Marketing and promoting your business can be a challenging task for even the most business savvy individual or company. Working with our clients, we get to learn what people are looking for and how to help our clients improve their businesses marketing practices. One of the most frequently asked questions I hear from new and existing clients is “How do we update our website”.

Let us simplify web development into two basic structures:

1. Website’s developed with raw source files (HTML, PHP, CSS, ASP, and many more)

2. Websites developed with a Content Management System (CMS)

Sites are usually developed from non-CMS content during the web development. The developer would either use some web improvement tools such as Dreamweaver or Word Press or may even hand codes all the files. Content Management Systems (CMS) is kept in a database. So each page is a set of information from the database which is displayed within the defined look of the site known as the template. Word Press is a preferred CMS to use for a site that is primarily pages of text and images. It allows for anywhere from one to hundreds of pages. More than one person can be allowed to edit these pages. Joomla is often a preferred CMS to use for a membership site or a site requiring more complex functionality than CMS Made Simple. So if you are lucky enough to have a website done in a CMS, you can skip knowledge about HTML. The purpose of HTML commands is to describe the desired layout and presentation of the document. These commands are then interpreted and the result displayed to the user by a web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla or Netscape. This sounds too complicated to an ordinary computer user and that is why users would not like to update websites themselves.

Updating your website regularly with new content related to your industry, you will project a sense of expertise in your area. Let them know of your new products or services. Most people want to know that they are getting solid, factual information from people who know what they are talking about. This builds customer trust and attain reliability image. CMS site are the best for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and as a result Google will reward your site with improved rankings for the efforts you made. If you are worried about your capability of updating your website, apply CMS such as Word Press or JOOMLA, both are great tools that will allow you the flexibility to update your website on the fly.

In a Content Management System (CMS), the text and images for each page known as the content are easily updated by using a web based word-processor-style interface (most look a lot like Microsoft Word). So the site editors do not need to know HTML to make changes. They can update the site from anywhere with an internet connection as long as they have a username and password. Updating your own website through CMS is as simple as your capacity to manage a Face Book account. This may be as little expensive during the development process but the amount you have invested is worth it in the long run. If you are just in the initial stage of building your website, your briefings and training should be included in the developer’s overall package to keep you abreast of what is expected and what is going to happen. If you have updated your site in a couple of times, the rest are going to be a lot easier.

Joomla training is provided to each of Judge Media's customers who have their sites designed on the Joomla CMS platform.  You will learn how to maintain your own professional level site in no time.