After evaluating CMS's for several months there's no clear winner in our eyes, every offering has tradeoffs and nothing is anywhere near ideal. As part of our search we created specs for a small project to complete in each CMS. This is no small effort as every system is quite different, which means it can take up to a day to learn enough to get the small project working. From this "The Great CMS Challenge of 2013" was born.

Come one, come all and put your CMS to the test on the stage of the social Internet!

What's the point?

The point of the contest is to show how awesome your system is at building something based on custom specs. 

What technologies are welcome?

All of them, sort of. This contest is platform and language agnostic but it is a CMS contest so hopefully your technologies provide mechanisms for authentication, user roles, page editing, etc...

Can I submit a modified plugin?

You're welcome to submit your hacked plugin but doing so is unlikely to impress anyone. Remember, the point of the contest is to show your system's prowess at building something custom.

Is commercial software welcome?

You betcha.

Do I need to be a programmer to participate?

I don't care what your job description is. If you can make something that works join in on the fun.

How do I participate?

Fulfill the specs and show your work. You can show your work via some combination of screencast, github repo, demo site, etc... but most importantly let me know you're participating by filling this form out. I'll post all the participants solutions after the deadline (June 30th, 2013).

What are the specs of the challenge?

You're to make an image gallery module/system/plugin/component/thingy. Not very challenging right? Well, we'll let your system determine that.

• Galleries can belong to many categories
• Categories can be arranged in a tree structure or nested set
• Galleries can have many images
• Galleries can have a description (html/wysiwyg)
• Images can be sorted within their repective gallery
• Images can have a caption

I'll leave the backend up to you, but frontends need 3 interfaces:

• An index page to show all categories
• A category page that shows all its galleries
• A gallery page to show its images

How will the winner be decided?

I'll pick my favorite solution and share my reasoning behind it.

What's the deadline?

June 30th, 2013

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the cornerstone of inbound marketing, and in conjunction with quality Search Engine Optimization (SEO), companies can attract prospects through mediums like articles, videos, photos, blogs, podcasts, and e-newsletters. By doing so, you are giving searchers the opportunity to find you, and are providing much more than just a bottom line product or service. You are providing an experience.

While traditional outbound marketing tactics tend to employ a “pitchy” approach, content marketing focuses on providing engaging, relevant, and valuable information to attract traffic. The more engaging and informative the material, the more value people will find in it. Thus, they are a more likely to follow up on their interest.

For example, if someone searches “how to get a car loan with bad credit” on Google and finds a company like Bank Approved, who has a blog post on their site answering that question, that searcher is far more likely to follow up on their inquiry with Bank Approved who has proven they are knowledgeable on the topic. 

Additionally, when someone reads an interesting story or article, or watches an inspiring video, they generally feel inclined to tell someone else about it. They may share it via social media, email, or even by word of mouth, thus creating brand awareness and trust by spreading your company name. Not only does this increase brand recognition, but can also elevate a lead from cold to hot.

“That content's goal is not simply links nor SEO, but to earn the awareness, affection and trust of potential customers” – Rand Fishkin | CEO, SEOmoz 

Content Marketing vs. Traditional Outbound Marketing in 2013

First, let me say that outbound marketing is not without its benefits. Depending on the demographic and geographical make up of your target market, this may be the best way to spend your marketing dollars. However, with the continued onset of technology, and our increased ability to always be “connected” wherever we are, people are accessing information in quicker, more efficient ways. This means less phone books and more Google Searches, less TV commercials and more YouTube videos, less radio shows and more podcasts, and well… you get the drift.

Good Content is Hard to Come By

Quality vs. Quantity is certainly something to consider. Anyone can pump out a ton of poorly written content, but if people are not interested in reading it then what is the point? Even worse, people see your content as a reflection of your company and consequently relate the quality of your content to the quality of your product/service.

Keeping content up-to-date is also integral to building and maintaining interest. If your business hasn’t added anything new to your website in months, or years, then what incentive do people have to come back? Whether you provide industry news, product information or reviews, customer stories, how-to’s, or Q & A’s, you should be making an effort to provide consistent quality content updates. Just remember to keep it relevant, interesting, and valuable.

In the end, content is an investment. It is a necessary tool for engaging your customers, and should not be overlooked when developing your marketing strategy and allocating your budget. In essence, good content = good business.

As Manitoba’s largest and most experienced animal shelter and animal welfare organization, The Winnipeg Humane Society has found a new way to keep us all in the loop. Their new app looks awesome, and offers a variety of useful tools and information.

If you are looking to adopt a pet, the app hooks you up with all of the dogs, cats, and little critters that can be adopted from their various adoption facilities. You can also stay up-to-date with WHS events, or find the nearest off-leash dog park in Winnipeg.

The create-a-postcard function is a sweet little tool that allows you to create a customized postcard that you can share via Email, Facebook, or Twitter. So if you’ve got some birthdays coming up, or want to send your mother something cute for Mother’s Day, you definitely need to check it out.

My personal favorite function of The WHS app is the pet-friendly apartment list. If you are, or have ever had to look for a pet-friendly apartment, you know just how frustrating it can be sifting your way through all the “no pets allowed” ads out there.

In addition to promoting responsible pet ownership, The WHS app offers important contact info for The Pet Loss Support Program, the WHS Help Line, animals in distress, and cruelty/abuse complaints.

The Winnipeg Humane Society App is available through the App Store.

Anyone new to link building (or SEO) knows the vexing task of navigating through 100s of resources on the best practices and steps for search engine optimization. I was pleasantly surprised and quite frankly, relieved, when my colleague introduced me to the Link Building Course from Jon Cooper.

The course is a “work-in-progress” to reflect the ever-changing landscape of search engine optimization practices, and it’s a one-time fee of $67 US dollars with permanent access which already makes it a valuable investment.

What I Found Valuable:

Jon Cooper provides an excellent resource for anyone new to link building and SEO. There are important link building concepts like link diversity and link velocity that are defined with examples to allow you to easily grasp and understand the extent of link building campaigns.

After the course I found I was frequently thinking back to what mattered most to Jon Cooper: content, the user, and what I found interesting, Public Relation skills. Listed below is what I found most valuable and useful for a rookie like myself.

A Plethora of Link Building Strategies

Jon introduced an incredibly long and comprehensive list of link building strategies. It is sorted by time-frame to achieve website ranking results, link value and dependency on other resources with well-defined examples. I found link value particularly useful as it provides thoughtful insights into your return on time invested.

This module is also viewable for free here. Jon even challenges you to provide 3 strategies not in the list and he’ll give you a free t-shirt.

List of Tools

There are so many great links to SEO tools on this list with usage guides and tips. I bookmarked more than 10 websites with link building services and website analysis. I also downloaded a few browser add-ons. The list is also accompanied by explanations and screenshots on how to optimize and use the tools for link building.

Advance Strategies

Most of the Advance Strategies for link building are ingenious and widely used by many top bloggers and news sites. Without divulging too much information, public relation (PR) skills are a huge asset in these strategies. If you have experience in prospecting over the phone or through e-mail you’ll have an advantage. Even so, Jon Cooper provides e-mail templates to use for prospecting link building opportunities.

New Site Blueprint

Who wouldn’t want a step-by-step plan for your own search engine optimized site from the get-go? This section offers a strategy guide for new websites and relaunches with link building options like contests and crowdsourcing.

TL;DR (Too long, didn't read)
But you should...

If you want to learn the basics and advanced link building strategies you can start using today, I highly recommend the Point Blank SEO Link Building course. It offers basic to advance strategies and is updated to reflect new SEO practices.

Today is game day at Metric! Not that every other Winnipeg Jets game day isn’t, but today we all dressed up to show our support for our team as they get their revenge against the Washington Capitals.

The goal was for each Metric-er to show how big of a fan they truly are and wear as much Jets gear as possible.  Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending how you look at it) nobody came decked out in a Jets onesie or blue, white, and red face paint,  but we made a heck of a statement with jerseys, t-shirts, hats, scarves, and even a Jets poncho! One staff member was even brave enough to don his girlfriends Jets jersey which was signed, “Your J.B.F.” If you’re not sure what that means, then you may need to step your acronym game up a bit.

The Jets are looking really good right now with a playoff spot in clear sight, and we are really excited, so much so, that as day grew on, we had a really hard time maintaining our focus! :p

From everybody at Metric Marketing… GO JETS GO!