Conversion Rate Web Marketing Blog 

If you’re sick and tired of waiting and paying a fortune for a web designer to update your website, then should you be looking for a content management system?

Here’s a scenario that was recently described by Platform Interactive (Makers of a proprietary Content Management System) boss David Barnes of : “The customer gets sick of paying and waiting each time they want to update their web content, so they ask for a content management system.”

It’s a frustrating and common scenario, and a content management system is often offered as a solution. But, we wonder:

• Is a content management system the only way to update your website minus a web designer?
• Does a content management system represent real value as a solution to this problem?

Is a content management system the only way?

Since a website in any form is just a bunch of HTML files, any HTML editor will do the job. There are literally hundred of them available, many of them free.

Several of our small business customers are now using Microsoft Expression Web (Kudos to Microsoft for the name change to try and shake the stigma of Frontpage). They access their site via FTP, and we built the site in a way that’s very easy for them to create new pages and menu items.

Problem solved, cost $200.

What is the value of a content management system as a solution?

Consider how often your website changes. Now divide that by the price of the content management system.

To implement a proprietary content management system will cost you anywhere from $1,000 - $20,000. For this exercise let’s say that it costs $5,000.

So, 12 changes to your website / $5,000 = $416.66 / change.

Now even if you updated your site every week, it’s still expensive.

What are the drawbacks of a content management system?

1. Content: The best content management system in the world will not create your content, and content is far more important than the system it lives in. 
2. Leaky Abstractions: No matter what you create your website in, it will suffer from one big limitation, HTML.  HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the language of the web and what we’re doing with it today is way beyond what it was designed for. As a result it’s sometimes tricky to do even the most basic things. Content management systems often complicate this by adding another complex layer of abstraction.  
3. Operator: It’s likely that the person who’s delegated the job to run the website in house will be not be fluent with HTML. Just to write this post I had to delve into the HTML code to fix the formatting because I pasted in a quote from another website and the dodgy formatting came through. Lucky i’m a reformed programmer!

Click here to see some examples of what can happen when a content management system is let loose.

When a content management system really is needed

A content management makes a lot of sense in scenarios like these:

1. An eCommerce website
2. A blog or a forum is required
3. A content based application with work-flow
4. Live work-flow, proofing and auditing of content are required

For many of these scenarios, there are simple solutions freely available that would be unmatched for quality and functionality. Wordpress is an awesome example of this. For others, there is a proprietary system that might suit the application.

Website Myth - You need a content management system to have control of your website - Busted!

If you were the owner of a content management system company and you were presented with the scenario above, then I guess you have 2 choices here:

1. Sell them $10,000+ proprietary content management system with implementation, or
2. Sell them Microsoft Expression Web (or equivalent) for a couple of hundred dollars, and teach them to manage it themselves
3. Find a web marketing company that can take care of website changes for you on time for a reasonable price.

Which would you choose?

Our tip, save your money on a content management system and spend it on creating useful website content that is important to your customers!

From the author: As a web programmer I have been involved in developing several content management systems. I was hands on in developing our own content management suite called eComMetrix®.

What I know from working on hundreds of lead generation and eCommerce websites over 11 years is that there is something far more important in creating a website than the system that you use. It’s your conversion rates and it’s a measure of how effectively the content of your website engages with your website visitors.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark™.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 1300 248 362 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your website.

Have you ever seen a website poll like this one? I can’t remember where I found it, but it’s a little embarrassing don’t you think?

Online polls are often sold as one of the “whiz bang” reasons that you need a content management system. The sales person will say something like,  ”An online poll helps build a sense of community.”

Intangible concepts like “community” are often peddled in the web world to avoid accountability.

Whilst it’s nice, there are no real measurable business outcomes for “community.”

If you’re marketing your small to medium business with a lead generation or an eCommerce website, then a website poll is probably not going to add much to the real performance of your website.

There is an appropriate context for website polls. On news websites and popular forums they can be interesting to participate in, and are therefore engaging. Website polls work when:

• Your site already has massive amounts of traffic (hopefully it will get more than 7 votes)
• The question matters to the audience (The outcome of the poll might actually be interesting)
• Your poll fits into the context and content of your website.

If you disagree with me, then you can go and have your say on ABC’s The Chaser’s War on Everything website poll (above) here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/vote/default.htm ;-).

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 1300 248 362 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages®is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.