next we will move on to the page title. Make it meaningful to the content on the page and be sure to use the specific search terms or keyword phrases that customers are likely to use related to the information being presented.

From here it gets a bit easier. All you need to do now is write the content for your page keeping your keywords in mind as you do it and making sure that you use keyword rich file naming an descriptions in your included page images.

There are a variety of other things you can do on your own to help the search engines help your business including creating a site map and some simple PR strategies to help increase external links to your site, but I will cove those another time.

Welcome to the new frontier. Now that you have made the decision to make the leap to the web, what is the next step?

It seems daunting. Instead of just marketing your products or services to locally or even across the country, you now have a global audience to deal with. This can present a set of problems that many small businesses are not sure they are ready to handle.

Fear not. Although Internet marketing can encompasses the world wide web, e-mail, wireless digital media,  management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management you can ease your way into it with just a few enhancements of existing business standards.

Just like with your existing offline marketing, branding is the most important thing you can do to differentiate your business online. Everything starts with your logo.

A well designed logo will help you stand out against your competition and help augment the position of your products or services in the global marketplace. But an identifiable mark is is only the beginning. The cornerstone of any good brand is the differentiation of your product. You need to explain to people what makes your company unique and this is when you begin to realize that when it comes to internet marketing content is king.

Once you have made your mark and identified your strengths, its time to tell people about it.

Like with the offline marketing collateral you have always used for sales support, you will want those same materials for online. But when you place them online they can now take on new and exciting forms. Not just as downloadable versions of the existing materials (although those are good), but as new interactive versions that help you truly differentiate yourself from the competition.

The most common interactive form of these materials is a website. Here you can extend your offline identity into a more complete online experience for potential customers. Instead of a flat boring experience that talks about a single product or service, you have the ability to bring your entire business right to your customers in a way that can service them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But just putting the information out there is not enough, in order for it to be useful, it needs to be seen.

Once you have your brand and online identity set up, the real work begins. Cutting through the clutter.

Stay tuned to learn different ways to enhance your online marketing efforts with topics including logos, branding, websites, search engine optimization, social networking and more.