W-O-R-D-P-R-E-S-S

If you are considering setting up a business blog, you shouldn’t even consider blogger or also knows as blogspot.    For personal blogs it is fine, even though I still lean on Wordpress, but here are some reasons why:

A) If you host with us, we will set up Wordpress for you for NO Charge! (Just mention this post)

B) With Blogger , you do not own your blog, Google does.  You will have a blog as in joesmoe.blogspot.com.   Notice that the domain is blogspot.com, which is owned by Google.    If you setup in Wordpress (.org), then you own your blog and domain name and everything.

C) You get the entire Wordpress community for free or little charge.  You get to use many plugins and themes and most of them are Free or relatively inexpensive.   With blogger, you simply get what Google gives you.

D) All the top bloggers, use Wordpress.  Thats right, even Google’s own, and one of the leaders in SEO is Matt Cutts.  If he uses Wordpress that should tell you something.  Look at the Source Code for any top blog and most of them are using Wordpress.

In a nutshell, for personal blogs www.blogger.com is fine, but if you are considering blogging for your business, always choose Wordpress.  If you would like more information on customizing your blog then contact us.

In a nutshell:

Wordpress.com is a FREE service that is hosted by and at Wordpress.com.  It is similar to Blogger, which many people refer to as blogspot.com.  You have NO hosting fees, but you are tied down more and cannot install custom themes and custom plugins etc.

Wordpress.org is the main domain for the Wordpress Community.  With Wordpress.org you are basically downloading the latest version of Wordpress and installing with your hosting account.  The software is FREE, but you have to host it yourself at some hosting company that supports hosting Wordpress, as in Webnovate.

Hosting is rather cheap and you have a ton of options with Wordpress.org and you have support from the entire Wordpress.org family.  Wordpress is growing and growing and there seems to be more and more plugins and themes, information, and support.

Wordpress is rather easy to install.  There are a few things you want to do from scratch to help your SEO out as in changing the permalinks.  If you are a non-techy person and want us to install it for you, just give us a shout and we would love to help you out.  If you host with us, then we will set it up for you for FREE.

• Homepage – this page includes a brief intro as well as an embedded slideshow that includes some of the Masterpieces that they have built in the past few years.  It also includes an option to fill out a form to receive a complimentary spotlight DVD that showcases their finest work.

• Theater Room Page –  which includes a custom HD video that Webnovate also made to embed on their website.   We also created these DVD’s in order for Silver Creek to hand out as promotional DVD’s.  Prospective customers can request a free DVD on their website at http://silvercreekllc.com.  (Click on the picture below to see the live page)

• Visionary Page – one of the main components of the Silver Creek philosophy, is Visionary.  If you can envision it in your dream home, they can build it.  Their homes are equipped with things as in theaters, indoor golf simulators, amazing pools, and much more!   This book is a online brochure of the quality homes they build and the core values that Silver Creek encompasses when building custom dream homes.  (Click on the picture below to see the live page)

• New Stand Page – This highlights the various awards that Silver Creek has won and it shows what a solid and and reputable company they are.  They have been featured in many magazine articles and TV shows.  (Click on the picture below to see the live page)

• Masterpieces Page – This page is a slideshow of the custom homes they gave built and shows off the beautiful masterpieces that thier customers now call home.  (Click on the picture below to see the live page)

• Contact Page – this page gives prospective customers the ability to easily request contact information, a free complimentary DVD, or more information about their company.  (Click on the picture below to see the live page)

Webnovate really enjoyed building this website for Silver Creek!  They are very innovative and have excellent taste!  If you are looking for a custom home in Utah, California, Arizona, or Hawaii then we would highly suggest you contact Silver Creek to build your next dream home!

In 2009 we saw a rush in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and it actually became a buzz word.  I would say that it started to become more of a buzz word a few years ago, but in 2009 it was much more common when discussing website needs and it has been adopted into mainstream language.  Many of our customers are realizing the importance of SEO and SEM campaigns and how you can have the best looking site out there, but it doesn’t mean much unless you are getting found in Search engines.  The Yellow pages are slowly dying and Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, and others are the main way that people will find your company.

I would also say that some of the other more popular request were for Content Management Systems (CMS). Webnovate did a lot of work with CMS websites and helped many clients in getting their CMS websites up and running.   Our Customers are amazed at how easy it is to update their own websites and how good they can look.  Our latest was for a non-profit that is rather large in Utah and is for a great cause, www.friendsforsight.org.

Perhaps the biggest change in 2009, was the explosion of Social Networking.  Social Networking  increased dramatically with the popularity of Facebook and Twitter.  While they have been around for a few years, it seems that 2009 was a huge year for these 2 in particular.  It is not uncommon to hear celebrities talking about what they “tweeted” about or their “facebook page”. They can utilized as great tools for any business in many ways, including keeping their friends and customers up-to-date on their services and offers.

So here is to 2010, Webnovate is excited and ready to play around with the latest trends and technologies as that is what keeps our job so entertaining and enjoyable!

Webnovate developed the website below with a full editable Content Management System (CMS) and embedded their Youtube Video on the website.   We also setup an online donation page using Authorize.net in order for prospective donors to contribute to their great cause.   If you would like to dontate to thier cause, please visit their online donation form at http://www.friendsforsight.org/donations/donate/.

Friends for Sight

Don’t forget to donate $2 when you renew your Utah Drivers License and License Plate Tag.

Friends for Sight - Check the Box

If you are in the need for a luxury custom home in Utah, California, Arizona, or Hawaii; contact SilverCreek today!

Content Management Systems (CMS) are a valuable tool to many small businesses.  They offer you the ability to login and edit your webpage without the need for a web developer.

So what is the difference between Custom Web Design and a Content Management System?  They each have their advantages and disadvantages.

Content Management Systems

Advantages:

• They give you the ability to make changes or edit your websites content rather easily without the need to call a web developer.
• They are typically less expensive than custom web design as the “framework” is typically set in place.   The best way to think about this is by using a house as a metaphor.  A house has its framing done and then you go in and decorate or plugin your paint colors, pictures, etc.   With a CMS you have the framework laid out as in different boxes etc.  You then modify the CMS with your companies information, pictures, etc.   There are different “frameworks” that you can work with, but the main point is that each “framework”, as plans to a house, are preset and then you can populate the content.

Here are some examples of our Content Management System and some websites we have developed using it:

Content Management System Example

Content Managment Example

Custom Web Development

Advantages:

• You have the ability to be very creative as you can do pretty much anything you can dream of as things are not predefined.  For example, you can place an image anywhere on the page etc.
• Your website can be as unique as you need and you can focus on all aspects marketing.  For example, you can really get down to targeting your demographic with custom designs that represent your corporate image and tie that into your branding and other marketing avenues.

Here are some recent samples of our Custom Web Design work:

Custom Web Development Example

Custom Web Development Example

Webnovate is a full service Utah Web Design firm.  We offer full realm of options for your small business as each business is different and has different needs.  We provide Content Management System websites as well as Custom Web Design.  We provide a FREE consultation in which we can come meet with you see what woul be best for your company!     Contact us today or fill our our RFP Form to see what we can do for you!

Why WMO?

Many online projects require the skills of creative graphic designers, excellent developers, exceptional project managers, a great hosting company, SEO and SEM campaign management , and much more.  Webnovate is the perfect fit as we have people that specialize in each of these processes.

In todays competive marketplace, your company needs a company that specializes in these services.  With the growth of popular Social Media websites as in Facebook and Twitter, it adds a completely new dimension to your web presence.  You can no longer simply have a website up on the Internet.  You need to utlize these Social Media website and other various tools to increase your traffic on your website.  You also need to tie that traffic into helpful and relevant reports so you can analyze your traffic and inturn, turn that into increase sales.

If your company is looking to outsource your web managment, please feel free to contact us or fill out our Request for Proposal.

The blog serves many purposes for thier clients and their clients can even subscribe to its feed and get emailed with any updates to the blog or new entrys.    However, at the same time they increase their SEO presence as they are gaining a ton of useful content that Google loves!

Try a few Google searches and you will quickly see that they are showing up either number 1 or 2 for many popular searches, including parytland or party supplies in utah.    The key thing to realize is that they are moving up higher and higher and it has only been a few months since we installed this for them.    I have to say, I love when a customer takes the advice and puts it into action.  Many times customers get to busy with other things and they do not put time or effort into their blog and updating it.    We have setup many customers with blogs as we are currently offering a FREE blog with any web design package, yet some are not taking the full advantage of updating it with useful content.

If you would like to learn more about Utah Web Design or setting up a blog for your business, please feel free to contact us for a FREE Proposal!

Permalinks are what you see on a wordpress blog as the URL.    By default, Wordpress blogs appear something like this:

www.example.com/blog/?p=23

What exactly is the ?p=23?  Yeah, well if you don’t know, then you can imagine that search engines do not either.  In order to rank higher and push your SEO to the top, you need to use what many call Pretty Permalinks.    A pretty permalink is basically a way to make your URL have rich keywords in their title.  For example, lets assume you are setting up a blog for a Party Supply Store.    Instead of www.partystore.com/blog/?p=23 you would have the URL as www.partystore.com/blog/best-balloons-for-birthdays.

When a Search Engine sees this they can spider it and see that you are talking about the best balloons for birthdays and not just a random number generated by the blog.

So how do you setup Pretty Permalinks within Wordpress? There is tons of info out on the web, but here is a link that covers setting them up in detail.  http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

One of the biggest problems people might have is that you need to setup your .htaccess file to be writable so you can make this change within Wordpress.   Once that is done, you can modify the Permalink Structure.  To find the setting within Wordpress, just go to Settings, Permalinks.    Note: If you have a blog that has been setup and running for a while, you will need to make sure you install a Wordpress Plugin as in Redirection.

What is the best Permalink Structure for SEO? Well to be honest, I have researched this one for about 1 week straight and the conclusion is:  There is not really a consensus on it, but many people state either solely using /%postname%/ or using the /%category%/ %postname%/.

The reason people state simply  %postname% is that it is keyword rich and shows those words closer in the title.    The reason many state  /%category%/ %postname%/ is because many times your category has those rich keywords.  I think a lot of it depends on things as in how many categories you usually apply to one post as it only takes one.

After deliberating for about 1 week, I choose / %postname%/.   Why?  It gets right to the point with what you are talking about and puts those keywords up nicely in the front of the URL.  However, maybe one of the biggest reasons is, this appears to be what all the SEO Guru blogs are doing.

Here are some of the top SEO blogs that use the / %postname%/ this permalink structure:

Matt Cutts - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Yoast - http://yoast.com/blog/

SEOmoz.org - http://www.seomoz.org/

BlueHatSeo.com - http://bluehatseo.com/

Here are some of the top SEO blogs using the /%category%/ %postname%/ structure:

Grey Wolf - http://www.wolf-howl.com/

SeoPedia.org - http://seopedia.org/

One thing I noted on the solely / %postname%/ structure is that Wordpress has a warning about using this structure, http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Using_only_.25postname.25.

This is further explained in this blog post, http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2009/02/04/efficient-wordpress-permalinks

They would recommend that you use a number to start your permalink structure as in with the %post_id% or %year% as this way Wordpress itself can find the entry faster.  This threw a wrench in the whole decision for me, but to be honest, I had to finally come to the reasoning that if Matt Cutts blog and SEOmoz can survive this currently, my blogs would be able to and by the time I reach their status, there might be a fix for that anyways.

Anyways, in a nutshell, one thing that is 100% conclusive is that, when it comes to pretty permalinks vs. ugly permalinks, always go with Pretty Permalinks.

In conlcusion, what is not 100% sure yet is the best Permalink structure, however it appears that possibly the most popular is the / %postname%/ and second would probably be /%category%/ %postname%/.

I would love to hear what others out there think on this?

Happy Blogging!  :-)