Below are a few search engine optimization(SEO) writing tips when creating a new blog post. These are just suggested guidelines not strict rules to help increase the SEO of your blog posts and website. Click on each title below to see more details.

Highwaters Media was featured in an article by Amanda Baltazar titled ‘The Anywhere Office’. 
This article was published in the October 2011 issue of Northwest Business Monthly. 

Content Management Systems: Power to the People

Content management systems (CMS) are tools frequently used by web developers to allow business owners to manage and update their own websites once they’ve been designed. 

They’ve also brought websites to the masses, making it more affordable for small and medium-sized businesses to have one.

This is because there is less development time for the designer/programmer since the initial site build-out is much faster and some content can be easily added to the site by the client.

John King set up Highwaters Media in Bellingham in early 2009 to build websites for small businesses. (He also creates logos and does graphic design).

Having learned about web design during the tech bubble of the 1990s, King offers CMS to all his clients. He’s created website for businesses as diverse as farrier companies, realtors, authors and hair studios.

He’s not the only company offering CMS in Bellingham, he explained but the people who come to him are typically looking for simple designs and they see these on his website.

Also, he added, “affordable pricing is also a possibility with Highwaters. I don’t have the structure/overhead that some other businesses may have so my rates are pretty competitive. Not the lowest or highest but somewhere in between.”

The benefits of CMS are that businesses can add any information they wish to their own website.

“It allows people to have always changing websites which is good for search engines and if you are trying to build a community,” King explained. “It also brings people back to sites and can be a big part of social media plans.”

And perhaps more importantly for King’s clients, CMS saves them time and money. Instead of turning to a web designer for small changes and updates, the business owner or owners can make changes themselves.

CMS gives them the tools so they can communicate more quickly and more often with their viewers than if they didn’t have one. So it’s much more dynamic,” said King.

“Businesses can blog, they can become an expert in their town, just by having a new post every week or every month and when people see information like that they think [businesses] really know what they’re talking about.”

And CMS is easy to use, King added. Once he’s built a site for a client, he gives a quick tutorial so business owners can manage their sites.

“It’s fun because they come in and have no idea what to do and are so excited when they see how they do it. I love giving people that control.”

Well my web design productivity may go down even more on sunny days (current or potential clients please ignore what you just read). Below is a panoramic view of Bellingham Bay from the new office location of Highwaters Media. I would like to have the photo be a little better quality but I just used a smartphone for these images.

Click on the image to see an even larger version.