Hope you had a Happy Christmas and having a great new year!
The heading above is not about the bankers helping themselves to the country’s public assets, but more about how new developments will impact businesses online .
Doesn’t seem that long ago since the buzz phrase was Web 2.0 and the exponential growth of social networking -both have now become the central technologies in web communications and marketing. Yes, we’ve come so far in such a short space of time.
I’ve spent some time over the past few months reflecting on how this has impacted on existing client’s websites. In terms of web development there is no doubt that the ’static’ website (a site that isfunamentally HTML based and is rarely updated) are definitely a thing of the past.
However search engines can easilycrawl HTML based sites, so we shouldn’t panic!. In fact achieving that elusive high page ranking the same principles still apply:
- Clearly defined page structure through the site
- quality and quantity of backlinks
- quality and quantity of content
- regular updates
- longevity etc etc
The major player in recent changes has to be the availability open source CMS systems (content management systems, blogs, social networking sites etc etc). Their common architecture allow users to publish content as easily and effectively as possible.
A Change in Algorithm
I got the feeling Google was chasing its tail for a while to try and finger where the good content was. We know Twitter, Facebook et al are the main market leaders in the Social networking arena, but if we implement the right website arcitecture we can make our own websites much more relevant, lively and interesting .
Yes,if you have not guessed yet I am hinting about updating old sites to CMS (Content Management Systems) and losing the conventional web page update methods - why go to all the hassle of tinkering with code when updating pages can be as easy as typing an email?
The biggest hurdle to overcome is in making the change. There are a whole array of open source systems availble all offering mind blowing array of tools. But unless our content is changing regularly why should we bother ?
One of the main reasons is our customers -we all need new clients as well as our ‘regulars’ but lets face it, why should anyone come back to your site if they visited once before and it hasn’t changed. (incl Google?).
Traffic
Probably the biggest reason for making the move to CMS is to do with ‘real time’ updating, i.e., keeping your site up to date and relevant with whats happening in your business on a day to day basis. This is particularly important as Google moves towards indexing its search data so that it reflects what is happening daily (http://www.google.co.uk/trends).
Google has recognized it needs to notch up its performance by reflecting what is happening much more quickly, and crawling the latest hot topics and trends on social networking networking sites as well as conventional sites.
Before we start deleting old content from our sites I should reiterate that old content is not necessarily bad – its badly written or irrelevant content that need to be dumped or rewitten. Again a good CMS will make the whole process of archiving the not so hot ’hot’ topics and help you to easily organize the structure of you site, making best use of the most recent and relevant content.
Summary:
He are a few quick tips for this year:
if you think your site needs to plays an important part in your business think seriously about a CMS if you haven’t already implemented one
- Think less about the visual aesthetic design and more about the clarity usability and simplicity of your site
- content relevance rather content permanence
- Make a serious effort to look at the role social networking (Youtube, Twitter etc) can play in your business communication and marketing
- Tap the knowledge of those already ‘in the know’ and learn from their experience – and mistakes!
Because the web is such a powerful and massive business medium we ignore what is happening at our peril.
One thing we can guarantee this year is a rapid shift in the way Google operates , so if you are think your site is lagging behind perhaps now is the time to start rethinking your approach, perhaps remodelling your site and to indulge in a Twitter or two!
