Does your client really need a content management system?

A client challenged us the other day, and it was intriguing. Our Web site redesign project scope of work clearly indicated that a content management system was not included in the budget. Our client never said he wanted it in all the preliminary scope conversations.

Suddenly he called and seemed adamant that he wanted a content management system. He said that his current understanding was that all sites now are published using a database.

We promised to assess and get back to him the next day. We probably spent about 12 man hours of due diligence to evaluate what we knew about the client’s business so far, evaluate what content publishing they currently do, forecast the frequency of their publishing, consider the stakeholders, and assess software and custom programming solutions. All of this was eventually distilled into a one page slide for the client.

We called the client and laid out for him the reasons why a Content Management System might not be right for him at this point and what we felt was the higher priority to invest his budget in.

Fifteen minutes later, he was enthusiastic, agreed with our recommendation, and said he appreciated how we thought carefully about his business and his business priorities, rather than trying to sell him on an expensive solutions that might not meet his needs.

Result: client was happy, we came across as concerned and professional, and the project is back on track.

Is a Content Management System right for your project? Here are some points to evaluate:

• Flexibility — Once you commit, there is minimum flexibility after the system is in place. It can be costly to make changes in the future.
• Templates — Consider your needs for the near future otherwise you won’t have the ability to easily modify style or layout.
• SEO friendliness — Will the tool provide functionality to automatically generate code that is SEO friendly? What will you have to do manually? What wont you be able to do?
• Work flow publishing — Carefully define how your team will process, review and publish new content and make edits to existing content. Try to be realistic.
• Permissions — Define roles and capability for contributors, authors, editors, admins. Who has permission to do what and when.
• Training — Users need to be trained, not just initially but everytime a new user joins the organization.
• Expense — The more complex, the more time and money to develop initially. Also, consider long term costs to maintain, such as licensing and hosting.
• Scalability — Think about your long term needs? What will happen in the future if you add new content sections, create language versions, create country versions, etc.?
• Hosting — Will you have to change or upgrade your existing platform?

I hope you find this useful. Please post any additional suggestions.
Thank you.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Tips how to write a professional blog

In my last article, I wrote about Reasons why you should write a professional blog.

Before setting out to write a professional blog, there are many things you should plan first. Here are some blog writing tips to consider.

Decide why you want to write a professional blog?

Is it for personal satisfaction? To share your professional experience? To demonstrate that you are a subject matter expert?

Pick the subject you want to blog about.

Personal experiences? Observations? Criticizms of your industry? Would you read it?

The best advice always seems to be to write about what you know or what you are most passionate about.

Define the audience you are writing for.

A specific niche? An industry? Your clients? Your colleagues?

Decide what you are willing to invest.

How much time a week will you commit? Do you want to own a domain name? Do you want to host yourself?

Commit to publishing your blog for at least 12 weeks. If you get that far, it should become a matter of routine for you and you’ll know whether you’ll stick it out for longer.

Owning your own domain name and hosting yourself provide more control, but come at a nominal annual cost.

Evaluate publishing tools.

There are plenty of free services to get you started: WordPress, Blogger, Live Journal. Compare features and decide what is appropriate for you.

Define a publishing plan.

Publishing quality content, at minimum once or twice a week, is important to keep your content fresh. That will encourage readers to treat you seriously and search engines to come back regularly.

Create your personal publishing rules.

To appear professional you need to act professional. I’ve decided that my two Web sites each have a specific subject matter and focus. Therefore, every time I write, I try to make sure the article topic fits appropriately. If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t get published.

Get to the point. I try to write with a problem/solution mindset. If I’m writing about someone else’s article, I try to add solutions in addition to what the original author provided. That way I’m truly providing value.

Give credit where credit is due. The Internet is supposed to be a community to share and spark ideas. So cite your sources. Link to the originating article that gave you an idea. Give credit to where ever you got your artwork or tools from.

Keep it clean. While it may be easy to use profanity, step up to the challenge of getting your point across without profanity. That will make you appear more professional.

Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Use the pluggins that your publishing tools comes with. There are an amazing variety of free and open source tools available for you to add functionality and manage your blog. Check out Google Analytics for rhobust site statistics. Learn how to generate a feed and submit to Feedburner, Google Site Maps and Yahoo Site Explorer.

Stay objective. Avoid politics.

Keep politics out of the conversation. There’s no reason to polarize your audience. It’s a cheezy way to stir up controversy.

Don’t be cheezy.

The blog/Web site is an extension of you. Think of it as your personal brand. Don’t include amateur things like site counters, animated email icons, or bad usability and design — all of which discredit you as a subject matter expert. There are plenty of elegant and functional blog themes to choose from and modify with care.

Define how you want to monetize the Web site.

I’d suggest to write to define your credibility as a subject matter expert. Don’t worry about adding AdSense or other advertising. Instead, focus on publishing quality content and developing a subscriber base. Then you can evaluate different methods to run sponsor advertising in the future.

So please let me know your thoughts. It’s been quite a liberating experience. You should consider doing the same. Good luck!
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Reasons why you should write a professional blog

Working at an agency, my clients and colleagues expect me to know how to do just about everything. I believe that in order to be able to talk about something with authority, I have to have practical, hands-on experience in addition to theoretical and anecdotal knowledge.

As a personal experiment for myself, I started to write a professional blog 5 months ago. My reason was to help me understand the ease/complexity and psychology of blogging.

I define a professional blog as a Web site that:
- has focus on a specific area of expertise,
- publishes quality content,
- is relevant and focused,
- is updated frequently (preferably once a week),
- and provides value to the reader.

Along the way, I’ve gained a better appreciation for planning and adapting on the fly. It has forced me to become a bit more disciplined with my work and give it frequent attention.

Perhaps best of all, having direct control over my Web sites has provided me with a test bed for experimenting with many tactics and technologies. (Our clients are rarely willing to experiment.) As a result, I’ve gained a better, hands-on understanding of Search Engine Optimization tactics and analytical tools. I’ve also had to decide how to fight content spammers to keep my posts open for reader input without becoming cluttered with links to obnoxious Web sites.

It’s been quite a liberating experience. I’ve learned quite a lot in a short time. You should consider doing the same. So please let me know your thoughts.

My next article will be “Tips how to write a professional blog.” I hope you’ll come back and check it out.

-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Test your site search engine

Many of the clients we work with have site search engines that fail miserably at the job of making it easy to find content on the Web site. Usually that can be attributed to bad setup and long-term abandonment by the developers and marketers.

I visited the Mobile Marketing Association Web site and found their site search function to be very odd.

The advanced site search explicitly states “Keywords shorter than 5 characters will be ignored”

Well, typical keywords for mobile marketing include: SMS, MMS, WAP, PSMS, TXT, text — all of which are 3-4 characters long. Plus, if a user tries some sort of natural language phrase like “how to …” or “new law” or “opt in rules”, he/she will get the same obnoxious message.

This just struck me as lacking in common sense and not very user friendly.

Marketers, be sure to check out your Web sites. Put a reminder in your To Do list to check it thoroughly, at least once a month. Click on random links. Search for common and obscure terms. Put yourself into the shoes of your user. You might be suprised what you find.

-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Hedgehog advocates bully McDonalds

Hedgehog advocates have successfully bullied McDonalds to change its McFlurry product packaging.

Hedgehogs humble McDonald’s

For five years, hedgehog advocates claim that hedgehogs stick their heads into McFlurry containers and get their heads stuck, and eventually die. Starting this month, the wide-mouth lid is being reduced in size.

“This is excellent, it is long overdue news,” said Fay Vass, chief executive of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. “We have been in touch with McDonald’s about this problem for over five years and are delighted that they have at last solved the problem.”

McDonald’s said in a statement the design change had resulted from pressure from the society which prompted “significant research and design testing” to develop new packaging.

Rather than a campaign (e.g. “Give a hoot, don’t pollute”) to educate consumers not to litter because it harms wildlife and the environment, the British Hedgehog Preservation Society instead targeted the McDonalds corporation.

The source of the problem is not McDonalds. The source of the problem is careless human behavior. Once again, people fail to take responsibility for their own actions. Apparently, the BHPS figured it’s easier to shame a corporation into spending money to change packaging than changing the behavior of 6 billion humans.

Picture of hedgehog stuck in a McFlurry container.

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

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