1. YOUR WEBSITE
IS UGLY!
USING OPEN SOURCE CMS
TO ROCK YOUR WEBSITE
Ceci Dadisman
Director of Marketing & PR/Palm Beach Opera

2. WHO IS CECI?
Director of Marketing & PR @
Palm Beach Opera
Professional classical singer
Arts marketing addict
Digital marketing nerd
Native Pittsburgher
Pittsburgh Steelers & WVU
Mountaineer fan

3. YOU KNOW
YOUR
WEBSITE IS
UGLY IF…
You can’t update it yourself
You can’t easily add photos and
videos
It takes longer than 5 minutes
to update text
It was built years ago by the
founding Artistic Director’s
16-year-old nephew.

4. IT IS 2012. THERE IS
NO EXCUSE FOR
HAVING A BAD
WEBSITE ANYMORE…

6. ITS TIME FOR A
QUICK POLL OF THE
AUDIENCE…
What is your current website situation?

7. WHY DO I
NEED TO
CHANGE MY
SITE?
Website is #1 piece in the
marketing puzzle
Content is king
Improves search engine results
Keeps existing customers
engaged

8. SINCE I KNOW SOME OF
YINZ LIKE STATS…
70% of the links 75% of users never
search users click on are scroll past the first
organic – not paid. page of search results.
OTHER
5%
PAID
25%
ORGANIC
70%
FIRST PAGE
ONLY!
Source: MarketingSherpa Source: Marketshare.Histlink.com

9. WHAT IS
OPEN SOURCE
CMS?
Designed to simplify the
publication of web content to web
sites and mobile devices — in
particular, allowing content
creators to create, submit and
manage contents Web Programming
Languages or Markup Languages such
as HTML or the uploading of files.

10. PREPARING FOR THE NEW
SITE. PLANNING IS KEY.

11. DETERMINE A
SITE OUTLINE
AND GOALS
What functionality do you want
it to have?
What should go on the homepage?
What is the most important
information on the site and how
should it be featured?

12. FINALIZE
YOUR
SITEMAP
Itemize each page of the site
and it’s content
Determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
levels of navigation
Keep 1st level navigation to a
reasonable number

13. LOOK FOR A
PREMIUM
TEMPLATE
FOR IDEAS
A template provides a starting
framework
Anything can be customized
Premium templates range from $20
- $100
Site elements can be added and
removed

14. WHERE YOU CAN GET
SOME TEMPLATE IDEAS…
www.themeforest.net www.woothemes.com
www.premiumwp.com

15. BUILDING THE NEW SITE.
KNOW YOUR TIMELINE.

16. KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T
KNOW… GET HELP FROM A
PROFESSIONAL.

17. MANAGING THE NEW
SITE. HOW TO MAKE IT
ROCK.

18. THE
BACKEND
INTERFACE
Easy to add and remove pages.
Easy to upload photos and other
media
Access to HTML just in case you
need it

21. MAKE YOUR
CONENT
DYNAMIC
When product videos are
1/3 available on an ecommerce
site, 1/3 of visitors watch
them.
85% People who watch the videos
are 85% more likely to make
a purchase.

24. PLUGINS &
EXTENSIONS
& MODULES,
OH MY!
Wordpress = Plugins, Joomla =
Extensions, Drupal = Modules
A set of software components
that adds specific abilities to
a larger software application.
Add functionality w/o the need
for coding

25. AN EXAMPLE OF A PLUGIN…

26. AND ANOTHER ONE…

27. AND YET ANOTHER ONE…

28. KEEPING IT
UP TO DATE
A website is a kinetic entity
that should change often
Pay close attention to web
stats to optimize the content
Try heatmaps and other real-
time stats like ChartBeat to
keep on top of things

31. OPTIMIZE
YOUR
HOMEPAGE
The most frequently updated page
on your site
Links to current and upcoming
events
Minimal actual content

32. LANDING
PAGES =
SUPER
IMPORTANT
Quite possibly be the first page
someone sees of your site
Should have comprehensive
information (or links to it)
about the event
Clear call to action links

34. THE GIST: YOU HAVE THE
RIGHT TO A MODERN
WEBSITE THAT YOU CAN
UPDATE YOURSELF
WHETHER OR NOT YOU
KNOW HTML. PERIOD.

35. CONNECT
WITH ME
www.pbopera.org
561.835.7550
cdadisman@pbopera.org
@palmbeachopera
Facebook.com/palmbeachopera
@cecidadisman