In the course of several recent conversations, various questions have surfaced regarding the creation or re-creation of websites. So it seemed best to use them as content this week in order to benefit the vast audience that read my blog. The following are a few questions that you may have asked yourself, as well as some (hopefully intelligent) responses that will be meaningful to you.

There are tons of acronyms in the business world, and websites are no exception. One you'll hear bantered about is CMS, which stands for content management system. As it implies, it is a system to manage content, in this case, of a website. Why do you care? I'm glad you asked, because content management has a number of advantages that traditionally developed websites don't offer, so you might want to become aware of those benefits.

When designing your logo, the most important rule to keep in mind is the tried and true KISS principle: Keep It Simple and Short. That may not be the original definition of the KISS principle, but it works really well for logo design! A logo can be just the name of your company in a specific font, or it may be a symbol that represents your business, or it could be a combination of both.

Sometimes when I'm having one of those indecisive days, I'll go into my closet and change clothes several times before I finally decide on the right look for the day's activities. Until I see what it looks on me, until I'm sure that I won't feel out of place, or that it won't look stupid, I don't really know whether I'll feel right wearing it or not. Hence, the recurrent changes. Your website design can be like that too. You need to feel like it's the right look for your company's branding, but changing "clothes" for a website can be expensive.

You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression. Have you heard that one before? It's true! When you're meeting someone for the first time, you want to look your best. The same holds true for your marketing materials. The first impression of your company may be your business card, your newsletter or a brochure, and you want to make sure that whatever you produce that represents your company makes a good first impression.

When you want to tell the world about your company, who is better qualified to write the content for your website than you are? You’re the one who knows the “ins and outs” of your business better than anyone, and yet, when it comes time to supply your web designer with what you want to say on your website, you have trouble finding the right words that clearly and effectively get the job done.

You decide to put up a website, and the next decision is what to call it. Most people would want to use the name of the company; after all, they’re proud of it and want to advertise it. Before you grab all the .net, .com, and .org domain names associated with your company name and every variation of it, you might want to reconsider.

Back in the olden days, cowboys would lasso their cattle, tie them up, throw them on the ground, and apply a hot branding iron to their backsides. The branding iron would be a special shape that was unique to the ranch it belonged to. It permanently marked the animal as the property of that ranch. The custom has changed somewhat, but the function is the same: Making sure everybody knows the identity of that little dogie.

Most companies would love to be at the top of the Internet search engines’ organic lists because 70% of people who search Google, MSN or Yahoo (the top three) go immediately to the top of the list to find what they’re looking for. You know this; you’ve done it yourself. Are you going to spend the rest of your day going down the list to check out all 360 million matches? No! You want to find the answer and you want to find it now.

An early Emperor of the Xia Dynasty in China (about 4,000 years ago) said, “A picture speaks a thousand words.” The adage may be old, but the words still hold true today.

Do you need to post to an external site from your DotNetNuke site? Here is one simple solution.

If you have a "techy" side to you and are curious about how we create our websites, read on.

If you're new to the DotNetNuke content management framework, the CSS stylesheet hierarchy may be a bit confusing to you. If this is the case, this blog will make it as easy as ABC ASAP.

“When it rains, it pours” doesn’t make you think of precipitation, but rather Morton salt. A good tagline, or slogan, will capture the essence of what your company offers in a brief, memorable phrase. It will embed your brand or message in the minds of your audience. If you hear, “Just do it,” you’ll picture the Nike swoosh – automatically. And that’s what you want your tagline to do: make your company come to mind when people read or hear the words.

Have you ever gone to a website and wondered, "What in the world were they thinking?!" It looks like a ransom note or a third grade cut-and-paste art project. In a word, it's just plain unprofessional. All that can be avoided with a little planning.

Think that email "blasts" are cold and impersonal? Think again...

Remember in the old westerns when the good guys wore the white hats and the bad guys wore the black hats? Those terms have now found a new use within the realm of search engine optimization. The good guys practice "white hat" SEO.