Need a good looking website but you don’t have time to learn how to create your own one, and you’re on a tight budget? Don’t know too much about on-page SEO, except that its important? While this used to be a real problem, we’ve got a great solution for you.

We have developed easyCMSlite, the free, easy content management system. easyCMSlite is, as its name implies, a lite content management system. That is, lite, yet powerful. We’ve tried hard to take away the complexities of so many of the CMS systems available. I personally have tried using some of them, and I couldn’t fathom them. I am a web / software developer, so I can’t imagine what it must be like for non technical users.

easyCMSlite avoids that. For instance, to add a new page, you don’t need to be in some admin menu where you add text to a list. In easyCMSlite, you are in the actual web page, and when you want to add a page you see it as it would appear to your users. This is termed ‘What you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG).

Another important consideration is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This is the important task of optimising your website so that the search engines can find you faster and hopfully rank you higher. Most CMS do have SEO capabilities, but you need to download and install plugins for that, then you need to configure and enable them. For instance, many CMS’s allow you to install a plugin to convert the URL’s they produce to one which is search engine friendly (and human friendly). So, using a plugin, you might be able to change your url from www.yoursite.com?cat=12&subcat=6&pid=34 to www.yoursite.com/category/sometitle.php. With easyCMSlite, this is automatic. If you have a main menu item called ‘Products’ and a product page you are linking to called ‘widget’, then your URL will be www.yoursite.com/products/widget.php. This is automatic and requires no plugins or configuration.

easyCMSlite has an easy to use text editor, very similar to word and excel. In fact, you should be able to copy and paste most content from word or excel into this editor, making  it even easier to manage your site.

To give easyCMSlite.com a try, go to easyCMSlite.com, the free, easy content management system, or go to www.demoserver.co.za to test the CMS in a live test environment. The username is [email protected] and the password is demo.

Many people wonder how they can make money from their website or blog. If you’ve ever asked the question how to make money then here is a proposal to monetize your website.

We at PHP-Web-Host.com have an affiliate program which allows you to place a link on your website to us, and, if someone purchases a web hosting package through that link, you will earn a commission. To see how much commissions you may earn, take a look at our Affiliate Program page.

How does it work?

You sign up at the link above as an affiliate. This will generate a unique affiliate id for you. You then use this link as either a plain text link in your website, or you use the code with an image which we provide.

We also write a cookie to the web surfers browser which will track any sales up to a year after they clicked through from your site. In other words, if someone clicks on a banner on your site today, but they only make a purchase next 10 months later, you will still earn a commission, EVEN though they don’t go through your link when they actually make the purchase.

Some examples of the banner links are below. You are welcome to request more colors or sizes, or just check back at the affiliate’s page as we do add new image links from time to time:

You will notice that we have a variety of banners. For instance, if you are targetting UK based traffic, you can use the versions which point to www.php-web-host.co.uk and show prices in pounds. You can also show international banners with $ and the .com domain name, as well as choose different colours and sizes.

Joining the affiliate program is absolutely free, and its instant. You sign up and are immediately able to start earning commissions.

Go ahead, Sign Up Now!

Do you need a website that’s good looking, quick to set up, fully editable by you, the non-technical web user, and, a site that is as cheap as our cheapest hosting package?

Try WordPress (this blog is a WordPress blog). So, in our opening paragraph we promised you it was for non technical users. Here’s how:

Register for your hosting account with us. You can see on the web hosting pages that this is very cheap if you register for the 500mb package. Once you have registered, you will receive an email with all of your hosting details, including your cpanel user name and password.

Log into cpanel and select fantastico. From the fantastico page, you can select to install a WordPress blog. This will automatically install your wordpress blog, ready for you to use. But, if you want to make it look a little nicer, log into your WordPress admin panel. Click on Appearance –> Add New Themes.

From that menu, you can select a theme of your choice. There are hundreds, if not thousands of templates to choose from. Click on the install link in your chosen theme, and that’s it!

To see what a blog with a theme looks like, take a look at http://www.getfitloseweight.info. This website was setup and “themed” within about 1 hour. The discussion boards there were also set up within about an hour, also using the fantastico installer in cpanel.

Should you wish to do something like this, but you are not sure how, please contact us using the links in the navigation menu above…

If you would like to take a shot at designing your own site, but you have limited or no experience, then there are some tools available to help you.

1. Sitebuilder: Sitebuilder lets you use a wizard interface to create your site using their templates. Each hosting account you register with SoftSmart.co.za – Hosting comes with Sitebuilder, but it is not preinstalled, simply send an email to [email protected] to have it activated.
2. Web templates: Log into your CPanel account and look for the web templates link. Here you can choose between hundreds of free templates. You will need some tools to edit them. These tools are covered in the next two points.
3. For the graphics, use Xara Xtreme. It will cost you a small fee, but its really worth while. It is a corel-like, very powerful, easy to use graphics design environment.
4. For the html, go to Web Tutor to learn some HTML. There is no registration and its free!

Before embarking on your new venture, you need to decide whether your needs are better served by learning to do it yourself, or if its in your best interest to pay someone else to make your dream site. If you are putting up a personal website, then go for it. If you are putting up a business site, then think seriously about having SoftSmart.co.za give you a quote.

You need to bear in mind that the search engines must find your site, it needs to look professional and it needs to load fast.