Hello everyone and welcome back to the Silentblast Web Design Blog. We’re going to discuss today some of the benefits of having a CMS; Content Management System built within your web design.

The design and development of a business website allows a business owner the opportunity to bring their business not only at a localized level but should they so choose, to a global market. The internet is continuously and rapidly expanding. Mobile phones are also playing an extensive role in the expansion of the internet and what it can mean for a business.
The visibility and acquisition of business opportunities to rise above your competitors must be designed well in order to spread awareness effectively through your website. The importance and consideration of a Content Management System (CMS) in web development and web design is one of the factors to consider that can provide for timely content that is under your control that can be updated at regular intervals in order to provide visitors to your website with updated products or services verticals you offer.

Some of the immediate benefits of a Content Management System are:

1. Cost Effectiveness – imagine if you constantly had to update photo galleries of a given product. To go to your web design and development company to update pages would prove over time more costly than the initial investment of a CMS system that handles the updating of photos in a gallery you control.

2. Simplicity – gone are the days of end-users trying to figure out code to update their website. This can prove to be problematic to your overall design. There is no need to read manuals or “how to� FAQ’s. If you can use a word processer, you can use a Content Management System.

3. Access Anywhere – the Content Management System is online. If you have access to a computer and the internet, you have access to your CMS system.

4. Dynamic CMS – Changes are instantaneous. There is no waiting.

5. Dynamic Navigation – Through proper coding of the CMS the generation and adjustments in the navigation are done dynamically. Easy navigation makes the pages of your website search engine friendly, promotes users to explore your website more; thus keeping them attracted to the products and services you are offering.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Website Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Ask A Mortgage Pro - Mississauga Ontario

Hello and welcome back to the Silentblast blog. Recently launched from the Silentblast Interactive team was Ask A Mortgage Pro’s website. This project was an outstanding project to work on with the team at Ask A Mortgage Pro who are located in Mississauga Ontario but are launching a mortgage and financing strategy that will be Canada wide. When Silentblast met with them; there was already a significant investment in a previous website that was not thoroughly designed with the strategy and vision they had hoped to achieve. The business strategy to a degree also had to be refined and with the combined efforts of the Ask A Mortgage Team and Silentblast Interactive the decision to redesign and development the website from the ground up was decided.

The Ask a Mortgage Pro website features several CMS Content Management System modules that allow brokers and agents to register and create a profile for themselves. This CMS facilitates the requirement based on Ask A Mortgage Pro’s vision for coast to coast representation of mortgage professionals on their website. A CMS was also structured that facilitated the addition of Lawyers profiles to the website. Legal partners of Ask A Mortgage Pro can now register and sign into the system and can create a profile for end users; website visitors, to see.

A major grouping of partners are the lenders that are featured on the Ask A Mortgage Pro website. As lenders form strategic partnerships with Ask A Mortgage Pro, they will be added to the system to be displayed on featured profiles.

A News and Events CMS (Content Management System) was also designed and developed for the team at Ask A Mortgage Pro’s and this facilitates them to add mortgage and financial news and headlines that can help those seeking a mortgage or mortgage financing within Canada. Also added within the CMS that facilitates the entry of articles of interest within the mortgage and mortgage financing industry is their Mortgage Blog.

Since launch the team at Ask A Mortgage Pro’s have been adding News and Blog articles to their website and this will help in their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy which Silentblast Interactive has also been commissioned to develop.

To visit the Ask A Mortgage Pro team please go to www.askamortgagepro.com

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Website Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development - Revo Marketing Group

Welcome back to the Silentblast Blog; one of our internal media outlets to advise our clients and potential customers of recent web design and development work that is being done by Silentblast Interactive.

Recently Silentblast was commissioned to do the web design, content management systems and branding for Revo Marketing Group.

Revo Marketing Group is a developer of marketing programs, branding and communication services designed to help Real Estate professionals grow their business in an every increasing competitive environment. Revo is dedicated to providing effective marketing tools to only a select number of clients in a market area. This exclusive approach provides limited competition for our member agents.

Silentblast Interactive was with them through the beginning stages of the business development plan right up to the launch of the website. A unique project in that the company, corporate branding, web design, and development of the content management systems were all started from round table discussions between Silentblast Interactive and Revo Marketing Group.

Revo Marketing Group has received very positive feedback on their website design and they absolutely love our content management system that was developed for them which has also a Support Blog that is maintained internally just for the staff of Revo Marketing Group.

To visit the Revo Marketing Group website please go to www.revomarketinggroup.com

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interactive - Video Content Management System

Amateur YouTube publishers upload their videos for a wide variety of reasons. Some do it for fun, others do it as a potential to become famous within the YouTube community. Professional publishers use these videos to drive traffic to their web sites, sell services, advertise products, attract new customers and make sales. When you browse the videos of amateurs and professionals on YouTube, you are viewing with millions of other users. Many companies are taking advantage of the high YouTube traffic for the sake of their own marketing campaigns and long term strategies to leverage social media for their businesses.

YouTube is ultimately a hosting website that allows free uploads of short clips and videos. YouTube has functions that allow you to measure the number of times your video was viewed, how many clickthroughs were generated that pushed to your website. YouTube traffic from your videos leads the viewers to your web site and thus allowing them to check out your products or services.

As simplified as this may sound, you need to understand the environment where your videos are distributed. While you can count on YouTube traffic to divert visitors to your web site, only a small percentage of viewers will find your video. As such, it is best that you follow certain optimization techniques for your videos so that tens of millions of people can find your video within YouTube. There are certain SEO techniques that can be utilized to increase the awareness of your videos. Remember that YouTube in itself is a search engine, in fact the second most popular search engine on the planet; next to it Google, which also owns YouTube.

YouTube traffic, with optimization of your videos, increases the chances of your videos to be visible within the YouTube website and being found easily through the search engines of other online communities. As YouTube is a community-oriented website, it allows viewers to vote, share, rate and distribute videos they like the most. Meaning, the larger your video’s audience becomes, the more traffic your website receives.

So at this juncture you should understand by now that YouTube can bring awareness to your business and potentially lead to increased sales and services you offer. So how do you do it?

At Silentblast we recommend several approaches to implementing video on your website. One is by leveraging YouTube by you creating an account on YouTube where the videos will be uploaded to. This will place essentially your content on the second most popular search engine on the internet.

If you don’t have the ability to shoot video, Silentblast has web video professionals that can shoot the video for you. It will be professionally done at your offices, or work sites. If you are not comfortable with being in front of the camera; you can hire a person to represent the company in your videos. Silentblast has clients that have hired a professional spokesperson to speak on your behalf; such as For Sale Direct as an example. There is nothing wrong with doing it; companies have been doing it for your years on television, radio and print magazines.

You will also want to have built in, a Content Management System on your website to handle videos; it provides content for your existing website as well as mitigates the bandwidth issues as the CMS is designed to pull the video from YouTube. You have the benefit of videos but integrated into your website with the same look and feel that your website currently has.

If you consider the cost of a 30 second television spot or have done that form of media advertising before you will soon realize that the potential for long term media market awareness is available for a fraction of the cost of the development and distribution of a commercial television spot.

Consider the benefits:

• Showcase your products and services
• Provide demonstrations of your products and services
• Educate potential clients and customers on your company, products and services
• Increase your companies awareness to the general public
• Increase Sales
  

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interative - Toronto Web Design and Development

I have been reading some interesting articles on web trends for 2010 and have found them to be an interesting read. I however, just find the approach in noting web trends really wide and all encompassing. So I will focus on the business aspects of web trends I believe that will continue to flow in from web trends in 2009 towards 2010. If your business has ignored or not considered some of the major trends and changes of the internet in 2009; 2010 is the year you should consider doing so.

Web Video

With YouTube in itself being one of the top search related engines and growing; web video done by “do it yourselfer’s� is going to continue its monumental growth. A lot of companies are currently using YouTube as the means of delivering uploaded video content to showcase their company’s products and services. For a company it may be one thing to show a product on their website with a graphic and some literature but showing a product doing what it is advertised to do with video demonstrations is another unique level that if not done already, can easily be done.

Cloud Computing

Movement towards working within the clouds; more or less off your desktop; while showed positive signs of growth in 2009 will emerge stronger in 2010. The ability to work anywhere, but able to get to a computer and an internet connection is an area both employers and employees are eying closely. With Microsoft Office having web apps; Live Mail services plus Google Apps and the Google OS on the horizon there is not a lot of reasons to not work anywhere specific such as an office. The world as long as you have a computer and an internet connection will in essence be your office. Other services for collaboration on work projects such as Basecamp will also continue their momentum in their growth.

Social Media

With Facebook just announcing over 350 million users worldwide and Twitter continuing its popular growth; they represent two of the highest impact social media sites that are both hard to ignore and can’t be ignored by business. Being in business means being social; and while the trend of Facebook and Twitter are not new by any means; if you’re business does not have some form of presence on it; you should.

Apps, Apps, and More Apps

Out in front is Apple Inc. with their iPhone and iPod Touch. Business is catching on that if you want to deliver content such as news, products or services in real time to a society that is very mobile it has to be delivered by a mobile application. Major news networks and big business are leaders of the pack in terms of stepping up to the plate and offering applications for mobile devices.

Mobile Device Friendly Websites

As more people are using hand-held mobile devices; this will have to be eventually addressed by the business community at large. What your website displays as on a computer screen and what it displays as on a mobile device can be entirely two different things.

Websites That Deliver Content

Always a trend and will continue to be. If you have a website that is nothing more than a poster board on a pole it is not doing a lot for your web presence nor your company. Give your visitors a reason to come back or to even consider using your products or services. Use web development tools such as content management systems (CMS) to deliver product catalog information, services offered and news about your company and its products and services.

Consider a blog for your company as well. It is written not in the same manner as the deliverables of a CMS system but rather more personal. It puts the human behind the website and the company the blog is representing. The search engines, which Google is the undisputed leader; literally loves blogs and of course content on your website.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

ASIS Toronto Chapter - Custom Content Management System CMS - Silentblast - Toronto Web Design

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Silentblast Blog. We have been busy at Silentblast the last few weeks doing work with certain clients on vertical improvements to their website as well as new clients to our portfolio. Recently launched for the ASIS Toronto Chapter were Content Management System adjustments in their Employment opportunities areas. We streamlined the process for the webmaster whereby before if a company wanted to post an employment opportunity they would submit all the information to the webmaster and it would be reviewed and then posted.

Now what is done, is the employer representative creates a profile by registering, submits their own employment opportunity into the back-end of the Content Management System and an email is sent to the webmaster of the site for review and approval.

Silentblast also added a completely new area to the website called Ontario Colleges. ASIS Toronto Chapter is promoting their organization to students in the various law and security related programs by promoting membership in ASIS International. Also incorporated was a Content Management System similar to the Employment area whereby College representatives register and they can now post college placement opportunities for students.

Silentblast also changes some of the key graphics in the website design to freshen up the website as the original graphic selections had been in place for a little over a year. Its a simple solution to face-lift the website design somewhat at a minimum of cost using stock photography.

Greenstream Environmental Inc - Custom Web Design and Development - Silentblast Interactive

Also in develeopment currently is GreenStream Environmental Inc. which provides Emergency Service 24/7/36 for Residential, Commercial and Industrial clients. Silentblast was selected to produce a logo design and also design and develop the website. The site features an integrated wordpress blog engine to keep content up to date.

Site features currently in development:

• Content Management
• Custom Web Design
• eCommerce
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Hosting

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast