Content Management Systems Nebwie

[bj]

Have to agree with bj on using wordpress for blogs. Pretty simple to use, and free! with a good community of support and many add-ins and plug-ins.

But that's just it. I don't just use "wordpress for blogs". I use it for brochure sites with NO blog functionality as well, using the write/page function and changing the templating to be Page-centric rather than post-centric.

An example of a site just built, the client hasn't yet added content--
Scenes from the Past

If we didn't have the requested (not required) link to wordpress in the footer you'd NEVER KNOW this was a wordpress site unless you looked at source code.

[simonm]

Hi Pagetta

You say you use Dreamweaver - have you considered 'contribute'. Other comments which largely agree with what has been said above, careful with buying a 'service' all that happens is you get tied in to a CMS that might not be ideal.

You don't say what the CMS is for. Yes I know that it is for adding and changing content, but to what extent? Should it include images, is it for an online shop, is SEO important, is the whole point to avoid using Dreamweaver? Perhaps to delegate to a non techie colleague?

Also, i'm confused. Your signature rather indicates that you are, or working for or with the real experts in web content management!

[iany]

... asp sites often are a pain to optimize.

Couldn't disagree more. Asp is Just as easy to optimise as php, no logical reason why it shouldn't be. Have done both using similar techniques.

A cms is nice because it saves you a lot of link work. But if it isn't search engine friendly, you´re better of not using it.

Again no reason why it shouldn't be. Joomla for example (and others too) have SEO friendly option. As said earlier, I have just completed a Joomla based realtively small site. All new pages indexed within 14 days, new search terms being picked up. There is the facility to customise each page so that title description, copy etc all match.

Remember that the point of a cms is so content can be managed.

Ian

[Peter (IMC)]

Joomla for example (and others too) have SEO friendly option.

Joomla, as far as I have seen it, can generate static urls, but that´s about the most basic search engine friendly requirement there is. URL's with numbers and commas, for me are in no way optimized.

Remember that the point of a cms is so content can be managed.

Yes, and if your site doesn't change that often and its small,. you´re still better of with a couple of includes and manually changing your pages. That will give you full control of the html code.

In my opinion the point of a CMS should also be that it is very search engine friendly and user friendly.

[RegDCP]

In my opinion the point of a CMS should also be that it is very search engine friendly and user friendly.

Right you are Peter.
I think that should be the primary consideration when choosing a CMS as without good search rankings all your work is for naught.
However, when you say:

URL's with numbers and commas, for me are in no way optimized.

I cannot agree.
I get top rankings using the standard CRE URLs which are in the "numbers and commas" category.

If there is anything I see in this thread it is that everybody has their own pet CMS.

bj wrote:
Does it still feed html table code (ugh!) from core?

IMO that is not important.
What is important is that the pages display well, are easy to navigate, are cross browser compatable, and SEO well.

Expect a steep learning curve. In most cases you are dealing with complex systems and you will have a lot of options to configure.

RTFM.. So many miss this basic step.

Look for a mentor. Someone that has experience using the program. Forums are good to research, even before you install.
Check to see what kind of problems folks are having and if their questions get answered quickly and accurately.

Check the forums for professional developer's service offers. Some CMS forums like osCommerce do not allow professionals to advertise making it hard for new users to get work done.

Look at the standard features as they apply to what you want your site to do.
I want to stress "standard features" as all too often adding plug-ins or "mods" can eat up a large portion of time.
Not that they all do by any means, but the more addons you incorporate the more your core code deviates from the original and difficulties arise when a new add on requires code changes to sections that have already been changed.

[bj]

bj wrote:
Does it still feed html table code (ugh!) from core?

IMO that is not important.
What is important is that the pages display well, are easy to navigate, are cross browser compatable, and SEO well.

Unbloating code (among other things that means getting rid of table code) is very important when it comes to code to content ratio, so it IS important for SEO. It's also important from a design aspect for me, since I should have control over what html is generated, not some damn backend programmer who doesn't know what my needs are on the frontend. Of course, if you just want your sites to look pretty and don't care what mess is running them, you're welcome to use FrontPage . . .

I cannot agree.
I get top rankings using the standard CRE URLs which are in the "numbers and commas" category.

Personally I'd much rather have urls that look like this:
http://www.robinbrande.com/writing/a...insane-persons
than like this:
http://kickasswebdesign.com/wptest/?p=28

You cannot convince me that words in an url do not make a difference since it's been proven to me otherwise time and time again. I would not use a dynamic ap that did not have proper search engine friendly urls. And I think the sheerly staggering amount of mod-rewrite jobs posted on the freelancer sites will back me up.

[itsdonny]

Is there a CMS type of application for newsletters? I would like to send out nicer looking newsletters but I don't want to spend a lot of time designing or learning how to make sure that anyone who receives the newsletter can view it.

[RegDCP]

Unbloating code (among other things that means getting rid of table code) is very important when it comes to code to content ratio, so it IS important for SEO. It's also important from a design aspect for me, since I should have control over what html is generated, not some damn backend programmer who doesn't know what my needs are on the frontend. Of course, if you just want your sites to look pretty and don't care what mess is running them, you're welcome to use FrontPage . . .

Do you think that the search engines add the code to the content or only index the content, ignoring the code?
IMO it is the latter and code does not add to content.

Personally I'd much rather have urls that look like this:
http://www.robinbrande.com/writing/a...insane-persons
than like this:
http://kickasswebdesign.com/wptest/?p=28

I would prefer URLs that looked like that too, but I am not my target market.
If the pages rank in the top for the terms searched, then that is where my market is.

Since I see a lot of top listings showing URLs that fall into the comma and number category, I think the search engines are paying much less attention to this factor than before.

[qirexsys]

It's also important from a design aspect for me, since I should have control over what html is generated, not some damn backend programmer who doesn't know what my needs are on the frontend. Of course, if you just want your sites to look pretty and don't care what mess is running them, you're welcome to use FrontPage . . .

Those damned backend programmers... they should all be shot! But Frontpage? Man, that's just cold... ;)

But seriously, this is why I would rather roll my own than try and shoehorn a boxed CMS into my specifications. It's just very, very difficult to predict the needs of everyone out there, so the results are often generic (perhaps too generic). But unless you're looking for some specific functionality that is outside the scope of your experience, or you're just unable to make one, you will get the greatest degree of control over your presentation layer and your functional layer and fulfill all your expectations by just hunkering down for a day or two and pushing out a few logs of PHP, or ASP, or Ruby, or whatever you like. I just think that if you really care about "what mess is running your site" then you're probably not going to be using a pre-packaged generic CMS.

Even if you just use a series of PHP includes to a directory of flat text files that hold your content, by centralizing the location of your content and making it available to your site templates, you're already managing content. :)

I must agree, though - human-readable URL's do *seem* to be more effective than the variable-infested messes that most CMS's put out. In my experience tho, I've found that nearly all relatively mature CMS and blog engines have the feature of putting out purty URLs.

[itsdonny]

Since I see a lot of top listings showing URLs that fall into the comma and number category, I think the search engines are paying much less attention to this factor than before.

You are right, but I've read Matt Cutts saying something to the extent of using keyworded urls being a good idea and I would definitely follow that where ever possible.