Considering the benefits of using content management systems to create website pages provokes me to wonder why more small business owners don’t take advantage of CMS for the creation of their websites. Despite of an intricate technical setup for content management systems, the benefits of using CMS far outweigh the effort needed to put into the setup.

Using a content management system allows the website owner to have more control over the look and content of a well-functioning website. This allows your small business website to rise in most search engine rankings without hiring someone else to add content.

A content management system also allows you to add webpages in plain text which is automatically translated into perfect to near perfect HTML code without errors. Having a website without code errors allows the small business website owner to reap the rewards.

Valid code with no errors eliminates browsers from auto-correcting your code, and having a layout that is not broken may enhance your load time and search engine indexing. Valid code also allows your website to display properly today and on future devices as well.

Valid coded websites are considered accessible to most types of browsers, platforms and screen readers, and websites with valid code tend to become indexed more efficiently by search engines.

Content management systems allow business owners to add content as often as desired to keep their websites up-to-date. By allowing new content to be added easily without hiring a webdesigner, you can invest your time instead of your money to add, edit or delete pages.

Even if you don’t have the time to write content, with a content management system, the option is still there for you to hire someone else to do so. When you use a content management system for your small business website, adding more pages is so easy that you may want to write them on a regular basis.

Knowing that the more pages a website has is a good way to get indexed by search engines could encourage you to add content often. The more subcategories of your business niche that you write about means that your website could be indexed for more page titles and keywords.

You can get traffic to your website if you have an aged domain that could be considered to have more authority than newer websites online. Older websites are usually considered more reliable and trustworthy to search engines.

Another great way to get more traffic to your website and get indexed by search engines is with backlinks from other websites that have a good page rank. You can submit your website to free directories for inbound links, submit your blog to services such as Zimbio and Blogflux, and write articles to get more inbound links to your website. Have a look in the “Resources” section and on my blog about more information on what services I found as some of the best online for your small business website.

Get the professional edge of writing your own website without having to know a single line of code, in perfect to near perfect HTML, translated from plain text, with a custom content management system. Contact me for more information on how I can get you started with your own customized look that is unique and impressive for your small business website visitors.

Roger Degerstrom does freelance custom website design to the latest standards, and offers SEO for small business owners as the “Next Generation in Custom Website Design”.

CodeRepair does small business website design in static or content management systems which allows website owners to add and edit website pages without knowing HTML code at all. I’ve written many websites that have appeared on Google page one for many search phrases in a short amount of time. Have a look at my portfolio profile at: http://www.coderepair.com/custom-website-portfolio.html

There are multiple web design companies offering their custom Content Management Systems (CMS), powerful hosting and search engine optimization services. Every company it trying to win clients by doing something different, but presenting their services as unique, as something that you can’t get anywhere else. And this is good business practice. This is what competitive businesses do.

If you’re not too sure or confused about all these choices – consider building your website using Wordpress. Yes, the same system that is used by millions to power their blogs. The same system that already powers millions of business websites.

There are numerous layouts that you can choose from and if you host your own system (on a separate web hosting account), you can actually modify your template, or even create your own, to reflect the business nature of your website. Normally, the main menu pages are setup as static pages, dynamic news or catalogue items are setup as blog posts. Then you just login to the admin section of Wordpress to create new or edit existing pages.

Why Wordpress?

From my experience in web design and web hosting, I believe that about 90% of small business websites could be managed with Wordpress. It’s a free open source platform that is already utilized by millions of blogs and other websites. When used as CMS, Wordpress is “invisible” – it is solely used for the convenience of maintaining the web site yourself. There are many other reasons, too:

• It is easy to install and maintain
• Most, if not all, hosting companies support it
• It is arguably the most popular blogging platform and therefore it is updated regularly
• It is easy to update with security patches
• It is secure
• It can be used as a blog, website or both
• Search engines love it. They keep on coming back to check for new content
• You can post new pages just by sending an email
• It has a lot of add-ons, also known as “plugins” that developers can utilise without re-inventing the wheel.

While the system is free, there are web design companies that charge for setting up Wordpress websites. Don’t be put out by that. It’s actually a good thing. Instead of using their own CMS and locking clients into long term contracts, these companies use this open sources program to power clients’ websites. What is means that you, the client, can take over the hole maintenance of the site once it’s created, or easily find some other web design company to take over the management.

If you haven’t looked into it, make sure you do. Check it out. You may be surprised how easy it actually is to have a “CMS-based” website that you can easily maintain yourself.

Please visit Potatograss, a company that does Wordpress web design in Perth, and then see how you can register cheap domains in Australia.

The easiest way to create a website is to use one of the free open-source content management systems. Many bloggers choose Wordpress because it has a simpler user interface and beginners need less learning. Joomla is considered to be more complicated and not suitable for beginners. The truth is that for every new system you have to learn something new and the best method is learning by doing. Joomla is universal CMS, you can adapt it for almost any online purpose. If you have no experience with creating websites or content management systems, Joomla has everything needed to make the first steps in online presence. One of the strengths of Joomla is also a great web community. For any problem you may encounter there is some answer on the web waiting for you.

To get first experience and to learn the basic principles of creating web pages it is best to have Joomla installed on your computer. Since typical web CMS is not a desktop application but only a script, you need a special environment to run it. This means Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP processor. You don’t have to install them separately, there are some simple solutions like WampServer or EasyPHP which provide everything needed to run any PHP script. You will also need a database–install phpMyAdmin and use it to create one database and remember its name, username and password. Joomla installation is also very simple, you simply unpack the archive in the www folder and start the installation procedure. You will have to enter the database data and a password for administration. You will also be asked whether to install sample data. You should do it unless you already know Joomla. After the installation is finished you have a working website. You can test it in the browser by entering “localhost” or the address of the computer where you have installed it into the address bar of the web browser.

You will need some time to understand basic principles of CMS and website creation. Simply log in to the administration back-end and check all menus to see what is available there. Try to make some changes and see what effect they have on the website. You should also search web for Joomla tutorials. Again, if you are new to Joomla and web content management systems you will need some time before you will be able to make the website according to your needs and taste. Whenever you have a question or problem simply Google for it. Joomla has a big community of developers and users, every task or problem is already described somewhere.

The author is a big fan of Joomla. One of his latest projects is the http://recordingstudiosoftware.net/ website about music recording software. This website is based on Joomla and includes also few extensions. However, the visitor doesn’t need to know how the website is built or which CMS runs it. This information is only relevant to you as a web developer who should know what is possible and how to do it.

Even if you will later choose to use a different CMS it is a good idea to spend some time playing with Joomla just to find out how easy it is to create a website from scratch. Once you discover the world of webmasters you will only be limited with your imagination. With software anything is possible.

There are many things that a Joomla developer may encounter that seem easy enough to do, but are really not easily answered. As an example, changing the default logo and text for the “offline screen” on a Joomla website seems simple enough, but there are a few questions that need to be answered before you can change either of these. Questions like: where is the offline logo located on the server? How do I download the offline logo? How do I change the text on the offline screen?

The most important part of changing the offline logo and text, is finding where they reside on the server. To locate the logo, right-clicking on the image to get its properties is the easiest way to find out exactly where the graphic is on the server.

Now that you know where the logo is, using an FTP program, go to that location and download the original Joomla graphic. Now open up this graphic and replace the Joomla logo with your sites logo using a graphics program. Replace the graphic file in the same location on the server as the original logo. Make sure that the name of the graphic is exactly the same as the original. With your site offline, reload your front end site offline page. Your logo should replace the previous Joomla logo.

You will also need to find the place in the Joomla configuration settings to change the offline text message. To change the text. Go to the back end administrator area. Go to Site > Global Configuration and then to the Site tab. In the text box marked “Offline Message” put in the message you want to include. It is probably a good idea to include information about why your site is down and when you expect the website to be available. You can also include the site name in the box below. Hit “Save”.

So, finding the answer to your Joomla offline screen problem is not as difficult as it may originally seem. You just need to find the best answer to your immediate problem as easily and quickly as possible. Learning where to look online can be half the problem, finding the right website can save you a lot of valuable time.

Since 1996, Marc Harris has been a principal of a web design firm and has managed site development projects for numerous clients. Marc now works almost exclusively with Joomla and is writing articles about understanding Joomla. You can find more free Joomla video tutorials at 5minutejoomla.com.