Archive for the ‘content management systems’ Category


Your Website as a Broadcast Platform

Posted by jeb on August 26th, 2009

I started to hit on this idea in my last blog about how much to pay for a website and it seems to resonate with some people so I wanted to pull the idea out and expand on it here.

In our experience most companies have starter websites- basically a brochure on the web. It’s a destination. Maybe you find it via a search for the company name but not much else. All the visitors know something about the company or they wouldn’t be there. A “preaching to the choir” website. A website that exists only because you “have” to have a website.

The problem is that this kind web presence is almost worthless and will do nothing to grow your company. In fact it may be hurting it.

The few that find their way there wonder how legitimate your company is if you don’t have a “real” website.

So what is a “real” website?

A real website is a broadcast platform. Here’s some of the characteristics of broadcasting website:

Social Media- when you add a blog it automagically updates your company’s Twitter account, and other services, with a link to that blog.
RSS- your site’s RSS feed is being pulled in by other blogs and services like Google Reader.
Google loves you- a search engine friendly site will rank for many competitive keyword searches.
You site is easy to update- so you look forward to adding new pages and content which only brings more traffic. (don’t get me started on the importance of a good Content Management System!)
Your site listens- lets users leave feedback, comments and generally interact in a playful way.

The function of a website is changing. If “content is king” then a website’s job is to broadcast that content across the web’s many platforms.

The companies that invest in content broadcasting sites will win search, traffic and eventually the customer.

Posted in content management systems, social media | 2 Comments »

Easily Approachable and Quite Deep

Posted by pj on July 10th, 2009

Seth Godin writes

“There are very few products, services or organizations that are simultaneously easily approachable and quite deep. That’s an opportunity for you if you can figure out how to be both, but choosing just one is a more likely scenario. So, which are you?”

It’s a good question, here’s how I would answer:

The web seems really complicated but not to me. I just see it as a series of decisions that require particular expertise to do correctly. The best decision is the one that makes the next one seem more apparent. There is never going to be one person who is right about everything all the time. What’s important in doing a web site, or marketing strategy, or making any series of decisions is to make each one as close to right as you can so the next one is clearer.

We do that by first and foremost attracting the top talent in the region. Then we challenge them to do more, to understand the implications of these important decisions. Then we provide what we hope to be the top level of customer service for our clients.

The results are clear to me, some are big and some are small. I take a small amount of pride in knowing that we are growing while other web companies are going out of business or shrinking. But what I take the most pride above all is the relationships that I have built with those in the box with me, and the way we extend it to our clients. Of the huge number of sites we have helped produce, 99% of them are still online exactly as we launched them.

Key to our growth is the way we have extended our services beyond designing and programming websites. It is a complete array of services our clients need, and some they don’t. That’s the real Small Box difference right there, whatever people think they know about us, there is more.

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Posted in Everything Else, content management systems, culture, design, indianapolis, marketing, pay per click, search engine optimization, sem, seo, smallbox, technology, usability, web design, web development | 1 Comment »

Good CMS = Fresh Content = Great SEO = Real Growth

Posted by jeb on July 28th, 2008
First off let’s not assume everyone knows what SEO and CMS means.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically this means optimizing your website so that search engines love you and your content.

CMS stands for Content Management System. A CMS allows the owner of the site, you!, to easily add, edit and delete content on the site. That means text, images, blogs, videos, pages, etc.

So why do you need a good CMS to get great SEO? The reason is simple, search engines love fresh content. If you aren’t regularly updating your site you are essentially sending a message to the search engines, and your visitors that says “I don’t care about this website and therefore I don’t care about you”. I know that seems a little harsh but it’s true.

Imagine you owned a record store and never had the newest releases. Sure, some people might want to come by for a while to check out your old inventory but eventually your traffic would dry up with no new inventory. The same goes for your website. You need to constantly feed your site with fresh content or your visitors, and eventually your business, will dry up.

But if you get in the habit of adding fresh content on a weekly or even daily basis then you will be pleasantly surprised by the increase of traffic and interest from search engine generated leads. I personally prefer blogging since you can post little blogs like this one and Google will quickly index it for search keywords and start driving traffic your way.

So if you are serious about using the web to grow your business, and who isn’t these days, then make sure your website has a robust and easy to use CMS. And then make sure you use it on a regular basis. You will not be disappointed with the results.

Here’s a great article by Rand Fishkin about the importance of an SEO friendly CMS.

Posted in content management systems, search engine optimization | 1 Comment »

What is a Content Management System and Why Your Website Needs One

Posted by jeb on June 13th, 2008
Sometimes we can lose the forest for the trees so I thought it might make sense to get back to basics. What is a Content Management System (CMS)? Simply put a CMS allows you (yes you!) to easily update content on your website. It means that you don’t have to pay us to make changes. It means that you can have fresh content on your site daily if needed. This is increasingly important. Why? Because Google and other search engines love fresh content. If you haven’t updated your site in a month, a year or even years then Google can rightly assume that you aren’t using the web to communicate.

Think of it this way, if there are 40 minnows in a bucket you will pass up the ones floating on the top and go for the ones that are active. Google is the same, it wants to put the active sites on the first page of results.

So an easy to use (and that is critical) CMS has many side benefits besides the cost savings of not having to pay a web firm to update your site. It also greatly improves your ranking for important keyword searches on Google and other search engines.

All of our websites are built with a proprietary Content Management System we developed in-house and then customized to each client’s needs. Our goal is to enable companies to easily update and manage their websites without having to come back to us for help.

Posted in content management systems, web development | No Comments »

What the Indiana Earthquake Taught Me about Search Engine Rankings in Google

Posted by ben on April 18th, 2008

The 5.4 magnitude Indiana earthquake woke me up this morning around 5:30. I’ve lived in L.A. for three years, so I’m used to the sensation. I always think at first that an earthquake is a bus, dumptruck, garbage truck or other large desisel vehicle driving by. Since I didn’t hear anything break, I just rolled over desperate to catch a few more moments of sleep before starting my day. When my alarm went off an hour later at 6:30 I was curious to confirm that it really was an earthquake I had felt. So, I powered up my laptop and Googled “indiana earthquake”. Sure enough there at the top of the listings was a news report from a southern Michigan news station about the earthquake. From the article I learned the exact time, location and magnitude of the quake.

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) lesson I learned from this is that Google absolutely loves fresh content. The page that was listed number one didn’t have the strongest link profile, but it definitely had the freshest content.

I recently read a Popular Mechanics interview with one of Google’s search engine gurus, Udi Manber. In it he discussed how Google gives special weight to freshness as part of their efforts to provide the most relevant search results:
“The query was, New York Times address. And you would think you’d understand the query, and the first result right there on the snippet gives you The New York Times. It turns out that’s not what the user was looking for. They were looking for an address given out by a New York Times reporter the day before. And because of this diversity and because of our emphasis on freshness and highlighting fresh results, that particular address appeared somewhere in the results, and that’s what the user wanted—that’s what they went to and got the result.”

Having read this interview just a couple days ago, I was pretty confident I would get the news I needed when I Googled ‘indiana earthquake’ this morning. I was really impressed that in less than an hour, Google had crawled, indexed and appropriately ranked the freshest content.

So, how can you take advantage of the fact that Google loves fresh content? Two of the best assets you can have to keep fresh content on your site is an easy to use Content Management System (CMS) and a blog that feeds to your home page. The CMS will allow you to easily update content throughout your site; a blog that feeds to your home page will help you to post a steady stream of topical and relevant content to your site and most importantly to your home page.

Posted in content management systems, google, internet marketing, search engine optimization, seo | 3 Comments »