Tips to Work on Your CMS Website: Do’s and Don’ts for Non Designers or Programmers

Your website is a genuine asset for your business. It’s the tool you use to establish your presence online, where potential and existing customers spend much of their time each day. It’s the virtual equivalent of a physical store or office where consumers can pay a visit to ask questions, learn more about your products and services, speak with personnel or engage with fellow customers, and make a purchase.

Of course, not every business owner will have the knowledge, skills and experience to design the website in a manner that would encourage more visits or provide users with a highly satisfactory interaction with your brand—that’s something that you leave up to the hands of skilled Web designers and programmers. Of course, there are still certain aspects of putting together a website that you can do, and they can yield plenty of positive results for your brand.

Here are some tips to work on your CMS website—a list of do’s and don’ts that can help your website create the desired effect on your target audience.

Do:

Choose an open source tool. If you’re still getting the hang of running a website, then free software may be a better fit for your needs. WordPress is the best content management system option for people who are not Web designers, developers or programmers—it can be quickly installed and it provides a clean, simple and easily customizable interface.

Be smart about setting goals. You want an effective website, so your goals need to be clear cut and measurable. These can include increasing your sales and conversion rates, improving consumers’ awareness of your brand, and decreasing your overhead costs.

Brush up on SEO. A powerful SEO strategy ensures that people will continue to find your site as they browse the Internet. You may have SEO specialists taking care of it for you, but you need to understand the dynamics that serve to promote your site, even as you focus on the business side of things.

Create quality content. Got a knack for writing or speaking in front of the camera? You can develop useful content like blog posts and videos, then hire a content to take care of other material for your site. It has to be informative, relevant, engaging, entertaining, and useful to your audience. Also, it has to encourage readers to perform an action that benefits your business, like signing up for newsletters or clicking to a link to a product page.

Don’t:

Improve or change your site’s design simply out of boredom with the current design. You may visit your own website every day and think that the design is old or uninteresting, but consider its impression on first-time visitors—you could be revamping the entire website for nothing.

Attempt to copy a competitor site’s design. While it’s common practice to take a peek at your competition’s sites to gain an idea of what they are doing, it’s never good practice to just go out and use their strategies for your own site. Come up with creative and refreshing ideas of your own by consulting with Web experts and studying from helpful resources.

Throw your budget out the window. It isn’t necessary to hire top-of-the-line Web companies for your site’s design when there are trusted and equally skilled individuals or groups who can do a great job. Be thorough with checking referrals and doing research on notable companies and freelancers.

Try to offer something for everyone. Your site isn’t designed to cater to all consumers out there—keep in mind that your business is built to serve a specific niche, so focus on catching the attention of that demographic using your site.

Leave certain Web users behind. Of course, your site should be easily accessible to the people you are targeting. Make it responsive so users can visit your site regardless of the device or screen size they are using.

Bonus WordPress tips from our MGR Design Team:

• Uploading files to the “Media” section of WordPress:
  • File names should be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly, with the hotel name included and no spaces in the file name.
  • Don’t upload original hi-res photography to the “Media” section – file sizes shouldn’t be larger than 300k, especially for smaller graphics.  Every photo should be an optimized JPG at about 80% quality and 72 dpi.  If you need to replace a photo that is there already, resize the photo at the exact same pixel size and replace it using the WYSIWIG editor.  If these requirements are beyond your knowledge, we can make the updates for you if you send the original photography to us.
  • PDFs that are uploaded to the site shouldn’t be the hi-res print versions.  If they are larger than 3MB please compress the PDF to a smaller file size before you upload it (we do this using Adobe Acrobat).
• Creating a New Page: If a new page needs to be added to your WordPress website, refer to a current page and copy all of the same settings and page layout used, for example the “Page Attributes”, “Page Options” and “Title Bar” sections.
• Be Careful with the Code: Don’t remove or alter code portions if you see it in the WYSIWIG editor – this tells the page how it should be formatted.  If you alter it, it will make the page look broken.
• Adding Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks can be added to text or images using the chain-looking icon in the WYSYWIG editor (see below).  Adding the full URL as text on the page doesn’t make it a hyperlink automatically.

I hope these simple tips help you get the most out of your website.  If you need assistance, do not hesitate to contact our Team at MGR and we’ll be glad to help you anytime.

Thank you for reading.  Until next time, this is Manuel Gil del Real (MGR)