Update Note: Since I added this post, I received an email back from my client wherein she noted that she used my suggestions of  writing a cordial email to the site owner that her content had been stolen.  In my client’s words: ”The guy wrote back that it was his web developer who did it (yeah, right) and he had no idea.  He fired his web developer and updated his site. “  My client, also found an online resource that address content theft in detail, and provids lots of good information.  If you have this problem then I encourage you to read not only what I wrote following, but check out this website: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/

Question: “Some **** stole 3/4 of the verbiage from my website and used it on his.  Do I have any recourse?  I know there is a copyright thing at the bottom of the site. Can I go after him for some sort of infringement? Thanks.  Man am I heated!”

Answer:  First, and foremost, …. since your content and website was in place first, their duplication of content won’t hurt your ranking; though it will likely hurt theirs.  As for steps to deal with it, the cordial thing to do would be to contact the owner of the website by email and note that their content is very similar to your own, and in case it was added without their knowledge of its source (your website) you wanted to give them the opportunity to remove the text taken from your site before legal and other actions are pursued.  Note that it is possible that their website designer went to your site and “borrowed” your content without the owner’s knowledge.  For this reason, I would take the high road first.  And I would avoid calling them unless you are able to record the conversation since if legal action is needed then it is best to have documentation of what has been said/requested by you.  If you don’t get a response by email, then you may also want to send them a certified letter.

If these attempts fail, the next option is to contact the support department of every search engine where this website is listed (yahoo, google, bing) and file a complaint of content theft.  With each search engine/directory, there will be some type of customer complaint, customer service, or related department email option.

As for actual attorney involvement, I wouldn’t suggest going this route unless you can prove malicious intent and that damages has resulted from their use of your verbiage.  I am not a lawyer, so can’t say for certain the outcome, but considering that their theft of content will only hurt their ranking, and not affect yours, I don’t think you have to worry too much about their attempt at usurping your own efforts.

Question: “I work as the social media marketing directory for my company, and they have been paying some web optimization company $300/month to maintain their SEO. And since we are not coming up in the searches, it is clearly not working.  I have made several recommendations on the things that my company can do outside of their physical site to improve ranking, but can you tell me what is your opinion on SEO “maintenance” companies in general?  They used to submit your URL to search engines regularly, but I have no idea what they supposedly do now.  This is a database site, so they can certainly go in and update content more regularly than they do, but the headings and metatags, and the fact that only 3 of their images are recognized – this is all stuff outside of my wheelhouse.  Also, with the limited text they do have on their site I am unclear if it is at all searchable, but I don’t really know how to tell.”

Answer: I agree that $300/mo would seem unnecessary and potentially fraudulent considering the lack of results.  First and foremost, I would request a listing of what this company has done for your business each month?  SEO optimization clearly doesn’t needed to be done over and over, once the content is optimized properly you can pretty much leave it alone with the ocassional tweak over time.  SEO Marketing though can be involved and require frequent updates, just as social media marketing requires.

Ok, so my suggestion, break their marketing strategy down into 3 or more areas and define a strategy, as applicable, for each.

(1) Website Optimization – metatags (titles, keywords, description, robots tag), effective use of H1 to H4 tags, hyperlinked content on pages to other pages, sitemap, and keyword rich text on home page and other primary pages.  I suggest utilizing Google and Bing’s webmaster tools to get a better idea of the keywords used to locate their type of business, and begin to optimize the pages as possible based upon these criteria.  I would also ensure that there is an XML sitemap in place. But know that text content is first and foremost.

(2) Social Media Marketing – cross-linked media campaigns utilizing newsletters, promotions, youtube video, company blog … applied at Facebook, Twitter, etc.  If the company doesn’t yet have a Facebook Landing page (utilizing I-Frame) I would suggest this.

(3) Website Directories – for most industries, there are highly ranked websites that link to related businesses; wherever possible get a free link back.  In addition, there is Google Places, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle, SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com, etc.  For each of these you provide a company description and info, and upload photos (most provide free accounts of some type).

(4) Review Websites – I would look to review sites such as Yelp, Google Reviews, Yahoo Local, Angie’s List, etc. The goal here is to get people to provide good comments/reviews, the more provided, the better the company will do in a search query.

(5) Direct Advertising – you may wish to consider advertising options such as “daily deals” … Groupon, LivingSocial, ThruSocial (people love deals), … and conventional advertising such as Google Adwords, ASK.com, and Yahoo.

(6) Social Media Bookmarking and Professional Networking – sites such as Digg, Del,ico,us, StumpleUpon, Reddit, … as well as LinkedIn are a good way to get people aware of your business.

Ok, so going back to what the “web optimization company” is offering, if they are managing all, or most of the above, then yes, $300/mo would be reasonable.  My assumption is that they are not.  As you know, many of the aforementioned would require ongoing effort, both in the creation of things to blog/post/comment/tweet about, and the time involved to review what others are saying and reply.

As for updates cost, the standard development rate of most designers is $50-$75/hr, so yes, they fall in that range assuming they are spending 5 or more hours a month on your website.  Yet again, my feeling is that payment should be merit based, not based upon some vague since of expected benefit.  Unless this company can show exactly what they have been providing for the money, then yes, drop them.

Question: “I am interested in having a website built or doing it myself possibly (I have some experience with Dreamweaver), and would like to be able to make changes to it myself.  I have been told that I need a CMS website (WordPress and Joomla were mentioned), but I am not quite clear on what this is, or the options.  Do you create CMS websites, and can you tell me more about this?”

Answer: CMS (Content Management System) websites are created on the PHP platform traditionally.  A dynamic scripting language is necessary for any templating system wherein a database is used to store/retrieve information.  PHP is most common since it is used with Linux/Unix servers; the other likely option is ASP or ASPX (used on Microsoft servers), though you can find Java, Ruby, and ColdFusion CMS applications as well.  The important thing to note that any database, templated website is not 100% secure.  Databases can be compromised by what is known as “mySQl injection”; so anyone who does use a CMS needs to be sure to back up their database anytime major changes have been made.  All CMS websites use a template/theme to render the pages dynamically, which means they are not stand-alone (static) pages but instead are created by assembling the template/theme parts and the database content to form the pages.  Since the CMS pages are PHP or ASP, etc, they will need to have their names changed from a php (asp, etc) version to an html version.  Joomla and WordPress both have an option for rewrite conversion, though in Joomla there are better commercial ones (sh404SEF). And another concern is version changes.  With each upgrade (Joomla or WordPress) previous add-ons, and even templates, may not work properly since backwards compatibility is not always provided for.

Note that all CMS applications allow direct editing of the templated pages, which will consist of the header, footer, body section, and css files and some special page versions (such as contact or gallery).  This editing is only for the template files though, not the content on the pages.  In theory, if you can work with dreamweaver in code view you should be able to edit any page/section of Joomla or WordPress (just note that the code will contain both PHP amd html/xhtml). The way Joomla works is that a template will link to a database to allow for dynamic content inclusions.  All “content” is stored in this database, but the layout template defines the structure of the pages, which is the header at top (navigation, logo, banner ads, etc), the body section (one or more columns), and the footer (copyright, additional links/navigation, etc).  These are common layout elements so are used on every page.  In this way a new page can be created quickly and easily.

In the administrative/authoring environment, with any CMS there will be a wyswyg editor (similar to what dreamweaver has in design view) and a code editor (where html versions of page content can be added/edited directly); note that while all CMS applictions provide a code editor, content edited in code view will not always render exactly as it should, and any content added will still be governed by the CSS stylesheets the template call to, though you can always edit and existing style or create your own styles and link to them by way of a class or ID.

As for the specific platforms:

Joomla CMS:
Joomla is one of the best CMS options since it is very flexible, has lots of templates, and a large development community so lots of testing and addons.  Joomla is a bit confusing to use at first since an article is linked to a category, which in turn is linked to a section which requires a bit of thought since you need the content to be organized and easy to find (not so easy with large websites); though with the recent version of Joomla they have done away with sections, so it is a little simpler.  The challenging part with Joomla is that to extend the functionality, and generally make the most of it, you need to add components, modules, and plugins.  Modules are container objects, wherein you can add text or images to a column.  In Joomla you would assign which pages the modular content would be displayed.  Plugins are addons such as JCE EDitor (an advanced page editor), and components are those elements such as event calendars, directories, polls, media galleries, etc.  As I touched upon, Joomla is an industry level CMS, and has an extensive development community, and as such there are more ready-made options, both free and commercial, for it than any other CMS option out there.

WordPress CMS:
Wordpress by nature is a Blog.  This means that by default the homepage is the blog page, but it doesn’t have to be.  WordPress allows you to create as many pages as you want, and you can link your home page to a “static” page, and then have the blog be a link, or not even visible if you don’t wish to provide blog posts.  WordPress works similar to Joomla, though for most people it is easier to work with.  To get started you would install the template that you’ve chosen (like Joomla it comes with a default template but there are better commerical options of course), and then you need to configure the settings.  These include your page title, whether or not to allow comments on pages and posts, and more.  Next you will need to define your category names for the pages, posts, and links.  By default the category name is “untitled”, which won’t look good.  And to extend the functionality (much like Joomla’s use of components, plugins, and modules) wordpress uses widgets.  Widgets can be used to add a newsletter to a sidebar, or an event calendar, or a paypal buttons, etc.  The important thing with wordpress is to note that the layout of the template will define what can or cannot be added; in most cases a wordpress template will allow you to place whichever widgets you want on the column, but these can only be set as visible or hidden for a given page, you can’t typically have unique widgets between pages.  But…the new, better wordpress CMS templates do allow this.  I note “CMS” here since these will provide custom templates for the home page, gallery pages, etc, instead of simply the default page or post option.  In both Joomla and CMS, content is uploaded to a media manager.  This is where you would upload images, pdf docs, word docs, etc.  Once in editing view on a give page or post, you can link to a respective image or document by attaching it from the media manager.  This is basically it, but you will want to ensure that certain plugins are also installed (SEO plugin for one to ensure that your pages can have unique page titles, descriptions, and keywords).  Joomla by default allows for this so no plugin is needed.

Static XHTML Website:
The advantage of a Xhtml/CSS compliant website is the complete freedom with the layout.  Both Joomla and WordPress use a template, which of course is necessary for a dynamic website.  This means that you can’t easily change the visual look between pages.  In most cases this is fine since you do want a consistent look/feel across pages, but you may, for example, want a column on the left on one page, and on the right on another…in Joomla and WordPress this would be very difficult to if the template does’t already provide for this (few do), the only way would be to create a seperate template page and then manually link to it.  Just not effective.  When considering which options is best, Static Xhtml, Joomla, or WordPress it really comes down to what’s most important….layout control (static xhtml), dynamic extendability (Joomla), dynamic and easy to use (WordPress).  Note that both Joomla and WordPress allow for member levels, … the administrator has full control, but you can assign lesser user levels such as an editor, or a member.  Membership is effective if you ever intend to provide “member only” content, and while WordPress does allow for this, Joomla is really better suited for providing member only access to a portion of a website.

As for the site itself, you need to research your competition.  A lot of what I do for my clients is data mining, wherein I look at their top ranked competition and make notes about what they are doing right, … the visual look, navigation/pages, SEO tags, the types of services they are offering, and at times I will rewrite some of their content itself.  The important things with any new business is to achieve a look that says “we’re established”.  As a designer I provide not only the visual framework, but I also assist with the copy writing, and image inclusions.

On my site, I provide a lot of information on my website with regard to what is needed to effectively build a new website.  If you look at my “portfolio showcase” you will see good examples of Joomla, WordPress, and custom xhtml websites.  I would also look over my “development” content, especially “layout content assessment” and “seo and submission”.

Finally, I know that starting a new site can be very challenging, but know that this is what I do, and I am very good at it.  I would be pleased to assist you, and to be completely forthcoming, I don’t think that starting on your own is a viable option if you want to succeed.  Most of my clients reach the first page of google in a couple of months which is absolutely necessary if you intend to make this new venture a success.  And if needed, I can also provide you hosting, and domain name registration assistance.

Question: “I am interested in creating my own website myself, and I was hoping to get your opinion on the best website development platform for doing this.  I don’t have a lot of design experience, and it needs to be either free, or low cost.  I currently have an account setup at Godaddy using their WebsiteTonight templating system, so I am thinking that Godaddy’s WordPress option might be better.  Can you help me?”

Answer: As you likely have learnt, GoDaddy’s WebsiteTonight is a templating system.  And while I recognize that it may look easy to use, it is very limited in one’s ability to make visual changes since the design layout cannot be modified beyond the editable regions.  The text and images are added by way of blocks, and with the text blocks you will need to be sure that the font style and size for the body content remains consistent since they don’t rely on a global stylesheet.  Images and document content need to be uploaded to their media manager.  As for SEO, you can set your description and keywords in the settings area, but these are consistent across pages, so this site will never be an SEO winner.  Navigation titles are set by the page titles, so fixed and not flexible.  And lastly, you cannot have non-websiteTonight pages (say a plain html page, nor can you install a database for extended functionality … so, if websitetonight doesn’t offer it as an add-on, then it won’t be work with this system.  My advice don’t use this.

As for GoDaddy WordPress Hosting, GoDaddy does provide a wordpress install hosting option.  This is the same as their standard hosting package except they simply install the wordpress and database through an automated process (note that the better hosting companies ‘my own included” all offer an auto install of wordpress or joomla though a control panel app called “fantastico”); WordPress as with any dynamic website will link up the template to the database through a configuration file.

To make “wordpress” an option at GoDaddy contact their hosting support and they will walk you through each step.  Be sure to tell them that you want to transfer what you’ve already paid for WebsiteTonight to this new hosting account.  Also, you will need to have your domain name linked up to this new hosting account, either by way of changing the nameservers or adding an “A Record” which links up a domain by way of the new hosting server’s IP address.  GoDaddy is used to such requests so you shouldn’t have any problems.  Also note that if you call you will need your “pin” number, which is found on your account info page.

That being said, wordpress is relatively easy to use, which is why there are many blogs and websites created in it.  The problem is that most people will have trouble using it if they are looking to have anything more than a simple blog.  The advanced CMS commercial themes available for WordPress require lots of customization, both in the widgets, shortcodes, portfolio and gallery inclusions, menu systems, and more.  If you are a hands-on type, then I suggest you buy a WordPress book (the latest version is WP 3.3), or you can check online since their are lots of help out there though much will be outdated since WordPress is constantly updating their versions.  In addition, most of the commerical themes will have documentation on how to add content to the theme, but I have found that these are often lacking, and require a solid foundation in how WordPress works to easily comprehend.  And finally, it many cases you will have a theme that does much of what you want, but since all the WP themes are coded in PHP, making layout changes (hacking the code) will typically require a solid foundation in PHP and Xhtml coding, and graphical inclusions/edits will require that you have the ability and know-how to edit graphics for size and layout. The important thing is to find a WP theme that has the features you want out-of-the-box. For example, if you want custom sidebar content, ensure that the theme does provide this, most don’t.  The important thing is once you’ve found a theme you like, evaluate it fully by viewing the live demo.  Check it for cross-browser compatibility (some break in Internet Explorer), ensure that the header portion will work with your logo since a large “vertically aligned” logo won’t look good if the theme is designed for a small “horizontally aligned” logo, and will often break the layout.  Ensure that custom sidebars are allowed, or that at least some customization is across pages (rarely will one default sidebar be enough to allow for the diversity of content).  Ensure that the footers allow for custom content, and so on.  And be sure to read reviews of the theme, since user feedback is what of the best ways to learn about the problems inherent in a theme.