CMS Editing TreboroughHill.co.uk

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1 CMS Editing TreboroughHill.co.uk The publication date for these notes is shown in the footer of each page of these notes. I will update these notes if necessary and so it is worth clicking CMS Notes on the pink login bar periodically to see if there is a new version available. Contents General notes Back up regime Logging in Logging Out Editing a page Adding Text from a Word file or other source Adding an External Link Adding a PDF, Excel Spreadsheet or Word Document to the website Adding a link to an address To add an image in the text Cropping an image to a specific size Cropping an image with GIMP version 2.8 Keeping your documents and images in a tidy fashion Writing your text Editing the Photo Gallery Google Map Location Meta Tags Improving your ranking on Google Check the position of your website on Google General notes 1. You may find it useful to print out these notes and add your login details to the space below. 2. CMS stands for Content Management System. 3. Please only use GOOGLE CHROME for CMS editing your site as it is the best browser for CMS. 4. Your website text and image information is held within a database on the server. Every time you update and save a webpage using the CMS you overwrite the entire database with your new information. Be very careful not to update the database with wrong information. If you are doing a big change then you can ask me to take a copy of the database before you start. We can revert to that copy if you make errors and wipe out things you did not intend to remove or change. If in doubt do not click the large red Update button. 5. I give you far more control over your webpages than is normal for a CMS so if in doubt please ask for my help rather than risk destroying pages your website. 6. After every change to your website you should check that your amendments show up appropriately for the public on mobile phone screens, tablets and large screens. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 1

2 Back up regime Your computer failing, the web server misbehaving, you inadvertently overwriting or deleting important information, hacking, virus and many other scenarios can all mean you can lose part of, or all, of your website. Hopefully, such calamities will never occur for you but it is good to be prepared. There are three elements of the website that need backing up: 1. The design and functionality of the site, excluding text and images. I will have a copy of this to restore to the web server if it is ever required. 2. The database. I periodically take a copy of this and store it. If requested I can send you a copy of the database once a week so if you every have a problem you can return it to me and I can upload. This will return your site to whatever data the database backup held when it was copied and sent to you. If you receive a copy of the website database please keep it very secure as it contains access information for your website. In the wrong hands this could be used to corrupt your website. 3. The images and documents you upload. You must keep copies of the images and documents you put on the site so if they are ever lost from the server you can reinstall them from the master copies on your computer. I do not backup the images and documents you add so YOU MUST make sure you keep copies of all those you upload. Hopefully, nothing will ever go wrong but the three points above give us the ability to restore the website after a problem. As I mentioned at the start it is best to BE PREPARED. Logging in Click on the MW dot in the bottom right of any webpage. Enter your login details. You might like to write these in the spaces below. User name: Password: Upon clicking Login you will see that your webpage acquires a pink bar Logging Out When you have completed all your editing for a session please click the Logout button on the pink bar. Editing a page Go to the web page you want to edit. Click the box MAKE THIS PAGE EDITABLE: Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 2

3 Editing Text Select the text you want to edit and a blue bar will appear with the editing tools. Hover over a tool say the B (Bold) and a popup will describe what it does. Click to apply this tool. There are no tools for the page title because the styling is set centrally on the website. If you have added an item from the blue toolbar, for example made a word bold, to remove the bold simply highlight the word that is bold and click the bold tool on the blue bar. When a tool is active then it has a darker background colour on the blue toolbar. Adding Text from a Word file or other source If you need to copy text from a Word document or by copying text from a webpage you must go through a cleaning process to remove all the hidden background codes. To illustrate this I will describe the sequence for cleaning Word text. 1. Open the Word document 2. Highlight all the text you want to add into your website page 3. Copy this text ( Control C is useful on a PC) 4. Close Word 5. Open Notepad 6. Paste in the text you copied from Word. Most the formatting present is the Word version will vanish. 7. Highlight the text in Notepad 8. Cut the text from Notepad 9. Close Notepad 10. Go to the web page on which you want to paste this text 11. Click MAKE THIS PAGE EDITABLE 12. Put the cursor where the text is to go 13. Paste in the text (Control V on the PC is useful 14. Click the red Update button. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 3

4 Adding an External Link To add a link to an external website highlight the text you want to link on the page, click the # symbol on the toolbar and paste or type in the website link including the e.g. Adding a PDF, Excel Spreadsheet or Word Document to the website On your computer give the PDF a friendly file name with no spaces or punctuation marks e.g. background stats.pdf is good but the filename back stats y?65.pdf is bad. To add a PDF to the website first click Upload Documents on the pink bar. You need to upload the PDF so use Choose file to find it on your computer and then click the green button Upload this Document Now look for the file you have just added in the table below and copy the path of the file from Path to copy for uploading purposes Now return to the page where you want to add the link and type in the anchor text you want to link. Highlight this anchor text and on the blue bar select # Paste in the path for the PDF. Click the tick to confirm. Adding a link to an address Add your anchor text to the page e.g. please John Highlight this text and click the link button. Write in John s address in this way mailto:john@abc.co.uk Click the tick and save the page. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 4

5 To add an image in the text Prepare the image you want to upload. Before you add a new picture you need an original that is 1024 pixels in width or larger and saved as a jpg file on your computer. Please use a human friendly file name for it with no spaces or punctuation e.g. party fun august.jpg is good whereas DSC ? Party sa.jpg is bad. The website can help with resizing if you do not have suitable graphics software on your computer. Another useful site is There is a free graphics program GIMP that you might choose to use. Put the cursor where you want the image. Push return and you should see a plus sign in a circle Click on the and it changes to Click on and find the file you want to upload. If it has a huge file size and your internet is slow it can take a long time to upload. Once it is uploaded it will be resized to 1024pixels wide and added onto you page. Click on the image to get a blue toolbar. Select Centre and 100%. The picture may be far too big in which case we may have set picture boxes on the page in which to place your pictures. Clicking on a picture will show a Remove button should you want to remove the picture from the page. Click on the words image cation below the picture and type in a caption for the picture When you have finished scroll to the bottom of the CMS page and click on the large red button labelled Update. It is a good idea to save frequently in case of computer glitches. Cropping an image to a specific size One method is to use If your internet connection speed is poor this can be a slow process as it involves uploading and downloading your images. Go to Click on Upload an image and select from your computer the image you want to resize Go down to the section Resize your image and type in the width you require for the crop Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 5

6 Let the computer adjust the height of the image do not enter it manually Click Resize Image at the bottom of the page Click Download image and save the resized image to your computer Start again with Upload the resized image you have just downloaded to Go to the Crop your image section Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 6

7 Enter the W: and H: to your required values DO NOT use the square resize handles Click in the middle of the crop area to move the crop up and down to the required positon Click the Crop button The image will resize to your crop dimensions albeit slowly if your internet connection is poor Go to the bottom of the page and select Resize Image Now click the Download Image link see below You will now have crop of your chosen dimensions that is not distorted Many graphics programs (but not all of them) allow you to crop images so you might like to explore that option if you feel confident to do so the free graphics program GIMP does allow cropping. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 7

8 Cropping an image with GIMP version 2.8 This is available from 1. Open GIMP 2. File>Open>Select your image 3. Open Tools>Transform Tools>Crop 4. Draw out a rectangle crop box on your image 5. Type in a size say 800 pixels wide and 533 pixels high 6. Push enter when you have entered the second dimension of 533 pixels 7. Click and hold the left mouse button on the crop area and move the mouse to position the crop where you want it 8. Push enter 9. Go to File> Export as and save the cropped image to your computer using a suitable filename. Unless you have good reason to change them just accept the defaults settings 10. Save or discard the GIMP master file for this crop as suits you. It is useful to save if you want to crop this picture again Keeping your documents and images in a tidy fashion Over time one can accumulate documents and images on the site that are redundant. It makes things simpler if you remove these from the server. To do this go to the Upload Documents and View Image Pool page on the pink bar and follow the method outlined there. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 8

9 Writing your text According to Google, one of the most important steps in improving your site's ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content. First of all, check your web site for thin content pages. Of course, pages with just a few words can still be relevant pages. Create engaging content for your audience. If your website contains many pages that are relevant to the topic of your website, it will be easier to get high rankings for the individual pages. The more content a web page has, the easier it is to get high rankings on the search engines. It is very difficult to get high rankings for very short pages with thin content. Google continues to say that high quality content is important if you want to get high rankings. Recommendations for your content: It s important to understand the people that you re writing for you should know their needs, their wants and the things they care about. That way, you can pick a topic they actually want to read about. Aim for a voice and tone that's conversational, friendly, and respectful without being overly colloquial or frivolous; a voice that's casual and natural and approachable, not pedantic or pushy. Try to sound like a knowledgeable friend who understands what the reader wants to do. If your audience is not very technical, jargon littered paragraphs that don t resonate with them will only turn them off Use standard spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization. Write short and concise sentences that are easy to understand Use descriptive link texts, i.e. "download our user manual" instead of "click here" If you link to other websites, make sure that these websites are reliable and respectable Avoid buzzwords and technical jargon. Don't use exclamation marks, except in rare really exciting moments Consider headers, sub headers ( Headings 1,2,3,4,5,5 and 6), numbered lists and bullet lists to structure your content The content of your web pages should have a clear structure, and it should be easy to understand and provide the answers to the questions the reader is enquiring about Make sure that your web pages contain enough content to answer the questions of a web page visitor. Search engines love content rich websites that answer the questions of searchers. As a rule of thumb if your school English teacher would have approved of the way you have written your text then Google will be happy. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 9

10 Editing the Photo Gallery Firstly prepare a picture of size 800 x 533 pixels and save it on your computer as a jpg file On the pink bar click Update Gallery To add a new image and its associated text Use the Choose File button to select the image you want to upload. The file name will appear in the white box adjacent to the Choose File button Add in your description Add in the category. The only category words you can add are the ones shown Add in the order. The higher the order number the lower the picture will appear on the Gallery page Click the orange Add to Gallery button To amend an image and its associated text On the pink bar click Update Gallery You will see a table summarizing what images are currently on the Gallery page Click on the id value of the row you want to amend Below the table you will see boxes for File, Category, Description and Order with the chosen items details. Edit these items as required. Click the green Add to Portfolio button Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 10

11 To permanently delete an image On the pink bar click Update Gallery You will see a table summarizing what images are currently on the Gallery page TAKE CARE as deletion is not reversible. Click on the appropriate red button Permanently delete this image Google Map Location If you have a Google map then it will requires latitude and longitude coordinates. To find out what these are for your location go to large.php Move the map around until the pointer is over the desired location. On the top left of the screen you will see the latitude and longitude of that location. Copy these onto an and send them to me for inclusion on your Google map. Meta Tags Meta information is there behind your pages to assist the search engines with listing your page. These meta tags can be added when you are in page editing mode. Down the bottom of the page is a meta tag editing area. Make sure that you have used your CMS to add individualised meta tags for each page of your site. It is important to have Article meta title, Article meta description and Article meta keywords that reflect both the content and keyword phrases you are trying to get over on that page. The Article meta title and Article meta description are used by Google in ranking and also play a particularly significant role when potential clients view your listing on the Google results page. Good information in Article meta title and Article meta description that appeals to humans can encourage them to click on your link rather than one of your rivals. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 11

12 Improving your ranking on Google Your web site is effectively a portfolio providing plenty of space for you to carefully lay out your message and provide all the information you wish to impart to your customers. Usually there comes a stage when website owners think they would like to get more visitors to their website. The main way that people may find your website is through search engines, primarily Google. Getting good positioning on Google is a goal most website owners seek. However, this is not easy. Incidentally, there are about 5 billion searches per day on Google. If you search for say the term buy carpets on Google there are around 11.1 million websites that Google considers are related to the term buy carpets. As you read on you will appreciate that the competition you will experience from other websites to do well on Google is intense.. Choose a search term that you are interested in and do a Google search for it. You can then see from the above picture how many websites Google lists for the term. Even a term like landscape garden design Taunton which you might think was quite specific has 624,000 websites listed by Google. Depending of which servers Google is using for your search at a given time and a variety of other factors the number of results may vary each time you do the search. The competition on Google to appear on the top few pages of the results is intense. We all know that people only tend to look at the first three pages of results when they do a Google search so this means that in order to appear somewhere in the top three Google pages the person who wants to be found under the term landscape garden design Taunton needs to have a website that Google thinks is more informative and clearer than 623,970 other websites. You see the enormity of trying to get towards the top of the Google rankings. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 12

13 There are a great many factors such as meta title, meta description, text structuring, ensuring your website is mobile friendly, alt tags, links to your website, social media activity, the age of your domain name, if the domain name contains key words and so on. There are hundreds of factors that have small influences on your positioning in Google. You will be pleased to read that you do have some control over your positioning in Google. There are a number of things you can do to improve your websites ranking on Google. 1. Keyword Phrases The first thing is to decide on the keyword phrases you want to be found under when someone searches Google. Keyword phrases, for example landscape garden design Taunton, are words that you hope will bring up your website on page one of Google results. You need to be realistic in choosing the keyword phases you want to be found under. Normally they will be phrases that you think will bring you customers who want your services and will be minded to pay for your product. You do not want visitors to your site who have no interest in buying from you. If your website specializes in creating wedding and special occasion bespoke cakes, it does not make sense to be listed for a general keyword such as 'cakes' (Google has 500 million websites wanting to be listed under the term cakes ). Even if you were to rank high on the word cakes most of the searches for cakes will NOT be from people who would want you to make them a cake. These cake bakers would need to choose keyword phrases they thought their potential customers would enter into Google. These phrases might include 'Bridgwater homemade wedding cakes', 'Somerset wedding cakes' and they might choose 'chocolate wedding cakes '. However, if someone from say the USA finds you under 'chocolate wedding cakes' (Google has 3 million websites wanting to be listed under this term) it will not be of any use to our bakers as they will not be able to send a cake to the USA. Perhaps they are better off with the keyword phrase 'somerset chocolate wedding cakes' (Google has far less, at around 600,000 websites, wanting to be listed under this term) or 'Taunton chocolate wedding cakes' (Google has around 58,000 websites wanting to be listed under this term) because people putting in these keyword phrases are looking for chocolate wedding cakes in the Taunton/Somerset area and so could well become paying customers for the bakers. Let s consider a fictitious business called Exeter Fishing Tackle which has a small shop in Exeter, selling everything the fisherman may need from fishing permits to rods, line and maggots. The owners might think of the following keyword phases as ones that are relevant to their business and will be phrases that are used by customers who may end up buying from the shop. 1. fishing tackle Exeter 2. fishing the River Exe 3. Devon fishing equipment 4. advice on fishing in Devon 5. advice on fishing the River Exe 6. fishing bait Exeter Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 13

14 The Fishing Shop owners are looking for keyword phrases that are likely to be used by the sort of person that would spend money in their shop. Why doesn t the Shop try to be found under the term fishing tackle? The reason they would not choose this keyword phrase is that it is too general and far too popular. If you search for the term fishing tackle on Google there are 1.8 million websites listed. Just imagine how slim your chances are of being such an informative and clearly presented website on the subject of fishing tackle that Google puts your website on either page one, two or three. Using the method I showed above let s look at how many websites are competing for the terms our Fishing Shop business selected. Fishing tackle Exeter 258,000 competing websites Fishing the River Exe 771,000 competing websites Devon fishing equipment 3,470,000 competing websites Advice on fishing in Devon 1,170,000 competing websites Tips on fishing the River Exe 597,000 competing websites Fishing bait Exeter 821,000 competing websites Our fictitious business, the Exeter Fishing Tackle, shop still has to find a way to make Google think that have a more informative and clearer website on the terms such as Exeter fishing tackle than 257,970 other websites so this is going to be very difficult. However, it is worth the trouble because someone searching for a website under the term Exeter fishing tackle is a person who probably is looking to buy fishing equipment and not a time waster. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 14

15 Even if the Exeter Fishing Tackle shop was so incredibly lucky to be found under the term fishing what use would it be. The person searching for fishing might be a student in New York writing an essay, someone in Japan interested in Whale fishing, a person in Southern Italy looking for a day of course fishing in Italy. None of these people are going to want to spend money in the Exeter Shop. In summary, what you are looking for are phrases, without too many competing websites, that you consider will bring paying customers to your website. Do some research on Google and compile a list of your own keyword phrases. Once you have these phrases you then have terms that you can build into your website and use to assess your progress in Google. Using Keyword Phrases in your website You need to write the text and supply pictures for your webpages to support these keyword phases. How does this help? In essence, if someone enters the term fishing tackle Exeter Google will look at all the websites it knows about (around 255,000 in this case) and ranks these websites. Those that it considers are the most informative and useful are put at the top of the Google results on Page One. You can see that your website has to be very informative on this term to beat 255,000 other websites and get to position 1 on Google. 2. Domain Name From a search engine point of view it is useful to have your domain name as one of the keyword phrases you think particularly important. In the case of our business the domain name would be a very good choice. It does two jobs for them. Firstly it helps the case with Google because Google will think that a website with this domain name should be a significant site on the keyword term Exeter fishing tackle. Secondly any human seeing the domain name immediately knows what the business does. If the shop had called itself Cole and Hardman Ltd and chosen the domain this gives no indication of the nature of their business. 3. Social Media Most internet savvy businesses now rely heavily on social media to capture people s interest through the businesses social media pages and hence encourage clients to visit pages on their website. This is a very good way to drum up custom but it takes time and determination to build up your followers and engage their interest. It does not cost anything if you do it yourself but it is time consuming. There are hundreds of social media platforms and you need to ascertain which are the ones most likely to be used by your clients Set up accounts with as many social media sites as you can handle e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked In and enthusiastically promote your business using the social media to encourage people to look at your website. The frequent appearance of your business in social media will encourage Google to think more favourably about you website. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 15

16 4. YouTube This is one of the better known platforms used to promote businesses. You Tube is very heavily used and if you add popular or useful videos to You Tube it can be a good way to bring traffic to your website. The key to using YouTube effectively is to keep the videos short and sweet. Make sure they solve the what s in it for me question. YouTube is perfect for How to videos, but it s not a good place to upload the CEOs annual speech to shareholders. 5. Marketing It is well worth collecting the addresses of people who have been, or could be, customers and keeping them informed about things that might interest them. This can encourage them to buy from your business. However, you do need permission from them first. Sending too many s just annoys people but occasional informative can be a real stimulus for people to think about what you can offer. This can help you get your message out and bring people to your website. Think about regularly contacting clients who are interested in your website. Popular marketing tools include Constant Contact. 6. Flickr This is a photo sharing site that might be relevant for your business to build awareness and drive traffic to your product pages. 7. Google Business Listing I would strongly recommend that you set up a Google Business Listing. It will help a great deal if people are searching for the products or services you can offer in your geographical area. For help on how to set this up go to This process will help you get into the 3 maps pack see below for normal searches Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 16

17 and also be found through searches on Google Maps. 8. Links from other website Google also looks to see how many other sites are choosing to link to the particular pages on your website. Google reasons that if other websites owners have chosen to link to pages on your website then they must be very interesting and informative. It is hard work contacting other website owners and trying to get them to link to your pages. Incidentally, never use automated software to do this as the penalties Google places on your SEO rankings can be dire. Also ensure that the link comes from a genuine high quality website 9. Meta information Meta Information is there behind your pages to assist the search engines with listing your page. The picture below shows where this information usually appears on a Google search. Article meta title. This summarises the content found on a page. It will often appear in three key places: the browser tab (see below), Google search engine results pages (see above), and external sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Each of your web pages should have its own individual Article meta title. The Article Meta title is the boldest, most obvious element in a search results page on Google and therefore plays a major part in the decision making process of whether a searcher will click on your result or not. The Article meta title must be highly relevant to the content found on that specific page Place important keywords and phrases close to the front of the title tag so they catch the eye Write naturally for visitors and avoid keyword stuffing Avoid duplication. Each page of your website will have a different topic so it needs to have a unique Article Meta title Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 17

18 Potentially include your brand name at the end of the title tag but focus on getting your message across first Keep it between 60 and 64 characters. If you write a title that s longer than that, it ll get cut off, showing an ellipsis. Make it compelling. Your title tag should be appealing enough to entice visitors who see the website listed on Google to click to find out more about what you have to offer The Article meta description is intended to be a short summary of the content found on the web page. While the title tag is very limited an Article meta description gives you a bit more space to tell users what you re offering, and it s an opportunity to give them a compelling reason to click through to your page. Write up to 20 words summarising the content of the webpage. If you write an Article meta description that s longer than that, it ll get cut off, showing an ellipsis.. Article meta keywords are no longer important but are worth adding to each webpage. Compile a list of about 15 words or short phrases for each page separated by commas e.g. Exmoor, tourist information, National Park, holidays, walking, recreation, history, nature, farming, moorland Update Your Site Frequently Google wants to see that you have a dynamic and active website. Of course, you won t always have new products to launch, but you could regularly add information on the latest topics and trends within your industry, which helps your search engine ranking in the long run, and the new content gives your customers a reason to return to your site. Spending Money to get a high position on Google 1. Pay per Click (PPC) The easiest way to get listed on page 1 of Google for any term you wish is to pay Google so you appear in a sponsored link. This approach can be expensive so you need to be focused and plan your Google Ad campaign well. If handled well it can bring you a lot of the right sort of people to your website but if done badly it can be an expensive waste of money. In essence, you pay Google to appear at the top of the Google page one results as a sponsored link. Every time someone clicks on your PPC sponsored link then Google debits cash from your account. You can see how carefully you will need to manage this. If you are a Garden Designer and you used PPC for the keyword phrase shortcuts to better garden design it could be that ordinary people with no intention of employing a garden designer click on the link to seek ideas and tips. Every time they click your PPC chosen phrase Google will debit the sum you agreed with them (say 50p or 1 per click it depends on the popularity of the phrase). Thus if thousands of never to be customers around the world click on your link it will cost you a lot of cash for no financial return. However, you can turn PPC on and off, set totals costs per days, keep changing your phrase (for example you many want special phrase at Christmas or at the time of the Chelsea Flower Show). With skill, some luck and continually refining your PPC Campaign it can be an excellent and easy way to generate custom but most people lose money because they run their campaigns badly as it is hard, tedious, work to keep on top of the campaign day after day. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 18

19 Google AdWords is continually evolving so I recommend that you take a look at and perhaps ring telephone number they show to find out more. 2. Facebook and other social media adverts It is worth considering the use of these if your audience use these media and you think they will be encouraged by such adverts. 3. Web Promotion Companies There are myriad businesses trying to sell you their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services. The purchase of website search optimising (SEO) services is an area to step into with great care as it can be a splendid way to spend a lot of money to little effect. So to answer to the question I am often asked is there an organisation that I am aware of that will offer SEO at a cost that makes it worth using the answer is no? They may well do something but I have not come across any small business that has used SEO companies with truly cost effective success. I am sure they exist, it is just that I have not yet come across them. Check the position of your website on Google If you want to see what position a website ranks at on Google for a particular keyword phrase then there is a free method if you install a Chrome browser add on. Open your Chrome browser and search for Chrome Store Fatrank. Install the Fatrank addon into Chrome. When you want to see how a website ranks for a particular search term then open the website in the Chrome browser and click the Fatrank button. There is a limitation in that Fatrank only looks through the first 100 results (ten pages of results) in Google. Editing using Magic Webs CMS 9 th Feb 2018 Page 19

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