A content management system (CMS) helps you make changes to your website without having to learn complex technical skills. There are many factors to consider when choosing a CMS because a business typically uses the same CMS long-term. Choosing the wrong one will end up costing the business a lot of money to switch systems in the future.

As an example, WordPress would be the most common choice for a small or medium business. Approximately 40% of all websites are hosted on WordPress, which speaks to the company’s credibility. With that many sites being hosted, the company has a wide variety of themes, plugins, and external help if needed. If you are unsure of which CMS to use, WordPress is the most commonly recommended choice.

That being said, WordPress is not a perfect solution. The ecommerce businesses that have thousands of products will need something more robust, such as Shopify or Magento. If you are planning on building a complex web application, a CMS is likely not the most effective solution.

Think about who will be using the CMS system most frequently and for the longest periods of time. Some systems have a more complex interface that will make them difficult to use. If you have a non-technical staff, then a more straightforward system will be helpful. A more robust solution that has a complex interface will likely lead to more issues and a frustrated staff.

Think of which features are important to you. Will you need ecomerce? Membership areas? Multilingual content? Before you start evaluating options, list out what you need. Some CMS platforms excel at some tasks and struggle at others.

Security is important. WordPress and other popular CMS platforms are targeted oftne because they are the most commonly used. That does not mean they are the most insecure, it does mean that they need to be updated and proper security practices need to be followed. Small, obscure, and likely less secure CMS platforms may have less hacker targeting but often have smaller communities to find and address security issues.

Look at costs in the long run, especially if the CMS platform is Subscription based. Some CMS platforms are free to use, but charge for additional features, while others have no additional costs but charge.

What are your long term goals and plans? Will you be expanding your business internationally? If you are, you need to select a CMS that offers you long term capabilities. It is often a lot more expensive to start off with a basic platform and have to redo everything down the line, than it is to select a good platform to begin with.

Avoid picking a CMS just because it is trendy or new. Older platforms have more development experience and a proven track record. Although new options look interesting and appealing, they could be missing vital tools or have undiscovered security problems.

Some believe that keyword research is dated, due to Google being able to better understand content, but that is untrue. Research is more important now, as it provides insight into what prospects wish to learn and how they wish to learn it.

Customers do not search as you think they do. Business owners apply industry-specific jargon that their clients do not use. You may consider it “bespoke software solutions,” but your customers will search for “custom business software”. If you focus on the wrong terms, you will create content that will not be discovered.

You may be asking yourself the wrong questions. If many people are searching for, \”why is my website slow?\” There is likely interest in that subject and background research provides the relevant high-quality content that users are searching for.

If you are creating content for a search term that has a high quantity of search, but is so competitive that you have no chance of ranking for it. Keyword research helps you find an average for selecting the correct terms.If done properly, long-tail keywords are usually your best bet at finding business opportunities while searching the web. These can range from very specific search terms such as, “web designer for small businesses in Manchester” compared to broad search terms such as, “web designer.” Although the search terms can obtain different volumes of info, the specific search terms are more business geared. The general search term will most likely not turn into business whereas the specific search term will.

One of the most important components of web design is understanding the search intent of your audience. With the example of searching “web design,” the audience can have a variety of different intents. They can want to learn more about it, they may want some inspiration for a web design they are wanting to create, or they may want to hire a web designer to do it for them. From your example, “web design agency near me,” there is a search term with a clearly defined intent. The person searching is looking to hire a web design agency and are located near the searcher.

When doing keyword research, it should not be a surprise when a search analyst of your competitors yields some content gaps. For example, there may be some content that is very high search volume, yet there are very few high quality pieces of content that are addressing the search. This is an opportunity for you to create a high quality piece of content and potentially rank well even in the presence of large competitors.

When doing keyword research, it is important to understand your competitors and obtain knowledge from the keywords they are ranking for in order to get traffic. If there are keywords that are implementing the certain keywords you have not thought of, that’s valuable knowledge and informational research you should understand. After doing the research, you should make the decision to either target those specific keywords or find different keywords that have been overlooked by your competitors.

Keeping on top of keyword research is tough, and is not a one time task. Search trends constantly change, new questions come up, and seasonal shifts result in different lookups. You have to keep adjusting your keyword strategies and in turn, your content plans.

Your homepage sits at the top of your site’s hierarchy. From there, you should have clear categories that branch out logically. Each main section should be accessible from your primary navigation, and related pages should link to each other.
Internal linking is crucial for site structure. When you link from one page to another on your own site, you’re telling Google that both pages are related and that the linked page is important. The more internal links a page receives, the more important Google thinks it is. Your most important pages should be linked to frequently from throughout your site.
Keep your URL structure simple and descriptive. A URL like “yoursite.co.uk/services/web-design” tells everyone exactly what’s on that page. A URL like “yoursite.co.uk/page?id=12345” tells nobody anything. Clean URLs help with rankings and make your site easier to navigate.
Avoid going too deep with your page hierarchy. If a page is buried five clicks away from your homepage, it’s going to struggle to rank well. Important pages should be accessible within three clicks from your homepage. This keeps ranking power flowing to pages that matter and ensures visitors don’t get lost.
Breadcrumb navigation helps with site structure too. These little trails showing “Home > Services > Web Design” help users understand where they are on your site. Google uses breadcrumbs to understand your site structure as well, so they serve a dual purpose.
Orphan pages – pages with no internal links pointing to them – are a problem. Google might not even find these pages, and if it does, it won’t rank them well because your own site isn’t treating them as important. Make sure every page is linked to from at least one other page on your site.
Your site structure should reflect what matters to your business. Put your most important services or products at the top level of navigation. Don’t hide valuable pages in obscure corners of your site and expect them to rank well.

Creating effective content is more than adding the right keywords to help it rank. You are looking to build content that will help people on their search journey, answering their inquiries, and adding vale that is not commonly found elsewhere.

Begin with understanding the search intents of the users. Don’t guess, leverage keyword tools to obtain the inquiries users are searching and the keywords they are typing.

Length is also a differentiating factor, not when it is poorly written because a 2000 word document will not rank better than a 600 word document that is clear and concise. However, there are times when a subject warrants a more detailed explanation in order to be properly ranked. Take a look at what is currently ranked for your keyword and assess the depth of coverage they provide.

Clear titles and first paragraphs set the stage for the rest of your piece. If a reader’s question is not immediately answered, they are going to find a different web page. This is called a bounce rate, and high bounce rates negatively impact your website’s ranking by telling Google your content is irrelevant to the user.

Subheadings are great for organising your content, but they should not be vague. “The Benefits of a Website SSL” is far less effective than, “Why Your Website Needs SSL.” This latter example gives a clear summary of what to expect in the paragraph, and as a result, is a better-organised and easier to navigate piece of writing.

It’s also important to keep your content fresh. An article or blog piece detailing strategies for social media marketing from 2018 is almost certainly going to be inaccurate or missing important recent strategies. Google prioritises updated content, and while you don’t have to rewrite your entire piece, try to keep your content accurate and reasonable with the times.

Don’t write for search engines first. If a reader’s experience with your content is poor because you burned through valuable phrases trying to hit a word count, the search engine will also see a poor quality piece and will stop ranking your content. Write a piece for whoever your target reader is, and then optimise it for a search engine.

If you are going to quote something, provide the citation. If you are citing statistics, cite where you got the numbers from. Saying something like, “Google said so,” does not help you. If you simply fabricated a statistic, that does not help your credibility. If your content is higher quality and better researched than your competition, Google appreciates it, and will rank your content higher as a result.