Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Social Media Consultant

So as I promised, over the weekend I installed CushyCMS on one of my clients websites. The process couldn’t have been easier. Here are the steps to install CushyCMS on an existing site:

1. Sign up with CushyCMS.
2. Setup the website in question by providing FTP login information. I had this on hand, so it was very easy, but you may have to track down an email or something to get it implemented.
3. Download the website source files to make the appropriate CSS changes or use a local copy if you have the latest version of the site.
4. Open one of the files in question and update the content areas where appropriate. I had to change some items like:

   <div class="content">Content Content Content</div>
   to
   <div id="content" class="cushycms">Content Content Content</div>

5. Obviously, you have to change the CSS to reflect these changes as well, but a few “Find and Replace”s later, every page in the site is updated with the appropriate CSS and HTML changes.
6. Login to CushyCMS and add each file you want to be able to edit via the CushyCMS interface. This was actually the longest part of the process. This website had about 30-40 pages and it took me about 10-15 minutes to add all the pages. No big deal, but I’d suggest that CushyCMS perhaps add a “bulk assign” function so that I can assign several files in a directory to a website and it will take the name of the file as the “Page Name”. Like I said, not a big deal for a small site.
7. Verify everything is working properly when editing.
8. Add a few editor roles (i.e. my clients) to be able to edit pages as necessary.
9. And Viola! You’re done.

I’m currently waiting feedback from the client to see if they like the new editing interface or not. They are not HTML savvy and the interface removes the need for that and all that is necessary is a knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of products, which most people are familiar with.

All in all, I’d recommend this to anyone creating a small website who has to support a client with either limited maintenance budget or little in terms of technical expertise, or both. It’s super easy, and with a Pro account, you can even brand the editor as your own interface.

I’ve been seeing a number of these being released recently and as I am constantly trying to make my life easier, as well as my clients, I thought I’d put together a few of these for others to use as they see fit. I’m going to give CushyCMS a shot with a small client of mine and I’ll post some feedback after I’ve implemented that. The others I’ve yet to try Sitemasher, but the rest of them I have either some direct experience or anecdotal.

CushyCMS
I heard about CushyCMS a long time ago via TechCrunch. This is a really easy to implement CMS in that you just have to provide FTP access and add some CSS information into your website and CushyCMS provides a front end for you to manage your website. It also allows for the creation of roles so that you can give a login to your client and they can only change the appropriate areas of the website – not the backend code. Like I said, I’m going to try this out pretty soon and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Sitemasher
Sitemasher is way more robust than CushyCMS in that it provides a more in terms of user interface, version control, database integration, and search analytics. It’s not as free as Cushy either. It’s $99/month on the cheap end, but if you are in the market for a piece of software that provides some online functionality where you can manage your content from anywhere, as well as all the functionality I listed above, check this one out.

Wordpress.com
A lot of people know they can use Wordpress as a blogging platform, but really it’s just as easily transformed into a content management system. There’s already a number of people that are doing this. If you’re not that technically savvy, I’d suggest sticking with Wordpress.com as they update the software whenever a new release occurs. if you’re a little more tech savvy or want to keep things under your own control, you can go to Wordpress.org and download the latest version. Keep in mind though that this means you have to manage the database, software installation, and future upgrades yourself, but really it’s not THAT daunting – I promise.

There’s tons of other CMS platforms out there: Drupal, Joomla, DotNetNuke, Sava (if you’re into Coldfusion) and so many more. What I’d recommend when selecting one is decide what your technical expertise level is and how much time you have to devote to learning a new piece of software. If you need something quick and easy and don’t have a lot of technical expertise, choose one of the online versions I mentioned above. If you do have some time to learn new software and how to integrate them with database backends, choose one of the CMS’s I mentioned at the end of this article, or talk with your friends or colleagues and see what experiences they’ve had with any of these and what they like and dislike about each.

Shoot me an email if you have any other questions, or drop a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

My job title at Slack Barshinger is Senior Digital Strategist which means that I wear about 10-20 different hats over the course of each week. What I’ve found over the last few years is that the definition of digital or interactive strategist means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Some people are mainly focused on search marketing, others on social media, and others still on online media and advertising. Here’s a breakdown of time I’ve spent on various projects over the last few weeks and months.

How does yours compare? What are you doing similar or different under the title of “Digital Strategist”? Let me know in the comments and I’ll post a follow up of what the majority of our job function appears to be these days.

Well, the day has finally come. I’ve been talking about it for a while, but it’s finally happened. I no longer have a car. It’s been almost fifteen years since I got my drivers license and started driving. It was a melancholy moment indeed when my car drove away. It was the first car I had purchased, driven, maintained, paid off, and finally sold all on my own. I feel as if I’ve given up a little personal freedom by getting rid of my car, but for the little bit of personal freedom given up, here are a few of the things I gain as a result:

• Not having to be concerned with automotive gas prices any longer.
• Not having to feel as if I’m a hypocrite for voicing environmental concerns, whilst driving a car around the city.
• Not having to pay for city stickers, license plate renewal fees, parking tickets, worry about moving my car for street cleaning, or the possibility of theft or vandalism
• Not having to write a check to AAA once every three months for car insurance.

Although it’s not a novel concept for many metropolitan dwellers, I’m from Detroit and there is and, at least in my lifetime, never has been a useful method of getting around other than by car. So living in Chicago is absolutely ideal to solve this problem. I can use the CTA, Metra, bike, ZipCar, i-Go, cab, pedicab, or walk pretty much anywhere I need to go.

So stay tuned. I’ll post every so often on how it’s going. Have any interesting stories about living in a city without a car or justifications why a car is a necessary part of urban living? Let me know in the comments.

Here’s a few more resources for anyone else interested in being car free in Chicago:

• Car free Chicago
• Chicago Moms guide to being car free
• Conversation about living in Chicago without a car
• Yelp – Living in Chicago without a car

P.s. – the car above is the car I previously owned.

I’ve seen several commercials lately with two of my favorite bands, Daft Punk and Justice, being featured as part of the ad. Although I personally love them, others aren’t as pleased. What do you think? House music and luxury cars: match made in heaven or marketing trying to be too hip?

Here’s the original song: Technologic

Here’s the original song: Justice – Genesis (this song will melt your face)

As many of you may or may not already know, I’m quite the greeniac. Whenever possible, I’m usually touting organic this or green that. Well this is no exception. There’s now a green seach engine called Greenseng. How are they green? Well, here’s the scoop from their carbon offset vendor CO2Stats:

This site is Green Certified by CO2Stats, which has measured and offset the total CO2 emissions due to the electricity consumption of clients visiting the site, servers providing the site, and the networks that connect them.

Now, because these guys are “the green search engine” does not meant that the other guys aren’t green. In fact, Google is probably one of the greenest companies in the country, let alone the search engine market. Check out their corporate green policy to find out more. And Yahoo does their part as well, with a green blog and carbon footprint calculators.