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What are Content Management Systems (CMS)?

12/22/202410/25/2023 by scmarketing

How Can CMS websites help your business grow?

One of the most effective ways to achieve great online presence is through the development of a website that efficiently communicates your brand values and offers potential customers a seamless browsing experience.

Content Management Systems websites provide small business owners with a way of easily managing and updating content on their website. This helps streamline website modifications and helps to free up precious time.

Here, we explore what Content Management Systems software is, and how CMS websites can help your business grow.

What are CMS websites?

Content Management Systems (CMS) websites are platforms that allow non-technical users the ability to manage, modify, and publish digital content on their website.

CMS websites allow for the separation of a website’s design from its content, which makes it easy for business owners or employees to update their website without the need for extensive coding knowledge.

WordPress is the most popular CMS platform software used today, offering affordable and easy-to-use tools and plugins.

With CMS, it’s a lot easier to modify design templates such as colours, fonts and layouts to match your brand image and enables you to publish engaging content quickly.

What are the benefits of having a CMS website for my business?

For small business owners who are short on time and capital, CMS provides significant advantages, from reducing the time required for updates to increasing the efficiency of the website maintenance process.

With simplified access to websites, changes can be made quickly. This allows for new content to be uploaded regularly and enables businesses to share fresh and engaging material that matches their brand voice.

CMS also offer plugins that make scheduling and publishing content effortless, ensuring that your customers enjoy a seamless browsing experience each time they visit your website.

CMS solutions offer a greater level of control over your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO). You can optimise your website for search engines by adding meta tags, descriptions and relevant keywords which all help to make your website more visible in search engine results pages (SERPs).

How do I choose the right CMS platform for my business?

As a small business owner, choosing a CMS platform requires careful consideration. There are different CMS platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix – all of which offer different features, pricing, support, and scalability.

WordPress is perhaps one of the most popular platforms today offering scalability and a more customisable approach to website development.

You may want to begin by defining your website goals and technical requirements like the number of web pages or capability of plugins needed.

Once you have defined your requirements, you can select a platform that offers the capabilities that align with your business goals.

Web design consultants

This is where you may want to work with a website design and development agency. A team of professional experts can take your design ideas and business goal requirements and create the website for you.

The web developer can then provide training so that you can add content yourself moving forward. This way you will have a modern, visually stunning, on brand fully optimised and mobile friendly website that is easy to navigate for your web visitors and search engines alike.

You will have a great platform to then create and add content yourself, at your own pace and within your cost and time constraints.

Professional websites for business growth

Content Management Systems (CMS) websites can be useful for small business owners who want to create a professional website quickly and easily with the opportunity to manage it in the future.

CMS platforms provide enhanced functionality, search engine optimisation and website manageability. These websites offer an excellent alternative to traditional website development, making it easier for small business owners to build and maintain their businesses online.

When choosing a CMS platform, business owners may want to consider technical requirements, scalability, pricing, and the level of support options available. With the right approach, CMS can be a crucial element in helping your business grow online.

Talk to our team of web design experts about what may be the right platform for your business.

5 steps to utilise your CMS for SEO

08/19/202210/20/2021 by scmarketing

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a major, ongoing task for any website, and making sure your website is structured and formatted correctly to achieve the best search ranking possible is extremely important.

Luckily, if your website utilises a Content Management System (CMS), you can use its built in features to make sure you are using the best SEO methods.

Here are 5 ways to make sure your CMS website is improving its rankings.

1. Control the URL for every page

The automatic URL a CMS creates for web pages on your website won’t always be formatted in a way that search engines can read. Ultimately you want the URL to tell search engines what’s on the page. However, a CMS website will allow you to manually create the URL for each page, so you can be sure that it contains specific keywords to highlight what the content is per page. This will the help search engines, such as Google, understand the context of your page, which will better inform how it should be ranked. The URL name is always going to be important – it’s a key factor in creating web presence.

2. Complete metadata

Metadata is incredibly important for also letting search engines know what is on a web page. This includes the meta title and description.

A CMS website provides the capability to define the metadata manually for each page, helping you tell the search engine about your content and the ability to add in keywords where possible.

3. Set up redirects

Creating redirects from one URL to another is something that a CMS website will let you do. This makes sure anyone trying to access a page which has changed its URL will be sent to the right place.

This is especially helpful following a website redesign, which often uses new URLs for new content. Setting up redirects from an old URL to the new URL will make sure the search engines don’t find any broken links and penalise you for this.

4. Broken links

Links to pages that have moved or changed can impact your search engine ranking. So, regularly reviewing CMS reports and fixing issues with broken links is essential to make sure you’re getting the best SEO value.

5. Dynamic sitemap

A site map is a page that lists and links to every page of your website. This is essential for search engines to be able to index all your website’s content. A CMS site provides easy functionality for automatically creating and updating dynamic sitemap using XML or HTML. By using this feature, you can ensure that search engines are always able to access your content and understand your site’s structure.

Web design Croydon

If you use the CMS features you are providing search engines with all the right information so that they can index the pages on your website. This allows you to focus your attention on creating great quality and engaging content.

We provide web design services for local businesses in the Croydon area, creating responsive, optimised, CMS websites. This gives a lot of flexibility for future blog uploads through to ad hoc landing page creations for new products or services.

Book a meeting with us or take advantage of our free website review to see how your website is performing.

5 questions to ask your web design company

12/22/202406/17/2020 by scmarketing

Now is a great time to be updating your website to improve your online presence and make sure you’re ticking all the boxes for what your leads and clients are looking to find.

So, we’ve compiled 5 questions on what you need to ask your web design company when you look to take that step and update your website.

1. CMS

Ask your web designers about a Content Management System (CMS) website such as WordPress. This means that once the website is built, and with a little training, you can manage the upload of content yourself. Basically, you want to have control to be able to add content once your website has been created.

So, ask your website designer and developer what access you will have and if it can be a CMS website. If you go to a web developer, you are likely to have the website handed to you after completion to handle yourself and manage the day to day upload of content into the future.

If you work with a digital marketing agency you can ask them to quote for services once the website is live such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and content marketing such as writing blogs and handling Social Media channels.

2. Be responsive and optimised

Make sure your website is responsive. What do we mean by that? It means websites can change structure depending on what device you are viewing it on. For example this means when you look at a website on your mobile phone you can view it as you would on a PC.

Google certainly ranks a website if it is mobile friendly so it will help you in search. With 60% of searches made on a mobile device, being mobile friendly is not a nice to have, it’s essential.

You also should be aware of Meta Descriptions, Alt Tags and H1/H2 headings. A web designer can provide you with simple training on this once your website has been developed. But, as it’s being developed, they should have already implemented these on the content and images already uploaded for you.

3. Integration

Sales and
marketing go hand in hand. A website is at the core of your inbound marketing
campaign as any marketing you do you want to lead your prospects back to your
website.

So, make sure that your professional web design has the same consistency look and feel as any other sales and marketing you conduct. Therefore, there needs to be cohesion between email marketing, social media, Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, marketing automation and CRM. You need to align channels so that your clients and prospects have a smooth sales journey.

4. Be secure and compliant

Most CMS provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe
against hackers. Unfortunately, with web robots (automated programs) checking
thousands of websites a second for weaknesses to exploit the owner it’s
important to do as much as you can to make your website safe. Talk through the
options with your web developer such as the SSL certificate and captcha forms
for your website.

Ensure you have a privacy policy in your footer. This can
be transferred from your current site but if your site is old, you may not have
this up to date. So, ask your web developer if they have a template you can
use. They should have an example template to hand to help you.

5. Talk design

Don’t be afraid to talk about how you want the website to look. While you are employing an expert, the look and feel of the website still needs to fit with your brand vision. Choose to work with a web designer or agency that you feel understands your company goals and what you want to achieve from the site. It needs to be tailored to you.

Your web developer needs to be a collaborative partner. Here’s some pointers to remember when you talk through the design. It’s not just about the site looking good but about practical needs to ensure a well optimised website.

Be image led: Ensure that images will be incorporated into your design. If you need new imagery, you may need to agree up front whether you need to pay extra or if images are included in your quote.
Don’t be afraid of white space on your website. It aids site navigation and is easy on the eye.
Add bold calls to action buttons throughout the website.
Agree up front the site navigation. Ensure that it’s easy for visitors to move around the site.

Ask your web developer to create a wire frame of the design. This way, after you have had your initial discussions, the designer will create a mock up allowing you to see the overall look of the homepage and a typical page on the website.

Website design Croydon

Improving your website can help user experience and, in turn, generate more quality leads. By creating a website and content tailored to your audience will help you with your overall inbound marketing strategy. If you’re embarking on a new website or looking to refresh your current one, hopefully these tips have given you some steer to help you create a fantastic experience for your clients and prospects.

Smart Cow Marketing is a web developer in Croydon, London. Our expertise in website design and development means we can provide you with a brand-new bespoke website or provide advice on ways to update your current site.

Get in touch to talk about your web design requirements.

8 website tips specific for Accountants in London

12/22/202403/17/2020 by scmarketing

With the top 15 accounting firms in the UK based in London having a strong online presence is key, this means having a website that focuses on the USPs of your practice. This is not only important to attract new clients but also to retain your current client base.

So, we’ve gathered a few top tips on what accountants should consider for their website. Whether you’re looking to refresh what you have or wanting a brand-new website, here’s some thoughts for accountants to factor into their digital marketing strategy.

SEO

Search engine marketing is critical; you want to be found online when clients search for your business. Therefore, a well optimised website is the first trick of the trade. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) takes time but some essentials to cover off with your web developer will be:

Make sure images are the right size and you have completed the alt tag on the backend
Complete your H1, H2 headers etc., this helps search engines work out the theme of the page to return the right answers to the searcher.
Complete your meta descriptions – this neat little paragraph is what is read when you search online.

Easy navigation

Review your current site map and if you’re starting from scratch make sure that it’s clear and call to actions are bold. Be obvious about what you’re asking a visitor to your site to do. Is it easy for them to find your list of accounting services? Help them move around your website with ease. On top of being clear and concise it shows good customer service for anyone visiting your site.

Blog

As an accountancy firm, you probably think that a blog isn’t relevant to you. Think again! If you don’t have a blog or news page, now’s the time to introduce one.

If you already have a Content Management System (CMS) this should be relatively easy to add to your menu. The importance of this page is that it’s a great place to keep content fresh on a website and search engines like new content.

Content marketing

You need to be thinking about content that will be useful to your potential customers that they start to use you as a go to site for information. Go into detail about the services so people understand whether this is something they should have and this also has a great effect on search results too. Talk about key accounting deadlines in the year, remind people of them too. Also keep them up to date with latest changes to legislation and tax rules. Content can be published in the form of blogs, email campaigns, website pages, or social media marketing (for accountancy marketing LinkedIn would be a appropriate platform to you.).

Be image led

Business owners may think this isnot relevant for an accountancy firm. But images are a key part in any digital marketing campaign. Why? They not only create stand out, but they provide consistency to create a holistic marketing campaign. A good mix of images and video placed on your landing pages alongside your content and relevant keywords really brings a webpage to life. Plus, you can repurpose your images to share on social media to really help your posts stand out.

And, if you follow our tips about optimising your images then it helps with search engines finding your site.

Understand what your website visitor wants

Downloadable information such as ebooks or forms to complete to be added to an email database are great ways to know what your visitor is interested in for when you next engage with them. This helps to build rapport and to move them through your pipeline from lead to client.

We’re a hubspot partner firm and would be able to guide you through the benefits of a lead generation Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for your marketing services so your firm can prevent data silos allowing different teams the ability to see what’s in the pipeline to work effectively on leads and to grow existing clients.

Be safe

Most CMS provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe against hackers. Unfortunately, with web robots (automated programs) checking thousands of websites a second for weaknesses to exploit the owner it’s important to do as much as you can to make it safe. Talk through the options with your web developer such as the SSL certificate and captcha forms for your website

Free website review

Smart Cow is a digital agency for accountants. This is just a small overview of digital marketing for accountants in London. If you have questions about online marketing or would like a free website review which will highlight any areas that may need work on, get in touch.

8 Tips to improve marketing for accountants in London

Where can I find the best web designer in Croydon