I am notoriously guilty of losing focus in my blog. I often get so wrapped up in all the wonderful tools available (like blogging, email marketing, and social media), that I forget to cover content management. Although Marketpath in many ways is a full-service internet marketing shop, our focus is (and should remain) product and service-driven.

joe-six-pack's CMS Content management is arguably the most important part of an organization's online presence. The reason I believe this is that so many of your potential customers are not bloggers and don't participate in social media (though I do believe it is important to use your site to help expose visitors to social media). When Joe-six-pack is Google-searching to find parts for his '86 Camaro, there is a good chance that he won't find a blog or twitter feed relevant. The problem that's arising is that there is so much content in the Google index that comes from social media that it can be hard for a traditional website to compete. This phenomenon increases the importance of utilizing social media, and it makes it completely necessary that the content on your site is relevant.

Marketpath CMS | Indianapolis Content Management 'But Colin, there are so many CMS options (many of them free) that allow users to update the content on their sites.' This is true. There might be literally hundreds of CMS tools out there on the web and they are relatively easy to find. The problem is that many site administrators get lost along the way. Once it becomes possible to keep a website up-to-date, many users still don't do as much as they should, because they don't know how.

On the Content Bus This is where it is helpful to have a partner you can trust, a consultant who you can count on to point you in the right direction. No one is born knowing how to optimize a site for search. No one is born knowing how to create online conversions. These things can be taught by knowledgeable professionals, and education is exactly what most organizations need to go along with their content management system. We're here to help. Class will be in session all week. Feel free to attend.

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Comments (2)

Tristan wrote
Colin, I agree completely that - for most organizations, profit or non-profit - aligning with a company like Marketpath that can provide help with a CMS is important. If people don't have in-house IT staff dedicated to the organization's web presence, most people involved in the CMS will be lost in no time at all, frustrated if not giving up completely. I've read horror stories about people with basic HTML knowledge trying to delve into free solutions like Joomla and Drupal, only to give up completely after becoming lost in their terminology, documentation, or programming. In fact, I considered using both of these for some of my sites, but decided against them due to the fact that I'd probably be spending more time on initial set up than actually producing content, which obviously is the whole point of a CMS to begin with: getting great content out there on the web in the best manner possible. Anyway, I ended up using Wordpress (the Angie's List podcast site and Blue House Blog [angieslistpodcasts.com and bluehouseblog.com] both run on it). I didn't know a heckuva lot about Wordpress before I started using it (granted, it's more of a blog engine than CMS, but for the sake of this argument they're similar enough), but I soon realized that if I had just a little less knowledge of HTML, and if I didn't know where to go on the web to find the resources and help I needed to customize Wordpress, I'd be lost. So to make a long comment shorter, having outside help with a CMS-based site if you don't want to pay in-house staff to run it is key to getting your organization's great content out there to your audience.
Posted Oct 3 2008 3:25 PM

Ananya wrote
Tristan, I guess your point is quite right, but mow a days hosted cms is doing really good job. Its very easy to use, easy to learn and its made for non tech person. There are good vendors available who offered online demo free trial to make things easier..........
Posted Nov 25 2008 12:32 PM

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Good Content Management is Good Marketing

Content Management - It's not as easy as it looks