In 1998 Google changed the face of internet search engines. The two guys, who started google, sat down and asked themselves how can we make a better search engine. They changed the landscape of IT forever by believing that RELEVANCE was more important than keywords and meta data (these still are useful).

Relevance, they decided was a factor of two main things; who linked to your site, the more links the more relevant you must be. And did your site contain fresh and new content.

When Google robots/spiders scan your site, they are looking for relevance. How many people are linked to your site, how fresh is the content on your site.

Backlinks create RELEVANCE. So the more links you have on other peoples sites pointing to your site, the more relevant you site is, and you will organically float to page one search results.

One Super Easy Way to create Backlinks.  As well as the Blog that's integrated into your website (creating Fresh Content and therefore RELEVANCE). Make sure you POST any blog entry you create onto an External Blog, and make sure there is a LINK back to your website site.

Click here for an Example

A Second Super Easy Way to Create Backlinks. Is to make sure you include a link back to your website, when you are commenting on someone else's blog.

A question I often get asked is "how can I add new content and menus to my website, without having to pay my web developer all the time?"

We call this - "Being held Hostage, by your web developer"

The simple answer is get a website built using an Open Source Content Management System (CMS). And MOST importantly get your web developer to Train you in using it.

Word Press and Joomla (which we use) are really easy to use. I teach my customers to use Joomla in 1 hr. 

One hour of training and they can add as many articles (pages) and menus as they like to their new website.

Don't settle for anything less

Selecting a web developer can be a difficult choice. Here are my top 5 tips for making that choice easier.

1. Will they build your website using a CMS. These days it's imperative they do.
2. Will they train you to use the CMS. 1 hour of training on creating menus and content will save you a lot of money down the track
3. All CMS's use Templates to create the look and feel - don't be fooled when they tell you how much time it's going to take to develop your custom template. Which may actually be the case (see next point)
4. If you want your website developed quickly and more cost efficiently - use a standard template and get it customised rather than getting a template built from scratch
5.  Choose a platform that is going to grow with your business, see my previous post about choosing a CMS

Some Bonus Tips

• Does the developer install any security modules to prevent hacker access to the backend administration
• Does the developer install any backup software
• How is your site going to be backed up. DON'T rely entirely on your web hosting company

There are a number of content management systems available in the market place. Up until a few years ago most of these were proprietary and cost vast sums of money to purchase and install.

The Open Source community has developed three great CMS products. Each of them is FREE. And many different developers from around the world work together to improve them.

Building a website is like building a house, you need foundations, wiring, plumbing, frames, trusses, windows and a roof. Then you need to plaster the walls and paint them and put all your furniture into the house and arrange it the way you want.

The three main CMS's available today are

My personal favourite is Joomla, it's what I develop in. I can develop simple small website (very quickly and easily) through to large corporate website requiring customised application development. And in an hour I can teach people what they need to know in order to self manage their content and menus