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Domain Extensions – Why Is a .ORG Domain the Best Extension to Have For Your Website?

By David C in Webmasters

Why register a .org domain name? Why not? If you have been considering registering a domain name, then a .org domain is an excellent choice.

.org domains build instant trust and credibility with your site visitors as they see that you are not just interested in making money but are committed to making this world a better place. They are identical to other domain names in most other aspects but with the added value of perceived confidence by your visitors.

.org domains are one of the original top level domains. This means that they were one of the first options in choosing a domain name. This means that the .org domain name extension is well recognized and sites with that extension are frequently seen as authority sites. Because they are so well recognized they are frequently used as a choice alternative to the popular but highly competitive.com domain extension.

.org is the abbreviated form of organization. This makes perfect sense as they were formerly used exclusively for non profit and charitable organizations. This makes them perfect for sports teams, children’s clubs, religious and community organizations, environmental and other green groups. If you want a community site for your school or alumni association, health club or cultural institution, then a .org domain name will be your best option and will set your organizational website apart in a class by itself.

Anyone can now register a .org domain. You do not have to submit any documentation or any proof that you are a non profit or otherwise. The process for registering a .org domain is simple and hassle free. Commercial businesses can also register for.org domains. This will build trust for any charitable organization associated with your business.

It can also help to ensure that your brand and trademark associated with your business name is well protected by registering across this and other top level domain names.

So if you have been considering registering a domain name, then a .org domain is the way ahead. It grants your website instant credibility, is a highly popular and recognizable domain name extension. It is perfect for running your charitable or community organization and is a great alternative to the popular .com domain names. There are no additional requirements or documentation required to register a .org domain and it gives you an opportunity to be a voice of change in the world. So, go ahead and register a .org domain for your personal use, your business use or for your school, organization or charity.

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To get FREE tips and advice on how to register and choose the best domain name for your business or organization, visit www.domaindiving.info.

To get started immediately, and register register your .org domain hurry over to one of the leaders in Domain Registration, www.domaindiving.com and secure your place online at a low price, gaining the credibility and trust of your visitors.

404 Errors Drive Visitors Away

By Suzi Ziegler in Webmasters

A “Page not found” message – also called a 404 error message – is the standard response from a web server when it can’t find a requested URL, or web address.

Imagine driving across town to visit a business and finding a “Closed” sign on the door during open hours. A 404 message is like that “Closed” sign – it says your site isn’t open for business. If you’re trying to do business on the web, you want to make sure your site can be easily found, around the clock.

The web is like a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week mall. People expect websites to be available all the time. When someone clicks a link to your website and gets a “Page not found” error, they’ll likely regard your website as broken, or nonexistent. If they’re really motivated, they might try to find your website by other means. If they aren’t strongly motivated, they won’t.

Why Do 404 Errors Occur?

Anyone can receive a 404 message if they’re trying to get to your site by clicking on a broken link. This is the most common cause of 404 errors.

A link can become broken for a number of reasons. People often rewrite web page URLs when they’re redesigning their site, or they may try to enhance search engine optimization (SEO) by including keywords in the URLs.

When a URL gets rewritten, any link to that page using the old URL is instantly broken. It can’t take someone to the page anymore.

How to Avoid 404 Errors

Help would-be visitors to your site avoid the dreaded “Page not found” error by following these tips:

• Submit new pages to search engines immediately.

1. Submit to Google
2. Submit to Bing

• Read Link Juice: Save Every Drop for tips on making sure links to old pages are changed to point to the new pages. The article includes a list of tools for locating your old links, both on your own site and around the web.
• If you’ve changed the URL for a page on your website, redirect visitors to the new page from the old one, using a 301 redirect.
• You can also redirect people manually. You can revise the web page at an old URL, inviting people to visit your new page. Make sure you include a link to the new page. It’s also good to offer your contact information if you think people may be confused and may need to communicate with you directly. It’s a good way to build trust with your site visitors.
• You can check with your web hosting company to see if it offers a 404 redirect. When a user enters the URL for an old page, your web hosting company can redirect a visitor to a page you specify, instead of returning a 404 error.
• Stay organized by recording changes to your site. Then you can go back and fix links when you’re done.

Mistypes and 404 Errors

People can get a 404 error if they mistype your website’s domain name in the navigation bar of their web browser.

You can’t account for every possible mistyping of your domain name. But if your domain name is easy to mistype or misspell, you can purchase these commonly mistyped domain names. Then create a 301 redirect from each of the mistypes back to your website. It’s a good way to capture website visitors who might otherwise go astray.

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Check out how your home page looks to search engines and people with the free Home Page Analysis. Want a deeper look at all your site’s pages? Try an AboutUs Site Report.

This article was contributed by Suzi Ziegler of AboutUs.org (visit). Suzi shares her love of words with AboutUs.org as a writer and editor. Have a question for Ms. Ziegler? Contact her here…

2 Steps To Friendlier URLs

By Wolf Krammell in Webmasters

Your content’s URLs, or Universal Resource Locators, may not be something that you think about every day. Making your URLs as friendly and easy-to-use as possible is one of the basics of optimizing your website for search engines as well as vastly improving its general usability.

The base URL, or address, of your website often looks something like this: http://www.example.com. It’s what people type into the address bars of their browsers to navigate to your website. Using a relevant URL is an important part connecting your users with your offerings.

Say, for example, http://www.carsales.com, if you were, indeed, a car salesmen. That’s all pretty obvious, but how can you make your URL friendlier? Here’s two things to think about:

1) Human readable URLs

Often times, because of the nature of the programming behind a website’s functionality, URLs have a tendency to devolve into hard to read, hard to understand strings of text. The URL is used to pass information to the website’s scripts – or programs – and some developers don’t take the time to develop a friendly URL system, opting instead to pass raw data through the URL. Take for example, a web page on a fictional dog toy company’s website which lists all of their assorted dog collars. In some cases, you may find a URL like so: http://www.dogtoys.com/?catId=col&page=1

As you can tell, the URL says nothing legible about collars. That means it isn’t any help either to search engines or to actual users in terms of delivering any real meaning. Not only will search engines not be able to use this URL effectively to catalog the web page’s contents, but users will have a hard time remembering it if they ever choose to return to the web page. Instead, a “friendlier” URL may read like so: http://www.dogtoys.com/collars

That’s much simpler. Now search engines and real people alike will have no difficulty knowing what might be offered at that page, or remembering how to navigate back to it.

How do you get your website to sport human readable URLs?

Ask your SEO consultant to make sure your web pages are configured to allow them, and that they boast the most effective language and phrasing in terms of “find-ability.”

2) “Hackable” URLs

Once your website offers human readable URLs, it’s time to take it one step further. “Hackable” URLs refers to URLs which can be modified by users to deliver intuitive results. This is accomplished by arranging your website’s structure categorically, and reflecting that structure in the web pages’ addresses. For example, a “hackable” URL for a web page providing purple dog collars might look like this: http://www.dogtoys.com/collars/purple Now users can glean at a glance that this page will offer not just dog collars, but dog collars of a specific color. So what if your user wants to see all dog collars, regardless of color?

They simply “hack” off the specification at the end of the URL, which gives them: http://www.dogtoys.com/collars.

This practice not only adds more meaningful, precise language into your URLs which will ensure better search engine cataloging, but also adds meaning and intuitive navigability for your users.

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Pump Up Your Website is a leader in the field of search, social media and email marketing. We’re also very good at web design, Internet development and ecommerce. We use tools like WordPress Blogs, Facebook and Twitter to make your business successful. Visit us at http://pumpupyourwebsite.com.

My Computer Runs Slow–Will Registry Repair Fix It?

By John Mowatt in Webmasters

Your computer runs slow and is behaving erratically is it? It freezes more often and even crashes at times and you may have to shut it down.This is a common scenario with windows PCs, and it suggests that you need to do some registry repair. Never fear,with just a little bit of effort you can correct this problem. A quality registry repair tool can restore your machine to normal operation in just a few minutes of work

When a computer is new it is a great delight to use. Everything works perfectly and it is running as fast as its processor can work. Exactly how fast it runs depends on the processor of course. If you have a Celeron chip it will be considerably slower than a dual core fast machine.The amount of memory is also important to fast running. More memory gives the operating system plenty of available space to get on with the job, so if you have 4 gigabytes of memory the machine will work faster than a similar computer with 1 gigabyte especially when the memory is close to maximum use.

Hard drives are all of relatively big capacity these days, and will in fact more than meet the needs of the avarage user. However even a big hard drive can be overloaded if enough videos, audios and photos are uploaded to it. To provide top performance a computer must have a fast processor chip, a big capacity hard drive and adequate memory for the use intended. Even moderately priced entry level machines have harddrives of 160 gigs or more now, at least 2 gigs of ram and fast processor chips. These machines are capable of very good performance unless the hard drive becomes overloaded with an excessive amount of videos, photos or audios which consume a lot of space.

If you are purchasing a new computer do not buy anything less than a good fast processor. The dual core processor is used in most mid priced computers now and anything less is slow by comparison. The processor cannot be upgraded to a faster chip later, so it is wise to start out with a good one. The additional cost is relatively small and the fast chip will save you many hours of work time during the lifetime of the computer.

It is a fact however that all Windows PCs slow down with use as they get older. This is the result of an accumulation of surplus materials in the registry. Windows PCs all use a registry which is really a massive database which the operating system uses to run the computer. When this registry is overloaded with file fragments, partially downloaded programs, and other material including malware and viruses, the operating speed becomes slower since the operating system has to search through all this junk material in order to locate the files it needs to run the computer. At this point the only way to correct this problem is to perform a thorough registry cleaning by using a registry repair tool to edit out all the junk.

A number of registry repair tools can be downloaded from the internet which can do this job. A quality registry cleaner application can do this work fast and with efficiency, and will very quickly put your computer back into good fast running order in just a few minutes time. After trying out a number of registry repair tools we noted that the best of them will do a much better job than some of the others. One particular registry cleaner we found was able to detect up to double the number of errors located by some others. A number of registry repair tools are advertised as “free” but are not really free. They perform a free scan for you, and show you the errors found in your registry, but they then require payment to remove the problems. It is a fact that pretty well all registry repair applications on the internet will give you a free registry scan and will tabulate the results for you to examine. It is then your decision as to what you want to do. You can remove the errors manually if you have the necessary skills and knowledge, but for the average user this is fraught with danger. The registry is the home of all the files which the operating system uses to run your computer, and if you remove or damage any of these you could be in for big problems. In the worst case the computer is disabled, and it may be necessary to reinstall the operating system to get it working again.

This is not a good time to experiment, It is far safer and easier to pay a reasonable price for a quality registry cleaner and have the registry cleaning done in a safe and efficient manner. You will have the application installed on your hard drive and can use it regularly to keep your registry in good order and your computer running smoothly.

It is good practice to run it at least once per month to keep your computer running at optimum level. Get the top registry repair tool available and use it regularly to keep your computer running at full speed.

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Would you like to know which registry repair tool our tests found to be best of all of them ? Would you like to be offered a free registry scan to fix your slow computer? Would you like lots of free information about fixing a slow running computer? Go to our website www.bestregistryrepaironline.com and at our blog you will find more interesting articles about registry repair http://mycomputerrunsslow.blogspot.com.

10 Basic Concepts for the Newbie Webmaster

By Skip Conover in Webmasters

This article is for new Webmasters, who are not techies with long experience. Its objective is to save you time in understanding things the techies know so viscerally that they don’t even know you need to know these things. If you are technically sophisticated you should save time and stop reading here. If you have just decided that you want to host your own web site, but you don’t have strong technical skills, keep reading.

There are many things you can do online without needing this information. For example, you can create a blog for free. WordPress.com, Blogger, and many others provide these services. These may serve your purposes very well. Their disadvantage is that some of them do not allow you to advertise, and they provide only minimal control of the look and feel of your site. If you are not interested in making money from your web site, this may be fine. They certainly represent a good place to start to develop Webmaster skills, but your site will tend to look like tens of thousands of other sites.

If you want to build a professional looking web presence, or you want to advertise, or you want to provide special functionality on your blog, here is what you need to know. This article is not an endorsement for any specific product. I mention several products in this article, but only for context.

1. Skills. You will need to know some basic HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language). But you can pick this up as you go along. Within every control panel of a site there is a toggle switch, which allows you to view the item you plan to show to the public in either WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) or HTML format. Don’t worry about this too much, because when you don’t know an HTML command, you can always find it quickly with a search engine. An example is keeping your paragraphs together, rather than having unexpected line spacing. WordPress® takes every carriage return as a new paragraph, so if you want to put something on the next line without paragraph spacing, you must put the “br” command right where you want the carriage return in your existing paragraph on the HTML (hidden) side of your item.

Typing skills are a big plus. If you don’t have these, find a free typing program online. You can learn in a week. It helps to understand what FTP (file transfer protocol) is. Sometimes you do need to do things at the directory level on your hosted server. I use a program called FileZilla2 for this, but there are many other choices.

2. Hosting Service (Your Universe). Someone will have to operate the computers on which your web site appears. It is possible to do this in your home or business, but no one still reading this does anymore. There are many excellent services, and some of them provide basic functionality for under $10 per month. If you become a roaring success, you will have to pay more, but you won’t mind. Typically, you can put all the material you want on their system for no additional charge, but you will pay for the bandwidth you use. You will have to be pretty popular before you overcome the basic price.

3. Domain. You will need to create a Domain, which is the address your site uses. This will be you web address, and amounts to your URL (uniform resource locator). Your Host can do get this for you. You cannot have a findable web site without a domain. Each domain contains only one type of software, but you can create free sub-domains that operate like domains. Each one of these creates a separate database to contain the information of your site. Fortunately, the database is something that is normally provided by your hosting service.

4. One-Click Install. Good Hosts provide One-Click Install for the various web site options. You can create one type of web software into each domain or sub-domain. I have about 30 sites, and I am using both WordPress – (for blogging) and Joomla -(for basic web site functionality). You can also get programs that are purpose built for photo galleries, calendars, project planning, “wiki” style sites, or whatever you like. The ones I use are “open source,” meaning they are “free” and simply installed with no financial outlay to your hosting service. The advantage of these systems is that they have been battle tested very broadly, so most of the kinks are worked out of them. Why do programmers around the world contribute their time and money to developing these free environments? Read on.

5. The Control Panel. Every professional site, and some of the free ones, has a control panel where you can operate and adjust the appearance of your site to the general public. If you think of the Wizard of Oz, this is what the wizard does behind the green curtain. You must learn how to get to your control panel as a first priority, and this differs by the program you are using. By the time you get to this point you will already have found the control panel for your web host. I use Dream Host, which has excellent live chat functionality for support. I often get the help I need there when I don’t understand something.

6. Your Galaxy. Think of the software you just installed on your host as the galaxy within which your site operates. It is the macro-environment within which your site operates. Most of these systems have basic functionality already, so you can just begin to build your site, but you would do well to understand a few more things about your site before you do that.

7. Forums. Techies rarely provide true documentation (instructions) these days. Get over it! This is partially because they are so focused on building the next new thing, and partially because the environment is changing so fast that it is impossible to create a static set of instructions. Most decent software providers do have a Forum, where you can go for help. You register on their site for free, and then you are permitted to ask questions, or find questions previously answered through word search. If the software you are planning to use has no Forum, be very worried. Keep track of your user IDs and passwords!

8. Plug-ins, Widgets, Components and Modules. The reason techies around the world contribute to the “open source” environments is that they build smaller pieces of software that function with your galaxy, and they hope to charge you for that functionality. Each category has many choices (i.e. a calendar or clock for your site), and many of them are rated. There are free ones and commercial ones. If you see an unrated free one, chances are some aspiring software genius has created something, and he is hoping you will help him test it. The rated free ones often work perfectly well, and many good ratings can give you confidence in your selection. The commercial ones normally are endorsed in the sense that people have paid good money to use them.

9. Templates. The template is a “plug-in” which controls the look and feel of your site. Before you go too far in building your site, you should examine the choices of template in your galaxy, and install it. You may be able to do this later, but you take the chance of running into functionality problems.

10. Search Engines and Site Maps. It is no longer the case that you can just put your site up, and expect the search engines to find it. They are overwhelmed. You are therefore advised to go to each of the major search engines, register in their Webmaster program, and follow their instructions to have your site found. Search engines require “Site Maps” today, so their system can examine your site for content. This is an entirely different topic beyond the scope of this article.

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Skip Conover is an International Executive, Author, and Artist. His art is in collections in more than 20 countries. His first New York opening was in 2005. He turned his long time interest in Jungian Archetype into the Archetype in Action™ Organization, and he developed its web site at archetypeinaction.org

Membership Sites – Use a WordPress Plugin to Build Your Online Business

By Connie Ragen Green in Webmasters

Membership sites, powered by a WordPress plug-in, have now made it so simple that anyone can set one up. I currently have eight of these sites, and I use them in different ways to serve the needs of my students and to create income for my online business. You can do the same exact thing if you think about what you will offer your clients, how you will deliver the information to them, and how you will continue to increase your profits and revenue.

The first site I set up for my members had three different levels of membership. This was confusing for me to work with, so I recommend setting up just one level of membership when you are just getting started. This will allow you to add content and to develop your site fully before you begin learning the details of how it works with members at various levels of access.

Adding content is the easiest part. I write lots of articles, so I include links to the ones that will be helpful to the people who have come to me for information on that particular niche topic. I want to offer them as much information and as many resources as possible so they will think of me as the one who can best serve their needs. I also add audio recordings and short videos to explain exactly what they need to know.

Anytime I create a product, I now set up a membership site to deliver the information to the clients. Instead of having a download page that could end up being shared across the Internet, I have it all set up so that they are able to log in and receive the information as they need and want it. You can limit how many computers can access the site, so people will not share with anyone other than their business partner. This works extremely well when you have lots of information you want to deliver over time. It also allows you to add content over time, making your site even more valuable to the members.

I like to offer my program at a one time price, instead of having people pay me by the month. You receive more money up front this way, and a few months down the road you will have enough content to be able to offer it as a monthly subscription. This will build recurring income for your online business for years to come.

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And now I invite you to find out more about setting up your own membership site by visiting MembershipSitesMadeSimple.com Membership Site Plugin to see how a WordPress plugin can turn your site into a membership site right away, allowing you to create passive income on the Internet.

Firefox Extensions

By Chris Holgate in Webmasters

Many of my Click articles end up with me banging on about how good Firefox is and how all my readers should consider using it as their main browser over Internet Explorer which is bundled free with Microsoft Windows. Since one of the main arguments I use is the large number of third party add-ons that are available I thought this week I should probably corroborate that thinking by naming a few of them.

Add-ons (otherwise known as extensions or plug-ins) aren’t pieces of software in their own right but rather small bits of code designed to integrate with an existing application in order to extend its capabilities in one way or another. Firefox like many other browsers on the market encourage users to take advantage of this facility so that they can extend their browser in a way that suits them.

I’ve picked a few of the most popular plug-ins available, all of which are available free of charge by going to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/ or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/.

Adblock Plus – While Firefox itself stops the majority of pop-ups you can still find some pages have intrusive adverts which Adblock Plus aims to stop. Install it into Firefox and immediately banner ads and other intrusive adverts will be removed from your browsing experience resulting in less interruptions and faster download times.

FlashGot – FlashGot is used to download entire sites quickly and easily which can be useful for offline browsing as it removes the necessity to save pages to disk one page at a time. It also includes a build gallery function so you can download and store every image from a site quickly and easily.

Video Downloader – Watching videos on the Internet is certainly handy, but often if the video is embedded into the
page, it is difficult to save it on to your hard disk. If you install this add-in, you will be able to click one button to save it to your computer permanently.

Tab Mix Plus – This extension improves the tab capabilities of Firefox to include features such as duplicating tabs, reopen closed tabs and a session manager which can save and restore combinations of tab windows should Firefox run in to trouble.

Torrent Search – My more astute readers will remember me talking a bit about Torrents a few weeks back. This plug-in
allows you to easily search for downloads in more than 27 of the top Torrent search engines. This is a subject I’ll be covering more thoroughly in a future article so don’t worry.

Answers – Once installed simply hold down the key and click on any word present on a website to get details on what the word means along with related references.

Search Status – This is one of my favorites and a must for anyone involved with creating and promoting their own website. Search Status displays the Google PageRank and Alexa report of any page that you visit so you can immediately tell how popular it is – especially useful for comparing your sites against the competition. I’ll be giving a crash course in using PageRank and Alexa to promote
your website online in a future article, but in the meantime this plug-in is certainly worth installing so you can get a feel for these two systems.

It’s worthwhile noting that many of the above plug-ins are also compatible with Opera so even users of this browser may find it still worthwhile checking out addons.mozilla.org. Of course there are extensions that focus on Internet Explorer, but as I am trying to convince my readers to switch allegiances, it will be a while before I cover these in Click.

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Chris Holgate writes a weekly article of all things tech related. He is a copyrighter of the online Ink and Toner website Refresh Cartridges www.refreshcartridges.co.uk . These articles can be found in an archive at www.computerarticles.co.uk.

10 Predictions for Web CMS in 2011

By Tom Wentworth in Webmasters

It’s that time of the year when analysts, pundits, and vendors announce their bold predictions for the upcoming year. 2010 was a banner year for Web CMS, as companies realized the benefit of integrating Web CMS into critical business processes like marketing, sales, and customer support. Corporate websites took a giant leap forward, evolving from static to dynamic, and from generic to personal. The explosive growth of mobile devices in new form factors like the iPad caused CMOs to rethink their mobile strategies.

So let’s get started with my ten predictions for Web CMS in 2011:

1) WEM, the acronym, will remain vendor jargon. WEM, the concept, will transform the future of Web CMS.

WEM, or Web Engagement Management (or is it Web Experience Management?) has emerged as a potential challenger to replace CMS as the acronym that describes how companies use content to drive site visitor engagement and deliver business outcomes. Although WEM has been heavily discussed and debated among analysts and journalists, it remains a mystery to the only audience that matters- the users and buyers of Web CMS. While the capabilities described by WEM are paramount to the future of Web CMS, buyers will reject WEM the acronym but will come to expect that the existing acronyms WCM and CMS will include the capabilities of delivering and measuring site customer engagement.

2) Companies will evolve their mobile strategy beyond “mobile friendly”.

2010 was the year where mobile devices finally drove enough site traffic to compel companies to craft a mobile strategy. Yet most organizations stopped at mobile friendly, assuming the battle was over once the website and marketing campaigns rendered correctly on mobile devices. In 2011, we’ll see marketers take advantage of device capabilities and characteristics to deliver mobile experiences, not mobile friendly websites. Users are open to more immersive experiences on tablets but will look for more transactional experiences on smartphones. Mobile development will no longer be an afterthought, and innovative companies will develop for mobile first, and progressively enhance the experience based on the capabilities of the browser or device.

3) Web CMS vendors will differentiate through their decisions to build vs. integrate.

The decision to “build vs. integrate” has become a battleground for vendors trying to establish unique identities in the Web CMS space. Some vendors are focused on creating all-encompassing suites of capabilities, while others are more focused on integration with existing business applications. In 2011, vendor strategies will diverge even more strongly in this area, with vendors picking sides and aggressively committing to their strategy. For those vendors that choose to integrate, their success will be predicated on their ability to deliver deep technology integrations, not the fluffy “press release integrations” of the past.

4) Content is king. Context is queen. Together, they rule the fiefdom of web engagement.

It’s long been said the content is king, and as marketing shifts from outbound to inbound, content has evolved into a strategic corporate asset. While context is king, context is its queen. Context provides an understanding of the content consumer, and her unique set of circumstances. With context, you can match the right content, at the right moment of opportunity to encourage, support, or persuade the visitor to take action. In 2011, being able to understand the context of site visitors will transform how organizations view Web CMS and dynamic content delivery.

5) Web CMS acquisition fever will slow down, or maybe even stop.

The last five years have seen transformative acquisitions in the Web CMS vendor landscape. Oracle bought Stellent. Open Text acquired RedDot. Autonomy purchased Interwoven. Open Text bought Vignette. And most recently, Adobe acquired Day Software. In 2011, the acquisition fever will slow down as the remaining best-of-breed vendors focus on growth and differentiation in the next wave of Web CMS.

6) Multichannel publishing will drive a resurgence in structured content authoring

While newer authoring interfaces like in-context editing and drag+drop page creation have emerged as important tools for Web CMS users, the need for multichannel publishing will push users back towards more traditional, structured authoring interfaces. Publishing to multiple channels requires additional structure to ensure the right content is delivered to the right channel. Users will tag content for usage in specific channels, ranging from traditional long-form channels like the desktop web browser to short form channels like mobile devices and Twitter.

7) Platform will become less important in the Web CMS selection process

In the past, companies would have a strong preference for platform when selecting a Web CMS platform, typically Java or .NET in the enterprise. The platform requirement will become less of a decision point as the viral growth of Sharepoint created .NET expertise in even the most formidable Java strongholds like financial services and insurance. While some companies will still prefer a particular platform, it will become increasingly less important in 2011. Buyers will pick the products that best fit their business and technical requirements, regardless of platform.

8 ) Enterprise search is sexy again

Search and Web CMS have always enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, and the relationship will grow deeper in 2011. Enterprise search platforms provided by vendors like Microsoft, Endeca, and Autonomy do far more than just keyword searches. They power mission critical business processes like commerce and customer support, and play a significant role in the overall customer experience of a website. Search is an important part of a customer engagement strategy, and Web CMS vendors will use enterprise search platforms to provide new sets of capabilities focused on engagement and experience.

9) Social media will permeate the corporate website

The website of the future will be a seamless blend of corporate generated and user generated content. Social is no longer just a disconnected feature of a website, it’s a fundamental shift in how companies embrace customer relationships, transparency, and authenticity. In 2011, we’ll finally start to see companies and brands adopt the principals outlined by Jeremiah Owyang in his 2007 blog how on How to Evolve Your Irrelevant Corporate Website.

10) Developers. Developers. Developers.

Web CMS vendors have spent the last few years catering to marketing departments and business users, addressing usability and innovating new ways to use Web CMS to run marketing campaigns. Web CMS vendors will place the same emphasis on transforming the developer experience, providing better tools, APIs, code samples, documentation, and more.

So those are my predictions for 2011. 2010 was a great year for Web CMS, and I think we’ll look back and identify 2010 as an inflection point in the market, driven by both the emergence of web engagement and the growth of new channels like mobile and social media. Please share your thoughts and predictions in the comments, or on Twitter using the hashtag #futurewcm.

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Tom Wentworth is an experienced, versatile, and passionate technology executive with over 15 years experience selling, marketing, and designing enterprise software. In his current role, Tom is the VP of Web Solutions for Ektron, where he’s responsible for corporate strategy.

Should You Use URL Shorteners?

By Titus Hoskins in Webmasters

Recently, the following happened to me, I wrote my regular weekly newsletter and posted it on my site. Since this was a longer WordPress URL, like millions of other webmasters, I used a URL shortening service to make this link more usable and manageable.

I posted this shortened URL to Twitter and placed it in my weekly email posting… immediately I started getting emails from my subscribers and followers… the link doesn’t work, you must have made a mistake.

Which can be easily done, but when I checked the link, I found that the shortening service was not working properly and giving the dreaded “Page Not Found” response. To compound the problem, I was using the Google URL shortener Goo.gl and since it was Google everyone assumed the mistake was on my part. I mean Google is Google.

In the past, I had been using bit.ly but had switched to Goo.gl, well – because it’s Google. And everything works better with Google; this was the first time something I used with Google had not worked as planned. And it just wasn’t my links, none of the links with Goo.gl were working. No big loss, unless you were linking your Black Friday & Cyber Monday traffic thru these shorteners. Ouch.

Webmasters: Attract Leads With Great Content – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Stephen Monday in Webmasters

There are billions of ads on the Web, all flashing the “read me first,” signal.

How can a writer target the right type of leads to their main Page? The answer should be clear. That is clear and concise writing that leaves no room for doubt about what is being said. This allows the intent of the article to be made crystal clear.

When writers begin to ramble, this is when they lose their audience. If you want to attract a specific type of lead to visit your Homepage (where the visitor benefits, as well as the writer) having great content wins out every time.

Poorly thought out copy, and weak messages, are not what good people want to read. After all, there is so much competition – all vying for hungry eyes, the “circular bin” copy will quickly fall to the wayside.

Is this supposed to be a lesson in writing skills, or an article showing you how to grab high-value leads?

It is the intent of this article to do both. If one cannot generate keen interest in what the general topic of the content is about, people simply will not read further – they will go elsewhere.

That being said, the first rule of order for Webmasters who write should be to rev up reader interest.

Doing some good research, fact checking, and stimulating imaginations through great writing skills is imperative to achieve this goal.

Obviously most everyone can type words onto a page, but who can craft copy that is snapped up with enthusiasm?

The point here is to grab the reader’s interest and hold it all the way to the next conversion point.

This conversion may be as simple as to click another link, enter an email address, tweet the message, or “like,” it to Facebook.

Whatever the case may be, if the reader does not finish the content due to poor writing, the objective of the copy itself has failed to do its job.

All copy intends to do something. The main objective of most copy is simply to be read in its entirety.

When you can ignite the visitor’s passion for a certain, or specific thing, you have met the criteria for having your writing accomplish work.

Most lead generation copy does just that. By creating a keen interest in the general content, your copy is working to move the reader forward.

There are many styles of writing, but when it comes to crafting content which people enjoy reading, creative writing always wins out hands down.

Sure, some people who are reading academic style copy enjoy learning something new. However, even this type of copy can be made much more enjoyable, using creative writing.

It is all within the presentation of the message itself. Have you ever read copy which seemed to cause your eyelids to slam shut in disapproval?

Most of the time, a single paragraph of this type of “error in wording,” will cause attention spans to wane.

When interest is lost, people move on to something else. Think about it for a moment. How many times have you simply quit reading something, because it seemed to begin to ramble, lose focus, or did not make good sense?

That itself is the whole point and case of this article. Good writing keeps the person focused intently. It makes points that make sense, and is crystal clear about what is being said. You can learn how to write copy that does this.

It is a learned skill. Sure, some have a gift or generous aptitude for doing such, but no one is born with the skill to write like famous authors without having practiced honing such natural ability.

Words can do amazing things when used correctly. They can stop arguments, create passion, or even start or stop wars.

They can bring joy, euphoria, contentment, or even cause people to take swift action.

They can sell, buy, turn toward, or away, bring favor or discontent, create happiness or unhappiness.

The word is an all-powerful tool in the hands of the user. If you want to bring leads to your homepage, generate sales, or capture emails, you are going to have to use words very effectively to do so.

Readers do not like to feel as though they have wasted their time. If you want them to eagerly read what you have written, you have to feed them with great content.

Anything short of that is going to fall flat. What do I want you to take away with you from this article?

I want you to understand that good, well-crafted content, will win out, hands-down with readers every time.

It will pay you many dividends, and bring sincere visitors to your Web site again and again.

When you can consistently keep your readers happy with your content, they will come and keep coming back for more.

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Get your free Web Sales Page evaluation from Professional Copywriter, Stephen Monday. Please visit: www.AAAWebcopyservices.com. Go to our “Contact Us,” Page, enter URL of the Sales Page and click submit.

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