Web Site Basics: Stuff Beginners Need To Know

Content Management Systems: Custom or Package?

In the previous section, I argued that designers should learn a server-side language. Now I’m going to recommend that you use an alternative language when building your next web site. It’s confusing, I know—bear with me!

Here’s why you should build your next site using as little custom code as possible: wearing the designer hat and the programmer hat certainly gives you a competitive advantage in the web world, but the reality is that most web sites are fundamentally content sites. For these types of sites, a Content Management System (CMS) will suffice.

One of the most difficult challenges in building a web site is ensuring that the client can update it on their own, long after the project has completed. A CMS is key in achieving this goal. While there’ll always be clients who are faster learners than others, it’s also true that some Content Management Systems are much easier to learn for non-technical people than others.

True, there are occasions when the site for which you’re designing might require purely custom code, but on these occasions it’s more likely that the development (and design) will be managed in-house rather than by an external agency. If you’re reinventing the wheel for your client, you should be using a CMS.

There are numerous advantages to using a well-established CMS rather than rolling your own. These include:

• Security: Using a CMS that is being constantly evolved means that with each upgrade comes improvements in the security of the product. These updates may fix previously undiscovered security flaws, adapt to changes in how browsers operate, or add support for upgraded database versions. Writing custom code that’s accessible over the Web without investing any time in the future testing and updating of that code poses a great risk in the security of your client’s web site being compromised.
• Familiarity: There may be no perfect CMS, but there are a finite number of them on the market. If by chance your client has used the same CMS before that you choose for your project, then the learning curve for updating their site will be much lower. This makes good business sense for them, and makes you look good.
• Maintenance and Support: If the code that powers your client’s web site is completely custom, then your client will be more dependent upon you to make any future tweaks or changes than if you used an established CMS. While on the surface this may seem like a cunning way to lock them in for repeat business, such an approach can be harmful to the client-vendor relationship—especially if there are occasions when you’re unable to accommodate their requests in a timely fashion. It makes much more sense to use a CMS for which a thriving community of developers exists, so that your client has an alternative developer to turn to if necessary.

So if building a site from scratch is a no-no, the question then becomes “Which CMS should I use?” This question has caused heated discussions amongst web developers for years, and again the answer is, “It depends.”

Unfortunately, a comprehensive comparison of every available CMS is beyond the scope of this article. There are a huge number of factors to consider. Here’s a sample (this list is merely the tip of the iceberg):

• Does the CMS contain the features necessary for this site?
• Are there any legacy systems with which the CMS needs to interface?
• How big is the development community associated with the CMS?
• Is the client comfortable with using an open source solution?
• What plans are there for expanding the site in the future?

An open source CMS is often perfect for a client whose project budget is limited. Tools such as Drupal, Joomla, eZ Publish, and WordPress are all open source and written in PHP. Each package has its strengths and weaknesses, but all deserve your consideration.

An excellent place to begin researching open source CMS packages is opensourcecms.com. The site provides demos of over 100 open source CMS with which you can experiment without installing anything on your own local machine.

Ranking in Search Engines

Okay, so you’ve launched your site and you’re publishing interesting and unique content every day. Visitors should come flocking in droves, right? Well, if people are unable to find your site, then how would they know that it exists?

If your log files are telling you that only two people are visiting your site every day (and you’re one of them), then you may need to put some effort into optimizing your site for search engines. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an umbrella term that covers how you code your site, what content you publish, how you phrase that content, what URL structure you use, and how well you rank in search engines for various phrases.

The world of SEO continues to be tarnished by stories of online marketing consultants who game Google with unconventional techniques; these trick the Google algorithm into listing their web site higher in the results pages than it probably deserves to be.

The truth, however, is that SEO is an important aspect of any commercial web site, and there are many legitimate techniques that you can, and should, utilize, to ensure that people are able to find your site through a search engine. While it would be impossible to describe how to develop a comprehensive SEO strategy within these pages, if you follow my advice at the start of this article to use HTML instead of Flash whenever appropriate, you’ll be well on your way.

One common misconception is that a web site’s ranking in a search engine is tied to its PageRank. PageRank is a trademarked term used by Google to determine how much authority a web site has. Fundamentally, the way it works is this: the more links to a web site, the more important Google considers that site to be and, therefore, the higher its PageRank.

Realistically, though, the algorithm that determines a web site’s PageRank is a closely guarded secret, and the algorithm itself is constantly changing as the Web grows. Additionally, a web site’s PageRank is only one factor that influences its position in Google’s search results pages. Finally, it’s important to remember that Google is but one of many search engines. Google may dominate the current climate, but this may change in the future. Focusing on Google alone would be a short-sighted strategy.

In the end, a site’s PageRank value (or its ranking using any other metric, for that matter) is meaningless if the site ranks well in results pages for Google and other search engines for the phrases that matter to your client. The key to achieving (and maintaining) success is to continually monitor your site’s traffic using an analytics package like Google Analytics. The insight that this data can provide on how visitors use your site and what keywords they type to find it will be invaluable in shaping the site’s SEO strategy.

A Web Site is a Software Product, Not a Piece of Paper

Accessing the Web has never been easier for end users interested in publishing photos, chatting with friends, and dumping random thoughts for the world to savor, but building a professional web site is as difficult as it has always been.

It’s therefore critical that web designers take the initiative to understand what goes on “under the hood,” or risk their beautiful mockups failing to reach their full potential because of the technology that implements them. By understanding when to choose Flash or HTML, the pros and cons of the various server-side languages, how to select a CMS, and what factors affect a page’s ranking in a search engine, designers will be able to offer their clients a more informed service—and a more successful web site.