There are over 350 million web sites online. Is it even possible to make a successful web site today? The answer is yes: you can create your own content-based web site (that is: magazine, journal, news, blog, etc.) and get tons of reads. you just need to know what to do, and how to do it.

What is a content-based web site?

Think about The West Australian, The New York Times; but then, look at successful company blogs such as Dell's blog pages, GM's company blog. They are all sites that are based on "contents": they are not catalogues, static or quasi-static corporate sites, nor online shops. Their main aim is to provide fresh information to your visitors.

Why would your company have a content-based site?

Maintaining a content-based site can be a challenge. Some can say that content-based sites should be left to magazines and newspapers. On the other hand, there is a huge number of benefits that will go with it: the potential to get tons of genuine inbound links, which will make you stronger for search engines; the increased value of your brand and online presence; giving a human voice to your company; enable customer service; increase customer fidelity.

The course

The course will cover the following topics:

• Setting up
  • Define the type of communication you want to establish
  • Installing and using a CMS or Contents Management System (in this example, I will use Drupal)
  • Creating your site: have a powerful, good looking content-based site ready in 20 minutes using Drupal
• The contents
  • Planning and publishing contents; and the importance of the home page
  • Recruiting writers within the company
• Promoting
  • Meta tags -- or, why they are so important once again; Open Graph tags
  • SEO basics and important notions
  • RSS and feeds
  • Submit your contents to social networks -- finding your hubs, and spread the word
  • Promoting your site from your existing company site(s)

The aim

By the end of this course, your staff will know exactly what to do to create a content-based site for your company. They will have a good understanding of the importance of promoting your content-based site, and how to launch it so that it will be successful.