So Google just came out and said that they are more actively punishing websites that copy website content from other websites: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/

I’ve long advised my clients against copying content from other websites. This practice, known as “blanding”, makes your website content appear as content that Google has already seen before. A best practice has been to always write your own website content. But people are either too lazy, or too busy, to set aside time to write new website content. We’ve known that this blanded content could hurt your website’s search engine performance for some time. Now it is going to hurt it even more, and this is probably a good thing overall for website owners and those who write their own content. It will also be very bad for those who cheat and copy articles and other content for use on their website. Syndicated sites are now going to be more vulnerable as well.

More after the jump.

At Delaware.Net, my website development firm, We have been able to directly measure the effects in recent years of how websites that are updated regularly – namely blogs, act like traffic magnets for Google. Unfortunately, this has made blogging programs such as WordPress gain quite a bit of fame for the very modest features that they possess. True content management systems are still a much better solution for managing websites. We’ve also seen WordPress become a HUGE hacking target, and I will cover that in an upcoming post.

If frequent content updates to websites with unique well-written content make them come up higher in Google, then it makes sense to assume that websites that aren’t updated should drop in the Google search engine result pages (SERPs). When we let our websites go without content updates, and also our blogs, we see a direct drop in traffiic. Likewise, when we add new content to our sites (we have 8 websites), the inbound traffic from search engines jumps dramatically. We have passed this information on to customers, who understand that they need to keep their sites updated.

This news from Google is quite interesting, because they are admitting that is possible for websites that that copy website content to somehow come up higher than the original author’s website. Scary stuff. I am glad they are closing whatever loophole has been exploited. As companies look to outside firms to help them with social media, blogs, copy writing, and content management, the lesson here is to make sure that those outside firms aren’t re-posting content across multiple websites. If you hire employees in-house to help with marketing, it is becoming increasingly important to hire the candidates that have superior writing skills, all other factors being equal. And make sure that they aren’t stealing content.

I know a CPA firm locally that signed up for article content for their email newsletter. They didn’t have time to write their own tax tips, so they subscribed to a service that created a newsletter that they could put their name on. They used that same content as news articles on their website. With this new change to Google’s algorithm, that content will actually harm their website, because the content will be on MANY websites.

When I talk about syndicated websites, and how they are at risk, here is what I mean. Imagine you are an auto dealership owner, or a real estate broker. Those industries have hundreds of turn-key website solutions that are marketed to them daily. It is possible for them to turn-key a website, and have the template-based design company give them content. These websites that are using content across multiple websites are “syndicated”. A car dealership that came to us for help recently had a syndicated website that never got significant traffic from Google. By giving them a custom design, helping them write their own unique articles, content, and tips, they saw a huge spike in traffic from Google. But alas, it is hard for many companies to keep that going. That is why they need a relationship with a professional website design firm that will meet with them regularly to test their website’s performance. That is what I do for a living.

Lessons from this article:

• Always write your own content for your website.
• Never steal articles or content from other websites.
• If you wish to share content that you find online, link to the original article and write your content to go along with it.
• When hiring employees, start to judge how well the employee can write business articles and content. Just as doctors need to have articles published in medical journals to gain respect, the same is true of other professions posting articles online. Any company could take better advantage of their expertise by publishing articles online.
• Create a schedule to keep your content fresh and current.
• Meet with your design firm for a performance checkup every three months.
• Never settle for a syndicated template website with syndicated content, because it won’t perform well on Google.
• Get a quote from Delaware.net to make your website high performance.

A lot of business owners tend to get the wrong idea about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and how it can help their websites. Years ago, when every web page in your site was built by hand, your web developer had a dramatic impact on the search engine performance of your website. But today, the complete opposite is generally true – Content Management Systems (CMS) tend to have fantastic optimization for search engines BUILT-IN. This puts more of the burdon and responsibility of search engine performance on the website owner/author, and less on people actually coding up your website.

More details after the jump

Can more be done beyond writing good content to help your site’s traffic? Aren’t there little secret tweaks that can be done to your site’s code to make it come up higher in Google and other search engines? Well, sure. But it doesn’t work like it did in the past.  Years ago, you could focus on a dozen or so key strategies to optimize a website for search engines. But those key elements (i.e. page titles, heading tags, link titling, sitemaps, etc) are now just considered best practices, and are generally built-into the CMS that your site runs on. So it then becomes a garbage-in = garbage-out type of thing in regards to your content’s quality, uniqueness, and frequency of updates. Choosing the right mix of keywords, using analytics, and managing content in a more proactive way are crucial to your website’s performance, yet most companies are too lazy to do this work.

There ARE other things that can be done to help SEO, but they are tedious, take a lot of work, and may still not make your website come up higher. Why? Because instead of a dozen main things that Google and other engines look at, they are now looking at HUNDREDS of aspects of your pages, including traffic, age, inbound links, page speed, and off-page SEO factors that a small business owner can’t easily change. What is the easiest way to hit all of those attributes at once? Write good content. There is a lot more to it, but it isn’t just keywords any more. We tell our customers all of the secrets to help with this.

But business owners don’t want to hear that there isn’t some magical SEO trick. In their mind, there MUST be a magic silver bullet that will make their website come up high in Google results. All they need to do is find the right developer to make that happen. This myth is the reason why there are countless search engine optimization, search engine marketing, campaign management, and other firms out there that will take your money, promise the world, and they won’t back their services up with guarantees of any kind. It is simple supply and demand. And from time to time, these firms call us to work on their client’s websites, and in 5 minutes we can tell that they don’t know much at all about SEO. They are simply selling hype. And people are buying it, so they churn through their dissatisfied customers with no end in sight.

Mark my words, as we move from the Information Age (relying on geeks) to the Participation Age (creating your own voice online with content), search engines will continue to show “live” results for websites that have a pulse. So your website beterr be “alive”. Also, just because you might get some traffic with a higher search engine result, that doesn’t MAKE PEOPLE BUY. You still need a well-designed website that has the necessary design features and applications that help people to use your website. It takes time, management of the site, analytics, and a strategy.

We are great at SEO. It is built into all of our applications. But instead of looking for a keyword strategy that might get you a few more hits, we would rather help you to design an online marketing plant that will get you more SALES. Sales beats HITS any day of the week.

The Google Maps module is now live for all Delaware.Net CMS/Ecommerce customers as a free, automatic upgrade.    These automatic feature upgrades come about once per month (or more frequently), and this is one of the major benefits of using our CMS over other open-source solutions.    Free upgrades, free support, free training, and better integration.

Training videos for the new Google Maps builder are being uploaded today, so you will be able to see training videos directly in our on-demand help system.

Here are answers to the most common questions about accepting payments in real-time through your website:

Question:  “Can I easily accept payments through my website?”
YES!  Our Content Management System (CMS) has a built-in payment form system that makes it very easy to accept payments through your website.   You can even have multiple payment forms and run the cards in real time.

Do I need an ecommerce store to accept payments?
No.  You just need a form that can process the forms through a payment gateway service, such as Authorize.net

I have a merchant account from (Heartland, Wilmington Trust, PNC, etc.), isn’t that all I need?
No.  Your merchant account allows you to accept cards, but it doesn’t automate the transaction.  That is why you need a payment gateway.

But my merchant account provider (or bank) told me that this is all I need…..
They usually aren’t well versed with online transactions.  You still need the payment gateway.

What if I already have a different payment gateway from Authorize.net?
First make sure you aren’t talking about your merchant account.  If you are sure that you have a payment gateway account, then we can probably integrate whatever you have for free.   We integate with most popular payment gateways.  Simply let us know which one you are using.

How much is an Authorize.net account?
The price varies, because they are sometimes bundled with merchant accounts, but plan on spending a little over $100 for setup, then $10 per month, and 15 cents per transaction.  That is the normal cost for running cards in real-time.

How fast can you setup this payment form for me?
If you are already using our CMS-Logic system to run your website, then it will take less than a day.  Make sure you have your Authorize.net transaction ID ready to go when you come to us for setup.  If you aren’t using our CMS-Logic system to manage your website, it is still possible for us to place a payment form into your website, but it will take a few more days.

Who should I call for this?
Email our sales team at “sales-at-delaware.net” and we will contact you.

The new interface for the website was designed within the first week of the contract signing, and will begin moving online very soon.

Cities interested in upgrading their websites and gaining better management tools are encouraged to contact Delaware.Net at 888-432-7965, or you can inquire for a quote on our website at http://www.delaware.net/free-web-design-quote/.   Examples of our applications for municipalities can be found online at http://www.civic-logic.com.

Here are some of the differences between us and our competitors;

MUNICIPAL WEB DESIGN PRICING
Some municipal website design companies package websites into flat fees based on the number of citizens that live in the city/town in question.   This flat-rate pricing doesn’t work because smaller cities end up overpaying for their website, and larger cities end up paying more for add-on website modules to get a complete solution.    Delaware.Net’s fees for municipal websites is usually less than these other companies, and our proposals are more accurate because they are customized for each site.  Our one-time development fees for municipalities have ranged typically from $8000 for a smaller municipality up to $30,000 for a very large site (included dedicated servers, backups, GIS integration, and much more than the average website), with the average Delaware.Net project being closer to $10,000. You could always spend much, much more, as evidenced by this quote given by CivicPlus.

3-YEAR TERM CONTRACTS?!?!
Other firms bundle design pricing with hosting over multi-year terms, selling the website services as a lease.  This can trap the municipality with a vendor over a long period of time, limiting their options. A small city website project that we just won was quoted at $27,000 for a 3-year project from CivicPlus. Our contract was under $9,000 for custom design and development, training, an Intranet, a request tracking system, email newsletter system, consulting, and more. We bill for our projects in three or four payments, so this is much more affordable. We saved that small city over $14,000, and their site will also be completed much faster on our more powerful CMS.

CITY WEBSITE DESIGN
One of the challenges of building a custom website on a CMS is how to make the site not appear to look like a template. Our designs are custom, and we are not cranking out cookie-cutter designs. Many times we hire local photographers at each city to get the best possible result.

CIVIC LOGIC CMS
Marketing speak aside, you have to really demo a Content Management System (CMS) before you buy it.  Your CMS is where you will be spending a lot of your time managing your website.    When you try these systems, ask yourself – “how easy will this system be for my employees to use?”.   If a system requires 6-12 clicks to accomplish editing a page, and our system takes 2-3 clicks, ours will save your employees a LOT of time over the other system.  All municipal CMS platforms are not created equally. We spent quite a bit of time looking at competing CMS solutions before we built ours, and it took us two years to get it just right. Some systems, like CivicPlus, are simply a page management system for your website.  Others, like our CivicLogic system, are designed to be a true Intranet (secure staff website) for your staff, as well as being a CMS.    With a true Intranet website, you can securely add personnel documents, resources, file, pages, calendars, news, messaging, and much more for your staff.   Each department in your city can have their own private calendar and portal to share information.   This will save your municipality time and money, and get better adoption of the whole system from your staff.

MONTHLY CITY WEBSITE HOSTING FEES
Hosting from CivicPlus last year was generally $600 per month before they went to their bundled pricing. That is a steep fee that still didn’t include all of their available modules. For example, you would have to spend another $100 per month AND a $1500 setup fee if you wanted their request tracking system.  A request tracking system is a VERY desirable system because it can be used to track complaints from citizens.  Our system includes a better request tracking system at no additional cost, a mass email newsletter system, and a real Intranet system for $150 per month.  That is a savings of $6600 per year!  For a better system!   It obviously isn’t all about price, so you should test both systems to see what is better for your city.

HOURLY BILLING COMPARED TO CIVICPLUS
A municipality that recently came to us to move away from CivicPlus cited that the number one reason was the fact that they were getting nickeled and dimed with hourly billing. The city (that I can’t name) was quoted $80 PER IMAGE to change some photos in the website. If the city changed just TWO PHOTOS in their website, they would have paid more than we charge for a whole month of municipal website hosting. Hourly design rates from Civic Logic CMS are billed in 1/4 increments at about $100 per hour. Since our customers can change most images on their own with our CMS, most of those invoices can be avoided, saving you a ton of money.

MOVING AWAY FROM CIVICPLUS
If you paid for a CivicPlus website, and you are tired of overpaying for your monthly fees, we can help.   Generally speaking, we can move a CivicPlus website to our CMS, Intranet, Newsletter, Request Tracking, and even our Project Management Module in a matter of two weeks.   The cost to move your site would be very low, and you would recoup that fee in a matter of a couple of months because our hosting fees are so much less than CivicPlus.  Your design files would also remain intact, so you wouldn’t have to pay for a new design.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Contact Me at 888-432-7965 x100 if you have any questions.   If you are looking to have a new website for your municipality, or if you are interested in moving away from an expensive CivicPlus solution, you can get a quote from us online using our free online quote form.

A lot of our customers need to create Adobe PDF documents so that they can upload them into their websites (using our content management system), and also so that they can send them as email newsletter attachments.

There are several free PDF generators on the market, but the one that I like to use is called PDFCreator. It is an open-source project on SourceForge.net, and it works great. After you download and install the program, it becomes a print driver for Windows, so that you can create a PDF in any program that you use in Windows. So if you are working on a MS Word document, you click “print” and then “PDFCreator”. The program does the rest. Keep in mind that you won’t have all of the PDF markup and editing features that you would get if you bought the full version of Acrobat (Adobe’s program that creates PDFs).

Enjoy!

There ARE cheaper open source solutions out there, and on the low end you have systems like Drupal, PHPNuke, PostNuke, .netNuke, Joomla, and others. These can be made to work if you have the time and patience, but for the most part they are solutions for non-profits and companies that don’t want to spend a lot on their website design work. I would never recommend them for a growing business that really cares about their website. Especially if they don’t have an in-house IT team. These low-end systems are well suited for a website where it is OK to use design templates for someone that wants to get up and running quickly. But there WILL be problems when using these systems, and like everything else – there is a trade-off.

Quality, Speed, and Cost – Choose Two!

If you go with a low-end CMS system, it might be fast to setup, and the price might be right, but your website will be a low-quality website. And if you factor in the time to customize it, that could then get expensive in a hurry.

Care should be taken to avoid a web design firm that charges a premium price for custom website development, then they turn around and install Drupal or some other low-end open system for their CMS solution. This is a way that a web desing firm can cut corners, and it is lying. We would never do this.

Another problem with the low-end open solutions is that they are higher profile targets for hackers. There are many examples of this that you can search for that show Drupal getting hacked, and other systems getting hacked. This is usually quite preventable if the systems are updated in a very regular manner, but the fact of the matter is that web desing companies that outsource their IT and hosting needs are much more likely to NOT update these systems. They build websites using these systems so that they can get them live quickly and turn a profit, but then the site (and the customer) gets neglected. This problem extends beyond CMS systems – it is also true of forum software and blog software.

Am I against open-source software? Heck no. We have our share of open-source software that we use at Delaware.Net, but there IS a trend away from it almost across the board, from operating systems to web development software, to application server software. Open source software is great if it is patched regularly, and if it meets a particular need. But sadly, most companies don’t do a very good job of updating.

Some folks assume that open-source software is somehow better because it is free and open, but this is just not true. To me, it is irresponsible for a web development firm to perpetuate that myth. Open source solutions shouldn’t be viewed as a software religion, they have to make business sense too. And when you actually track the time that it takes to make some open software work correctly, you find that it doesn’t always save you money in the long run. You also might be missing out on integration with your other business systems. Customers looking for a “quick and dirty” way to deploy and manage their websites might do OK with some of these solutions, but “quick and dirty” isn’t what our company is about.

So, you can go cheap with your CMS solution, or you can get one that is more custom to your needs, integrates with a nice custom design, and that doesn’t force you to log into three different interfaces to get your work done. And best of all your site will work better, and it will come up high in search engines.

Another advantage of our systems over other CMS systems is that ours is updated every month, with updates being seamless and free. Try geting your open-source system updated for free indefinitely by your hosting company (it doesn’t happen).