Search Advice is a revolutionary tool that gives you search engine advice as you put content into your website. Instead of waiting to add SEO keywords until after content is created, you receive your search engine advice in real time.

CMS and SEO should work together to get your site found, and that’s what Pixelsilk does with Search Advice. Figure out the keywords you need, how much content is required, and how to fill up your META tags—every time you log into your Pixelsilk website.

Check out our Search Advice video to learn more about how this tool makes Pixelsilk an even more SEO-friendly CMS.

Every Pixelsilk site has the potential of adding on Search Advice—if you’re interested in adding it to your website, or creating a new website with Pixelsilk and its Search Advice tool, we’d love to talk to you. Give us a call at 541.317.3583 or send us an email.

The Bend WebCAM conference, two weeks ago, was a success for everyone who attended. Networking at the Brew-Ha-Ha, lessons in SEO, workshops in creativity and bagels from Rockin’ Daves all came together for an enjoyable two days.

Bend WebCam 2011

The conference was created to expose designers to Internet marketing best practices and Internet marketers to the power of creating a brand image and voice.  Individual session tracks catered to both disciplines: Geek (left brain) and Chic (right brain). Plus, there was a third session track, Super Freak, which offered a combination of sessions. The inseparability of technology and creativity has never been timelier. And no other conference pulled these two disciplines together better than Bend’s WebCAM.

If you didn’t have the chance to attend WebCAM, you can still get a taste of the lectures and workshops that were presented via our online bloggers. Todd Mintz of PPC Associates, and Wendy Roe of Byron Roe Photography tweeted and blogged about two of the WebCAM tracks—giving you a chance to learn what you missed:

Todd Mintz, Shares the Geek Track

Bend WebCam 2011

• Choosing Your Keyword Battles -  Todd Malicoat of Stuntdubl, showed us how to do a proper cost to benefit analysis on keywords that will be most effective to our website.

• Double Your Paid Search ROI  -  Adam Audette of Audette Media, offered 9 steps to stop the insanity and increase profits on Google.

• Tools of the Trade  – Scott Hendison of Search Commander & Taylor Pratt of Awesome SEO, gave advice on how SEO, PPC, social media and content marketing team can work together.

• One Site, Many Sizes – Hans Sprecher of G5, shares his secrets about creating one website to cater to different device types using a techniue called responsive design.

Wendy Roe, Shares the Super Freak Track

Bend WebCam 2011 at Tower Theatre

• Creative Research + Killer Briefs - Lynette Xanders of Wild Alchemy, provided ideas and skills to help you get into the right “zone” to write a killer creative brief.

• Local University Search  and Social Workshop - David Mihm, Andre Jensen  and Will Scott, offered their insights and perspectives on improving a company’s local and social media efforts.

• Opening Keynote: The Four Pillars of Building Instant Trust Online – Tim Ash, CEO of Site Tuners, talks about the 4 pillars of building trust online.  Before people will act or transact, their concerns and anxieties must be alleviated.

• Facebook Don’ts – Will Scott of Search Influence, shares with us “what not to do” with Social Media.  Will shares the good, the bad, and the ugly way businesses are engaging online.

• Online Reputation – Todd Friesen & Conrad Saam, teach us how to protect our brand online.  Online reputation management is getting harder everyday.  Follow these tips on cleaning up the mess and protecting your reputation.

• The Advent of Social Film: The Inside Experience with Jamie Robinson – Jaime Robinson, presents “The Inside Experience,” a social film project which drives successful audience participation in this unique Hollywood Thriller.  Learn how to engage the audience, product placement, and how far viewers will go to become participants in the big picture.

We would like to give a special shout out to Visit Bend and AdFed of Central Oregon for helping make Bend WebCAM 2011 a huge success!

To stay up-to-date on the conference all year, follow Bend WebCAM on Facebook or on Twitter.  Start making your plans to attend the Bend WebCAM in 2012.

Pixelsilk is again sponsoring this year’s annual SearchFest, put on by the great folks at SEMpdx.  Another fantastic lineup of speakers to fill their roster this year, keynoted by Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing.

Interested in seeing some of the best speakers in the SEM industry and learning more about Pixelsilk?  Swing by Portland, Oregon next week and check out this fantastic one-day event. Whether you’re a beginner or at the advanced level, SearchFest promises to deliver techniques to enhance your customer’s websites.

Interested in coming to SearchFest?  Use the discount promo code: SPO-SEMPDXSF1020 for 25% off the regular registration rate.

Pixelsilk is sponsoring the SEO track, so please stop by and introduce yourself to our team!

Details: Full Agenda and Speakers

When: Tuesday, March 9th 2010

Where: The Governor Hotel, Portland Oregon

Time: 8 am (registration check-in at 7:30 am) to 5 pm; reception from 5 pm to 6 pm.

SEO Friendly CMS Questions Interviewed

Yesterday, SEO Friendly CMS Questions were answered by the CEO of Pixelsilk, Mark Knowles, plus Search Engine Marketing veteran Bruce Clay – offering his expertise on the operation of a CMS like the one from Pixelsilk.

Below is a question/answer summary of the of questions received during the interview.  To hear first hand, download or listen to the full interview on WebmasterRadio.fm.

(Daron) Q: Where did Pixelsilk begin and how does it scale to meet the needs of SEO?
(Mark) A: Pixelsilk was built from 13 years of CMS experience in the world of SEO.  It started about 3 ½ years ago with the idea of bringing SEO advice right to the page – Bruce Clay’s advice from his SEOToolSet.  In order to succeed online, Pixelsilk was developed from scratch – offering full HTML control for SEO.  From a clean database structure – beginning with the http calls, Pixelsilk was architected and designed for optimal control for SEO.

Q: Talk to me about source code control?
(Mark) A: There’s no legacy, no prior system.  Anywhere from up to 12 people daily have been involved in development and code was checked in daily. You break the build, you fix it.

Q: What are some of the most common hurdles moving to Pixelsilk?
(Mark) A: Moving a site can be quick. Best practice would have you fix some of your crawling issues as you migrate.

Q: How do you teach people the need to recognize the use of a system like Pixelsilk?
(Bruce) A: It’s easier to build SEO in as the content is created rather than bolting on SEO after the fact.  So for larger companies, this is typically a difficult challenge.  With Pixelsilk, you can SEO content as you build.

Q: Is there support for porting over a large site to Pixelsilk?
(Mark) A:  With a one-day orientation, and a knowledge of HTML and CSS you are on your way. Our partner channel can also aid in the service delivery of moving sites if you need some help.

Q: How much does Pixelsilk cost?
(Mark) A: Shared hosting per site license starts at $149/per month; enterprise level license is available.  The database can be scaled to a virtual environment and databases are transportable upon the need for growth.

Q: Is there a developer license?
(Mark) A: A full API is available; however, we’re working on a place for developers to play.  For more details, signup for the Pixelsilk community online.

Q: How does SEO Advice work?
(Bruce) A: Through our new SEOToolSet (which is still in progress) and calls to our API, Pixelsilk brings information through to Pixelsilk based off of a footprint of the top ranking sites in the engines.  There’s a big difference between data and wisdom of course, but this is the first step to get closer to target.

Q: What about off-page SEO?
(Mark) A: We will have some exciting announcements for off-page SEO factors available at SMX West 2010.  Stay tuned…

Q: What about analytics?
(Mark) A: Pixelsilk utilizes a token system, so that integration with your analytics package of choice is very easy.

Q: What about design control?
(Mark) A: There’s full HTML and URL control.  So, anything a browser can render is available for you to layout. You simply use HTML, CSS or JavaScript to get what you need done.  There’s FULL design control without the need to know any server-side languages such as PHP, .NET or ColdFusion.

Q: What about HTML5?
(Mark) A: After verification – Pixelsilk fully supports HTML5.

Q: Can you deploy a social strategy in Pixelsilk – can you “Tweet” in Pixelsilk
(Mark) A: That’s correct, Pixelsilk allows such control so that ‘tweeting’ or even ‘reverse tweeting’ is easy.  Pixelsilk was designed to integrate seamlessly with popular 3rd party social applications like Facebook and Twitter.

Validation and SEO crawlability go hand in hand.  If you’re a web developer or SEO, you know full well the importance of validated code.  Traditionally in the world of CMS, W3C validation has been difficult to achieve due to the inflexible nature of the CMS when rendering a page.  We know W3C validation isn’t everything – but it can help.

Pixelsilk is making waves in the SEO and development communities because of its flexibility.  With Full HTML control, you now have the ability to create fully validated web sites and create a DOCTYPE of XHTML 1.0 Strict.

Recently, a CMS validation showdown was run (credit due to SEO Consultants) and Pixelsilk passed with flying colors compared to WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Ektron, Plone and others.

Pixelsilk CMS Validation Showdown

BEND, Oregon – August 6, 2009 – Pixelsilk, an SEO-friendly content management system (CMS), announces the launch of Search Advice, which integrates SEO expertise from the Bruce Clay, Inc. SEOToolSet® into Pixelsilk. The new feature will be unveiled during this year’s Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference in San Jose.

The SEOToolSet integration provides search engine optimization (SEO) advice and monitoring real-time, while users edit content within a Pixelsilk Web site. With an SEOToolSet subscription, keywords can be assigned to specific pages and recommendations will be delivered straight on the page while editing (View Video Demo of Pixelsilk Search Advice).

Pixelsilk Search Advice, patent pending, is designed to put SEO advice into the hands of the editor at the time of content creation or modification on a real-time basis.  Drawing from the on-going expertise of Bruce Clay, Inc., Search Advice allows Pixelsilk clients a new way of incorporating SEO into everything on their Web site and prepares the on-page content for spidering by Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Bruce Clay, president of Bruce Clay, Inc., stated, “The real problem that SEO has had is that it is always bolted on after somebody has written the content in a CMS.  The Pixelsilk-SEOToolSet integration provides a way to correct SEO issues at the point of content creation, and to have it be done by the original author.  That will revolutionize SEO.”

Initially, advice drawn from the SEOToolSet will offer on-going recommendations on attributes such as the Title tag, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, body, Heading tags and on-page links.  Search Advice is designed to update the recommendations as the editor makes changes to content.  Moreover, if the content edits fall outside of the recommendations, on-screen alerts and follow-up e-mails may be utilized to notify authors, marketers, SEOs, compliance managers and concerned production staff of the changes.

“This approach will provide content authors with preemptive advice during the creation process from the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet. This approach reduces and/or eliminates certain steps that our clients currently make to publish content to the Web,” said Mark Knowles, president and CEO of Pixelsilk.

Pixelsilk is a scalable, Web-based CMS that provides SEO, marketing and Web development partners with the features they need to maximize their online initiatives and gain a competitive edge in their organic search engine rankings. Cutting-edge tools that allow full control of the HTML code and URL, the ability to interact with business and social media applications, open framework structure, real-time SEO feedback — all while being easy and intuitive to content editors — are among the features that set Pixelsilk apart from any other production-level CMS available today.

Through the advice drawn from the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet inside Pixelsilk CMS and the Partner Portal (allowing single management across multiple sites) launched and demonstrated at this year’s SES San Jose, Pixelsilk is poised to set the standard for the content management industry.

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose 2009 conference will be held at the McEnery Convention Center from August 11-13. To register for the SES San Jose conference, visitors may use coupon code 20Pixel for a 20% discount.  Or, visitors may register for the expo pass and see the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet in action by visiting the Pixelsilk booth (#106 next to Bruce Clay) for a demo.

About Pixelsilk
Pixelsilk is the first proven world-class SEO/CMS solution provider designed to meet SEO Best Practices requirements. Headquartered in Bend, Oregon (sometimes referred to as the “hub” of the Search Engine Optimization industry), the company has been integral in the fields of content management and software development for nearly 15 years. Its memberships and professional affiliations include: SEMpdx, SMX, SES and the American Advertising Federation (AAF). The creators of Pixelsilk are SEOToolSet Certified, and the company is also a Microsoft Gold Partner.

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Media Contacts:
Wendy Roe
Pixelsilk
2525 NE Twin Knolls Drive
Bend, Oregon  97701, Suite 1
Ph: (877) 749-7455
E-mail: wendy.roe@pixelsilk.com

What makes Pixelsilk a perfect fit for your business organization?  Because we understand the multiple roles that need to be involved in the website, from the editor to the IT team.  In order to start a conversation around the way roles inside of Pixelsilk work together, we’ve created characters to help the process along.

Let us introduce you properly:

Meet Ed, “The Editor”
Ed, “The Editor” handles adding, editing and deleting pages, content and page properties.  Ed typically does not know HTML and primarily works inside of the WYSIWYG interface.  He understands basic Word Processing (MS Word).

With proper training, Ed is savvy enough to understand how to add links, documents, media and content to grow content on the site and add frequently updated information.

Meet Sadie, “The Site Manager”
Sadie “The Site Manager” assigns permissions/security roles and users.  Sadie would guide access to various areas of the site and assign editing tasks to those working within the system.

Sadie can easily add roles and create/define users assigned to those roles. She also is known for review and monitoring of web analytics.

Meet Webster, “The Web Developer”
Webster “The Web Developer” has a solid knowledge base using HTML, JavaScript and CSS and is typically responsible for theme/skin development.  Webster’s domain and access is under the ‘Design’ area where full theme editing takes place. Webster utilizes controls and subsequent [[tokens]] to setup the theme templates, forms, navigation and easy third-party plug-ins.

Meet Oscar, “The Optimizer”
Oscar “The Optimizer” is the SEO guru.  He enjoys the ability of full HTML/URL control implement his SEO strategy.  Oscar typically sets up proper URL structures, meta data, robots.txt and other SEO items.  He works with Webster to deliver optimized, clean (non-bloated) code.

Oscar may also use the ‘Search Advice’ interface to put his advice into the system and make it available for Ed while editing.

Meet Devon, “The Developer”
Devon “The Developer” has a wide-spread knowledge base of server-side languages, such as: PHP, .NET, Cold Fusion, etc.  Although not needed to theme and deploy a site, Devon is useful when third-party integration is needed.  He enjoys access to both the server and client APIs to accomplish more complex integration between Pixelsilk and a third-party application.

Meet Netti, “The Network Admin”
Netti “The Network Admin” is the keeper of Domain, DNS and E-mail management for individual sites.  The Pixelsilk ‘Control Panel’ is where Netti accomplishes Domain registration, renewal and domain properties as well as DNS name server information.  Netti also manages   e-mail accounts associated with the client and is the technical contact, coordinating hosting related issues.

These roles help everything from the sales process, training and overall communication.  Although other roles exist outside that mingle with those mentioned above, Ed, Sadie, Webster, Oscar, Devon and Netti are directly involved in working within Pixelsilk.

Which role are you?