الجمعة، 10 مايو 2013

What Is a CMS? By Roger J Webb


A CMS, or Content Management System is defined by Wikipedia as
... a computer system that allows publishing, editing, and modifying content as well as site maintenance from a central page. It provides a collection of procedures used to manage workflow in a collaborative environment...
They provide a mechanism whereby anyone, irrespective of his or her knowledge of computer languages such as HTML or CSS can create a sophisticated site and invite friends, colleagues, of people with a shared interest to add their own material.
Back End
In the back end of your site - the end that only you and your co-administrators see, the CMS provides the substructure necessary to build a commercial site such as:
  • Access control through 'login' and 'register' procedures
  • Logical data organisation allowing visitors to find what they want or need quickly and intuitively
  • Menus Searches and links
  • Blogs, forums and comments
The Front End
The visitor to your site sees none of this. What he or she sees as a single integrated webpage actually consists of:
  1. Articles - the main body of text and pictures - your content - that you and your visitors add to the site

  2. Blocks - usually part of the side-bars, header and footer that may include snippets of content but more often contain functional content like your login block, menus, special offers etc. Blocks - particularly menu blocks - often appear on several pages and may appear conditionally - ie the login block may disappear once a visitor logs in.

  3. The Theme which controls the webpage's look: the width and location of the sidebars, the fonts and colour of the text, the artwork in your header, the overall colour scheme
Of course, you don't have to make all these links, the software searches the data base for the elements of a page, sorts them, combines them and presents them on the screen. You simply generate the content.
WYSIWYG and Wiki Sites
Modules and eCommerce
  • WYSIWYG is an acronym for 'what you see is what you get'. It is the function that allows anyone who can type in a word processor to cut and paste material into your site - provided he or she qualifies through the login system.

  • Wiki sites are sites, like Facebook or Wikipedia, where the content is generated by the visitors. CMS sites allow your site to be a Wiki.Many eCommerce sites are in fact CMS sites; some with the community aspects suppressed, others with them intact. In neither of the CMS packages we investigate, 'Joomla' and 'Drupal' are the eCommerce packages part of the core download, but both can be extended quite simply by downloading additional eCommerce Modules.

  • Modules extend the functionality of the CMS core. Some modules allow you to create picture galleries, others help with the Search Engine Optimisation, others add commercial capabilities.

  • eCommerce modules such as Drupal Commerce provide a full commercial capability with Shop Front with Ubercart, Shipping, Stock Management, Coupons, File downloads, PayPal, and many more...
Roger Webb is a retired CEO from Small and Medium Sized (SME) companies in the UK and Continental Europe. In thirty years' experience at life at the top he has been instrumental in turning around and setting up a number of specialist subsidiaries in Europe, Africa and beyond, in every case producing stable profits in some of the most testing corporate environments imaginable.
Finding retirement a bore, he set up two social networking sites gathering up the business experience and knowledge of their members and visitors.
The first, http://computer-virgin.net deals with the issues raised when a newcomer sets out to start a new business from scratch.
The second, http://mywebtrade.net builds on the first and covers the issues specific to on-line business.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7136288
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WordPress CMS - The Features and Benefits of Using a Customizable Platform By Pradip Srivastava


In this highly competitive world everyone wants to design their website which will look different from others and will be cost efficient and easy to use. It should also be quick to download with simple instructions on how to use. If you are looking for such a platform then WordPress is the right place to look. It is a web development free open source software of content management system. It was developed by Matt Mullenweg on May 27, 2003. This is used for creating blog and websites using plug-in architecture and a template system available in its core package. It is one of the best CMS software with over 60 million users using this for customizing their website in their own way.
WordPress allows the user to some basic features:
  1. Themes installation- The themes allow the user to install themes from its directory and bring in a fresh look to your sites. Themes that are available are- Coraline, Suffusion etc.
  2. Plug-in installation- It is an important feature of WordPress, through plug-in architecture a user can change the functionality of the basic structure provided in this open source software in a more sophisticated form and also allows WordPress customizing. Some of the plug-in that are available are - Tumblr Importer, WP Super Cache etc.
  3. Widgets- Widgets are usually used for adding functions to the site such as slide-show and it can also be used as small blocks on-screen such as clocks, event countdowns, daily weather etc.
  4. Comments - your visitors like to connect with you and leave their comments on the blogs and other services the liked or did not like. The owner of the site has the control in his hand to enable or disable the comment posts.
  5. Full User Registration- WordPress has a built-in user registration system allowing people to register themselves with the particular site also write posts and comments. The site owner can block this comment page for non registered users.
  6. Multiple Authors - WordPress has an advanced user system allowing multiple users to edit and publish content.
  7. Easy Installation and Upgrades- Installing WordPress is extremely easy and hardly takes any time. Now even upgrading it to the next version is also equally easy.
WordPress has an effective e-store feature too which are as below:
  1. Automatic instant digital product delivery.
  2. Encrypted Product download link.
  3. Variation control for digital product.
  4. Automatic Link Expiration.
  5. Ability to offer multiple file downloads per product.
  6. Customers can use Multiple Payment Gateways and can pay via PayPal, 2-Checkout, Authorize.net or a manual process.
  7. Mysql Database driven.
  8. The WordPress e-Store Admin can see the Customer Database (When a Customer purchases an Item his/her details are stored in the database).
Another benefit for opting for WordPress is its online community and forums which can solve your queries and issues. WordPress is not complicated like other CMS. WordPress today is used by business houses, entrepreneurs, internet marketers, direct sales professionals and others. It also helps in creating an e-commerce site with shopping cart and payment gateways.
Today WordPress is one of the fastest and user-friendly development tools which can be easily installed and for being an open source CMS it is easily available to anyone. WordPress blogs and websites can be used as a commercial platform for internet marketing and can also be very valuable for the development of your company. The installation of this software is free and takes just few minutes to install. As new versions of WordPress Open Source CMS are being upgraded therefore the software has been designed keeping scope for future up gradation. The latest WordPress version is 3.3.1 released on January 3, 2012.
Red Chilli Media has gained remarkable position in the website designing and development industry. Its service package is inclusive of Custom web designing, website development and Search Engine Optimization.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7116081
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Joomla or Drupal - The Entrepreneur's Choice By Roger J Webb


Joomla and Drupal are the most commonly used open source content management systems and both are used in thousands of sites, many of which would not, at first sight, be seen as CMS sites.
Structure
Both share the same basic structure with:
  1. A core containing the main workings of the CMS, its infrastructure and most of the' sine qua non' of a structured site
  2. Menus and information structure
  3. Access control and security
  4. Content generation facilities
  5. Modules and Plugins extend the functionality of your site so that you can do things not included in your core. The 'Superfish' module creates menus that expand to show sub-menus when touched by the cursor.
  6. Templates control the appearance of your site, controlling layout, colour schemes, fonts etc.
Joomla has a larger, more inclusive core meaning that you need to upload fewer modules, and when you do need an additional module the process of uploading is simpler.
On the other hand Drupal has more modules available allowing a greater range of functionality.
You might think that Joomla, being more inclusive, has the advantage in the early stages when you can do more in the core, whilst Drupal has the long run advantage.
Intuitive
By intuitive we mean doing what you expect it to do. That of course depends on what it is you expect it to do, and the logic of some elements of both packages defies normal day-to-day logic. For instance both Joomla and Drupal default to non-search engine friendly urls.
It's a technical issue, but very relevant. The URLs of your pages should be as simple as possible, "yoursite/yourpage" so the search engine can read them.
User friendliness
On the face of it Joomla wins hands down on the user friendliness count. Its core is larger, meaning much more can be achieved with the core package, and the procedure for uploading modules, plugins and templates is much simpler for the user. Unfortunately simpler for thus user invariably means more complex for the system and I have always found the uploading process flaky.
The use of modules etc. on CMS sites, particularly the open source sites, has always provided discipline issues with modules often lagging behind core upgrades.
In general, and despite the clumsier uploading processes I find Drupal superior in this aspect.
Content
The critical element for any new starter on the internet and particularly in CMS sites is 'how easy or difficult is it to create content', and at this very basic level the advantage has to be with Joomla. Straight out of the box, and with no IT skills a page can be created by simple typing. The border of the Article Text box allows you to create a wide range of textual content including bold, underline, headings, lists etc.
The Joomla system for inserting images is definitely better than the Drupal equivalent.
However, and at a later stage, any serious site builder will want to learn a little HTML and if this is the case might be wise to go with Drupal from the start.
Multisite
It might seem a strange consideration, battling as you are with getting your first site up and running, but Drupal has a facility not offered by Joomla. In Drupal you can run several sites on the one core and modules set.
As a matter of personal choice I think Joomla definitely has the edge at the entry stage, but when your needs get more sophisticated Drupal is more flexible.
Roger Webb is a retired CEO from Small and Medium Sized (SME) companies in the UK and Continental Europe. In thirty years' experience at life at the top he has been instrumental in turning around and setting up a number of specialist subsidiaries in Europe, Africa and beyond, in every case producing stable profits in some of the most testing corporate environments imaginable.
Finding retirement a bore, he set up two social networking sites gathering up the business experience and knowledge of their members and visitors.
The first, http://computer-virgin.net deals with the issues raised when a newcomer sets out to start a new business from scratch.
The second, http://mywebtrade.net builds on the first and covers the issues specific to on-line business. This article is one of a set for newcomers to the CMS scene.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7151284
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Simple and Effective WordPress Website Development By Johan Neslen Ferink


When starting a company one of the first things that will come to mind is creating a website that will link the outside world to your products or services. If you're new to developing a website, you're going to want something that is simple to create and maintain as well as being effective on the internet. WordPress website development is a great solution that many businesses have implemented today. This platform offers an easy way to customize a website that best suits your business needs. Being an open source management system WordPress creates great flexibility for business owners to design their website that specifically caters to their businesses online development initiative.
The market is full of WordPress website development specialists that can help you to make tools that will matter most on your webpage such as customized themes as well as easy-to-use templates. If you already have a website, they can also help you to re-organize you page into an original portal that mirrors your company's style and your overall marketing objectives. Besides the ease of using the WordPress platform there are many other benefits for companies looking to develop a name for themselves online.
When you think about web development, the first thing that may come to mind is cost. Many would think that in order to create a unique and effective website, you will have to shell out a lot of cash that in many cases you don't have. Many business owners who have chosen WordPress website development have actually saved money. WordPress has inexpensive options that allow you to create a great website that your customers are happy to use time and time again. Find out how you can get your idea across without spending a lot of money by calling a WordPress developer.
Developers love to create a website that can be created easily. Some other platforms create a lot of hassle as well as a lot of time to create the ideal page. If your professional has to spend a lot of time creating a webpage, that may mean more money for you to spend. With WordPress, developers are able to design an attractive and user-friendly site very easily.
It is important that when you begin to think about creating your website that you remember your customers. Not only do you want to create a page that is easy to navigate through, but you want to also create a page that protects your customers' personal information. You want to make sure that your customers feel safe to put such personal information into your database. WordPress website development can offer your page unique security features that will protect their personal information and passwords, and protect them from spam.
WordPress is probably most beneficial in its helping your website to implement search engine optimization. Once you go live, your WordPress website development will begin to send you innovative ideas to get your page noticed. It has been known to greatly increase the quality in internet marketing. If you hire the right team of developers, they will utilize a series of principals to create a properly working WordPress site that can be optimized to appear on many search engines. With the proper positioning on major search engines, you are able to reach thousands more customers each and every day.
Looking for a great team to offer you WordPress website development that is cost effective and professional? You can approach Turboecart.com for information on how to get started.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7145831
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How To Get Your WordPress Site Up And Running With The Essential Plugins By Greg Rickard


So you've got your domain name and hosting and have installed WordPress for use as your CMS. You have your "wp-admin" login and are in the Dashboard area.
What next? How do you get this thing up and running as soon as possible?
The first thing to do is delete the sample Page and the sample Post. Just plain old delete them. Click on Pages on the left there in the Dashboard and you'll see the sample page in question. Delete it and repeat the process for Posts. Great.
Next, in the Pages section again, create a new page titled Home and click Publish over there on the right. You can also type My First Page or something like that in the body area, then click Update where the Publish button once was. We will use this as the home page of the site very soon.
Next, click Plugins, Add New. In the search box, type "Tinymce Advanced".
It will come up at or near the top of the results. Install it, find the Settings section of Tinymce, then right down the bottom tick the box that says Stop Removing P and BR (paragraph and line breaks). Save the changes and you're done with that.
The next plugin you'll need is WordPress SEO by Yoast. Search for and install it. You'll see that it appears at the bottom-left of your WordPress dashboard. It will have a heading, SEO. Click that and go to Permalinks.
Under Permalink Settings, tick the top one that says Strip Category Base. Go to the bottom and Save your changes.
Next, go to XML sitemaps in the SEO menu, just above Permalinks where you just were. Tick everything there except for Posts and Pages, Save and you're done.
Next plugin you need is Shareaholic. This is used for putting social media buttons on your site so people can share and like your content in their Facebook Newsfeeds, in their Twitter accounts and so on.
It comes with a fairly easy to follow control section of it's own that gives you lots of options. The plugin is also known as Sexy Bookmarks.
For visually-appealing photo effects, install the Lightbox Plus plugin. There's a bit of a learning curve with it but if you know a bit of HTML it will be very easy and the plugin has it's own help website, as do the others mentioned.
Lightbox is the effect you see on some sites where you click a photo and the screen goes dim, with a full-size photo overlay appearing. Very slick.
It's just a matter of wrapping the img tag with an a href tag to the same image address, but including the rel="lightbox" attribute. For those familiar, it means the image will become a hyperlink, just linking to a Lightboxed larger image.
The image that appears on the page should be smaller than the linked Lightbox image. This can be achieved using the width attribute within the img tag.
Next, go to the Settings menu at bottom-left of the Dashboard, then click Reading.
Under Front Page Displays, select a static page. Click next to the Front Page dropdown box and select Home, the page we created earlier. Save changes.
Next, go to Discussion in Settings. Untick the top three, at least for now, then Save. This will disable comments from site visitors and other spammers. When you are ready to deal with it, you can simply come back and enable those options.
Finally, go to Permalinks under Settings and select Custom Structure. Put the following in the space provided:
/%category%/%postname%/
... exactly the same as that. Save and you are done.
That is a relatively quick and easy way to configure WordPress and have the necessary plugins in place.
When you view your site you will see the Home page you created, which you can now edit as you like.
I would recommend becoming familiar with custom menus as the next step, as it will allow you to control the order of pages in your site menu, using an easy drag-and-drop organizing feature.
Greg Rickard is the owner of http://www.grwebsites.com, an Australia-based service helping small business owners getting a website online for their businesses.
Specializes in WordPress CMS installation and optimization, with links to logo and cartoon mascot designs.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7146040
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Structuring Your Joomla Site By Roger J Webb


Once your site grows to more than half a dozen or so pages you will need a logical data structure so that your visitors can find your way through it. What seems logical and natural to you may seem confusing to your visitors who may be at the early stages of researching their needs.
Reverting to my search, earlier this year, for a wood burning stove I had to learn a complete new vocabulary before I could make a reasoned choice, and although I did this by physically driving round the available suppliers, I was still astounded by the number of issues involved.
  • Stove output - measured in kilowatts
  • Stove fuel - wood or dual-fuel
  • Stove dimensions
  • Stove material - cast iron or steel
And that's just for starters.
Don't Make Me Think
One of the first principles of web design, after the 'three click' rule, is the 'don't make me think' rule. Your site must lead your visitors step-by-step to their destination without imaginative leaps and without having always to head back to your home page before setting out on the next journey.
Structure in CMS Sites
One of the strengths of CMS sites is their ability to attract content notwithstanding the IT skills or lack of IT skills of the contributors. In fact many CMS sites are deliberately set up as 'Wiki' to attract visitor contributions.
Whilst you might give visitors permission to add their own material in the form of blogs, comments, forums and even original articles, you would not give them access to your menu structure. They need to categorise their own input so that it will appear in an appropriate place on your site.
Our Own Categories
We like to set up genuine sites as we assess products like Drupal or Joomla. In our case we were setting up a commercial site designed to bring new internet entrepreneurs together with the people that can help them get up and running. So we have three main categories
  1. About Us: general pages about the site, and us as owner/operators.
  2. eEnrepreneurs: people who need help to get an eBusiness up and running.
  3. eProviders: people who can provide that help.
Sub-categories
Within these categories we have sub categories. Taking the eProviders main category we have:
  1. Content Providers
  2. Website Providers
And within Content Providers we have
  1. Copy Writers
  2. Image Providers and Manipulators
Setting up your Joomla Categories
  1. Login to the Back End of your site (yoursite/administrator>
  2. Click on the Category Manager short cut.
  3. Click on 'Add a New Category'
  4. In the 'Title' field write "eProviders"
  5. Click on 'Save and Close'
  6. Click on 'Add a New Category' again
  7. This time type "Content Providers" but this time scroll down to 'Parent"
  8. Scroll down within parent to reach "eProviders"
  9. Click on 'Save and Close'
Now you can carry on by adding "Copy Writers" with "Content Providers" as its parent.
Roger Webb is a retired CEO from Small and Medium Sized (SME) companies in the UK and Continental Europe. In thirty years' experience at life at the top he has been instrumental in turning around and setting up a number of specialist subsidiaries in Europe, Africa and beyond, in every case producing stable profits in some of the most testing corporate environments imaginable.
Finding retirement a bore, he set up two social networking sites gathering up the business experience and knowledge of their members and visitors.
The first, http://computer-virgin.net deals with the issues raised when a newcomer sets out to start a new business from scratch.
The second, http://mywebtrade.net builds on the first and covers the issues specific to on-line business. This article is one of a set for newcomers to the CMS scene.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7151321
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Member Retention: Welcome Procedure By Rebekah Zobel Jones


When someone new joins your membership site, how do you respond? I'm sure you have at least a welcome email through your autoresponder and they probably receive a receipt for their purchase. But what else do you do? Starting off the relationship right is a great way to build the connection and keep the member coming back for more. Changing up your welcome procedure can be the perfect member retention strategy. Here's some things you could consider:
  • After Registration Page: In WishList Member, you have a great and often overlooked opportunity to build that relationship from the get go. By crafting the perfect After Registration page, you are able to share information with your brand new member -- on a one-time basis. This page only shows up when someone initially joins your site. It's a great place to repeat the features and benefits from your sales page, with links to where that content is. So if they joined your site to access a certain item, they can get to it immediately. If your site has information for different categories of folks, share "getting started" links and "advanced" links so they know where to start with your site. You can do the same on the After Login page; perhaps adding a "Dashboard" with sections for the various topics of your site would meet the needs of your members.

  • Phone Call or Snail Mail: Receiving a personal phone call or note through the mail in this era of online communication can be quite a surprise. Consider setting aside some time to call your newest members, welcome them to the group and ensure that all is going well for them. If a note is more your style, make sure it's not a form letter but a handwritten card. I received one just last week from a client and it made my day!

  • "Getting Started" Webinar: If you have members joining your site on a consistent basis, you may choose to have a regularly scheduled introduction webinar. This would give new members a chance to interact with you, as well as learn to navigate the site and where to find specific information. For a self-study program, you may want to make a video that shares how to get started.
As you can see, the theme here is reaching out personally to your new members, restating how welcome they are and ensuring that they find exactly what they need right away. They say that "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" and that's never more true with online business!
Rebekah Zobel Jones is a Membership Site Creator, Coordinator and Consultant. Learn more at http://myfabulousva.com


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7163669
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