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Content Management System from The Design Mechanics

Instructions, Advice and Guidance

Welcome to the online guidance notes for the Content Management System (CMS) from The Design Mechanics. We hope you will find the following information informative and helpful.

If you currently login to you Content Management System by entering 'CMS' at the end of your website address, then please click here for guidance regarding your CMS.

The basics

Logging in

To login into your CMS (Content Management System)

  1. Go to your home page
  2. Type in /edit at the end of your website address i.e. www.yoursite.co.uk/edit
  3. When the login screen appears, enter your user name and password in the specified text boxes and click on the 'Login' button

Logging out

To log out of your CMS (Make sure all work is saved before continuing)

  1. Locate the 'Welcome, YOURNAME' link in the top right hand side of the CMS
  2. Click on the 'Welcome, YOURNAME' link, a drop down menu will appear
  3. Click on the 'Log Out' link, you will then be logged out and redirected to your homepage.

In the example above 'YOURNAME' will be replaced with your own name.

Updating Content

Whenever you make changes to your content, always remember to save the new amended content by clicking on the 'Update' button located on the right hand side of your text editor screen.

To perform any of the features in this section you will need to be logged into your CMS.

Basic do's and don'ts

Do's

  • Check spelling and grammar before saving
  • Log out when you have finished
  • Read the manual supplied before attempting any advanced editing
  • When saving files, images, documents, etc. it's good practice to use lowercase characters and do not leave gaps, spaces or use punctuation apart from the underscore. A good file name would be: The_Design_Mechanics_company_logo.jpg.
  • Naming files appropriately can help the search engines to determine what the image/file is about

Don'ts

  • Copy text straight from Word, Excel or any other office software package into the CMS
  • Save - unless you've checked what you've done!

Adding and editing text

You can add and edit text within the text editor like you would in any other text editor such as Microsoft Word. For example you can make any of the text within the page bold by either clicking on the 'b' icon before you start typing, so everything you type will be in bold, or you can highlight the text you want and click on the 'b' icon.

Headings, sub-headings and normal text

You can make your content more readable by breaking sections up and adding headings to different parts of your page.

To add headings to your content

  1. Select the page you require
  2. Highlight a piece of text within your content that you want to make into a heading
  3. Select the Headings list and select the required heading.

Using bullet points and number lists

If you require some of your content to be displayed as bullet points simply follow the following steps:

  1. Select the required text (Make sure the text is all on individual lines)
  2. Click on either the bullet list or the numbered list icon within the editor menu
  3. Once you have selected the desired format of your list you can now save it by clicking on the 'Update' button

Positioning text

As with most text editing programs, you can position text within the window to be left aligned, centrally aligned, right aligned or justified. To do this simply highlight the text you wish to position and then select the alignment option you wish.

Adding images to pages

To add an image to your site simply select the page required, next:

  1. Place your mouse cursor in the required position in the text editor
  2. Once you have selected a space for the image, you then need to click on the 'upload image' button( this is the first button next to the words Upload/insert)
  3. Once clicked a new window will appear
  4. Click on the 'Select Files' button
  5. Select the image(s) you want and then click on the 'Upload' button
  6. Once the files have been successfully uploaded, select the 'Gallery' tab on the top menu
  7. You are now presented with the image(s) you have uploaded
  8. Click on the 'show' link on the right hand side of the image(s) you uploaded, this will make a number of additional features available

The additional features that you are recommended to edit are

  • Title - This is helpful for the search engines in deciding what your images are about
  • Alternative text - This is similar to the title attribute but the alternative text also allows for the text entered within it to be displayed if your image fails to load
  • Caption - This is the text displayed when the user hovers over the image
  • Description - This is used to give the image a fuller description, again useful for the search engines
  • Alignment - This will determine how to place the image on the screen i.e. left, centred or right

Once you are happy with your image, you can insert it in to the page by clicking on the 'insert into post' link.

Adding downloadable files

To add digitally downloadable content to your webpage:

Uploading the file(s)

  1. Select the page you require
  2. Once you are in the text editor, locate a place for the downloaded file to be added
  3. Once you are happy with the position for the download, select the 'Add media' button (the one that looks like a cog and is the last button in the 'Upload/Insert' section)
  4. Once the button is clicked, a new window will appear where you can select the file you wish to upload by clicking the 'select file' button and choosing the required file from your computer.

Adding the file to the page

  1. Select the page you require
  2. To add the file to your page for downloading, click on the 'Add Media' icon (icon shaped like a cog)
  3. Select the 'Media Library' tab from the 'add media' window, you will then be presented with a list of files you have uploaded, past and present
  4. Click on the 'show' link for the required file you want as the downloadable
  5. Once you have selected the file you require a new window will appear with additional features that we recommend you spend a little time editing.

The sections that you are recommended to edit are

  • Title - This is helpful for the search engines in deciding what the downloadable files are
  • Caption - This is the text displayed when the user hovers over the downloadable file link
  • Description - This is used to give the downloadable file a description, again useful for search engines

Once you have supplied all the recommended information you then simply need to press the 'insert into post' button.

Remove downloadable file links

To remove the downloadable file link from the page, you can do this in two different ways:

  1. Highlight the text link within the page and simply delete it, doing this will remove both the link and the text
  2. Highlight the text link within the page and click on the 'unlink' button (the button that looks like a broken chain). Clicking on this will remove the download link but leave the text intact

Using tables

To add a table to your web page, select the page you require and open it within the text editor. Once you have the page opened:

  1. Select an area within the text editor where you would like the table to be placed
  2. Once you are happy with the location for your table you will need to click on the 'Show/Hide Kitchen sink' button (the last button on the editing strip, the button looks like little squares)
  3. Once clicked a new row of buttons will appear
  4. Locate the 'insert table' button (a pad with a pencil on it) from the new row of buttons and click on it
  5. Once clicked you will be presented with a new window
  6. Within the new window you will be required to insert some information for the table to be formatted correctly

These fields are:

  • Columns and Rows - These are necessary to determine how many cells you require, you can always add more of them if required
  • Cell padding - This is how much space you want between the content and the wall of the cell
  • Cell spacing - This is how much space you want to give between cells
  • Alignment - This is how you want the content in the cells to be aligned
  • Border - This is if you want to add a border to the table and its thickness (0 meaning no border)
  • Width and Height - This is if you want to manually determine a width and height for the table (we recommend leaving this value as the table will automatically format itself)

Once you have successfully completed the table fields, you are now ready to insert the table into your page, you do this simply by clicking on the 'insert' button.

Targeting search engines

To help your website within the search engines we recommend you do the following steps, to help you do this we have included our SEO tool.

The following attributes can be found in the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tool:

Page Titles

Each page has a title that appears in the blue bar at the top of the browser window. The title is used to indicate what the page is about to both the user and the search engines.

It is good practise to give each page a unique title, to do this

  1. Locate the SEO tool, this can be located at the bottom of each of your pages within the editor
  2. Place your cursor within the page title section
  3. Enter a compelling and unique title that includes at least one of your primary keyword for that page.

A primary keyword is the main keyword for each page, for example if the website was for a plumber and electrician you would use the Plumber keyword on one page title i.e. Plumber Huddersfield and the electrician on another page i.e. Electrician Huddersfield. If you use the same keywords throughout it becomes hard for the search engines to understand what the page is about.

When writing a title for your page it is worth noting that the title shouldn't exceed more than 56 characters in length (including spaces) and should be limited to 10 words. The title ideally should contain your main 'Keywords' within the first few words and the title must make sense.

Description

The description is the part that the search engines display when they list your site within their search results, it is important to make the description compelling and enticing to your potential customer.

If you disregard the description of your pages, the search engines will take sections out of your page and build a description from them. This can make the description uninteresting to the potential customer.

It is highly recommended that the descriptions are unique on each page of your site.

Headings

It is important to realise the flow of content within you website pages. To give the page a natural flow we recommend you use headings and sub heading to show the importance of certain sections of your site. This is also necessary for search engines to realise the layout of your site content and to build a picture of this.

To add headings and sub headings please refer to the Headings, sub-headings and normal text section.