About
Ametys CMS
Ametys is a java open source web content management system (WCMS) software which combinescontent richness with a user-friendly interface. Ametys is used by more than 30 000 web sites.
It greatly facilitates ...
Discover the Ametys Blog !
Since release V3.3 of Ametys, you can create and manage community or personal blog directly from your back office.
Contact us for an online demonstration.
Add a new article
Published by the July 25, 2012 on 2:05 PM
Learn step by step how to easily create a new article in Ametys CMS !
Discover Ametys features in images and videos on our website www.ametys.org
Online survey
Published by the July 25, 2012 on 2:03 PM
The plugin "Online Surveys" offers online surveys directly from Ametys. This new plugin comes with an intuitive interface to create, publish and analyze online surveys right from the back office.
Each survey have one or many pages in order to establish simple or complexe questions sequences. Several paths can be decided by admministrator to refine the survey.
Ribon buttons from plugin survey
Three types of questions are available:
Types of questions Simple texts: open questions that allow to fill a free answers. It's mainly uses at the end of a survey to ask values of opinion or questions of identity: name,email, address...- Multiple choice: simple or multiple choice questions displayed in the form of buttons or check boxes.
- Matrix: questions presented as a table in order to cross two criteria, most of the time notice and options.
A survey could be published on a web page from the service "Post a survey". Once administered, each survey has a tab analysis to display charts and statistics available in the tab "Survey" in Ametys back office.
Create a blog
Published by the July 25, 2012 on 1:59 PM
The new blog plugin allows to create community or personal blog from your back office solution Ametys.
Functionality and usability of the plugin are similar to that of CMS.From the creation of the blog, the plugin supports the administrator to fill in the information standards needed to model this site: information about the author, categories of articles ...
The essential features of blogs are also available :- archive of articles,
- allocation of subjects (Tag),
- ability to track an RSS feed,
- comment moderation ...
SEO & Ametys
Published by the July 25, 2012 on 1:56 PM
There is no silver bullet to effectively promote its brand on the web without basic knowledge of web marketing. Although it is possible to assign this task to specialized companies, but it is advisable to known the subject a minimum to make it sustainable.
SEO is the set of actions aimed to improve the position of a website on search engines. The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the model that includes three ways to promote a website. It includes SEO, SEA, but also the SMO which is becoming more and more important in marketing strategies.
Search Engine Marketing
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It covers all the techniques to gain targeted traffic by expanding the visibility of web pages in an organic search. SEO includes: optimization of content, name tags <titles>, the development of ranking page, etc..
The SEA or Search Engine Advertising is a "paid search". The practice of SEA is to develop the traffic of a website by purchasing keywords. The purchase of these keywords can buy advertising space positioned in locations where the click rate is the highest. This model works at a cost per click (PPC: Pay per click) the cost of a word is determined by auction: higher the demand is, more expensive is the click.
The SMO stands for Social Media Optimization. It is to add social features (RSS feed, share buttons, ...) in order to promote and disseminate the contents of a site through social media (blogs, comment on, broadcast news on social networks, ...). The goal is to reach and attract as many visitors as possible. These new communication tools can be very effective and quick. With the rise of social networks, SMO is an essential strategic model.
SEA and SEO
After these definitions, a few recommendations for basic SEO. They are proven, effective and simple to implement.Fill and encourage keywords in the title tag
Add a title to a pageThe title tag, present in the header of each HTML page, is a major SEO element ... the <title> must be an understandable sentence, not exceed 100 characters (Google only displays 70) and contain a maximum of keywords from the website and the page. The <title> also brings information during a research on search engines by being the title that appears in bold type during a search. It is recommended that the information <title> is according with the content and unique. In Ametys CMS the <title> is determined when the page is created by filling the "page complete title", it can be changed later.
Have an appropriate use of <header>
Every HTML page contains several headers: pages - sub-page ... These tags identify the format following HTML <h1>, <h2> ...
- The <h1> tag should be unique, different from the <title> and used once per page.
- The subtitles should be integrated by using tags <div> class = "title" </ div> or <h2> to display the title of the page.
- The number of header tag of a page should not go beyond the tag <h6>
According to the graphic of the website powered by Ametys, the tag <h1> does not provide information in the same way. For the latest on-line sites with version 3, the <h1> tag is the title of the first content or service of a page.
Shared and uses links of link, but quality links
When a web page is created, it's expected to contain many links. Of course, words (not more than 55 characters) attached to the link must be explicit and legitimate. Avoid link "Click here" who are not descriptive of the page where they point.
Search engines take into account the volume and quality of links they point to or host. A link from a popular site will have a positive impact on the positioning of your site, while a bad link from a spamming website up to the exclusion from search engines.Treating well the first paragraph of your content
The first paragraph is the most important part of a page in terms of SEO. By scanning a page, search engines identified the first paragraph of content as the one-page summary. It is therefore important that the first paragraph is explicit and contains as many keywords as possible.
The tab "Help" in Ametys CMS promotes the use of keywords. This page is configurable by the administrator.
SEO tipsUse the attribute <alt>
The attribute <alt> is used if an image can be displayed, it should be descriptive and right. Usually, webmasters use the alt function in a roundabout way by using the keywords of without taking into account the representation of the image. This practice is highly risky for two reasons: first it does not meet accessibility standards and secondly an image that has an out of context <alt>, does not appear during a search that concern it. Within the CMS Ametys, <alt> attribute of each image can be filled by completing the "Alternative" available when editing content.
Display an attractive website
A site cluttered with ads, with a chaotic layout, a confused architecture, which does not comply with standards of web accessibility and low quality contents is not equiped to attract visitors or to reach the score link.
To place a site to the top of the list, it has to be legitimate by providing all advantages: quality of content (updated and writing), thoughtful ergonomics, attractive design ...
SEO is mainly a matter of common sense and patience. In many cases, the use of "unfair" practices will become a weakness. Every Google updates has counter the questionable methods and have seen many sites lose their leading position. Right out of Google Panda, 30% of UK sites have seen their devalued positioning for exercising deloyal practices. Keep in mind that a site optimized for SEO is a nice looking website, easy to navigate who offers good quality content.Open Social
Published by the July 25, 2012 on 1:53 PM
In 2005, Google introduced the iGoogle platform: a customizable home page able to support applications that aggregate information from external content. On the same niche portal Netvibes had taken an easy lead in the same year.
iGoogleMade possible by AJAX technologies, these portals are pratical examples of web2.0 uses.
Technically, in 2005, these portals operated primarily based on RSS and application-specific editor (applications for iGoogle).
The enthusiasm generated by these platforms will bring publishers to innovate and offer the ability for developers to create their own APIs.
Google and Facebook are in full competition on web social technologies, that’s the reason why Google decided to announce OpenSocial, a set of technical standards that allowed developers to create mini-Web applications intended for being displayed in a web portal and iGoogle pages.
These mini-applications are usually called widgets can be set up on any any gate or OpenSocial compatible social network through a container.
To increase the attractiveness of this technology and accelerate the compatibility with OpenSocial, several containers were levels of compatibility exist for containers:
- Display (Core Gadget Container): it is to implement the rendering of widgets in a portal but not "social" features like the plugin Gadgets available within Ametys to integrate gadgets sharing information as news, weather forecast, music, video...
- Social Graph connection (Social Gadget Container): The container provides social data to the gadgets: friends list, groups, activities... This allows to a horoscope Gadget to offer a user to share his daily horoscope with all his friends that share the same his sign.
Integrate a gadget with AmetysOpenSocial specifications are based on trusted technical standards as HTML, Javascript, XML, AJAX, and REST. Otherwise, it prohibits any other technology from server side (PHP, Java ...) or client-side (Flash, javascript libraries ...).
OpenSocial ease of access gives it to be a reference for developers, despite of promoting the standard by Netvibes UWA, and the launch of the Facebook Social API which remains essential if one wishes to exploit Facebook users' network..
In late 2009, the cumulative audience for all social networks compatible with OpenSocial exceeds 800 million users. Applications developed under OpenSocial standards can be directly published on a social network or a website compatible. There are now dozens using this technology: iGoogle, Orkut, MySpace, Yahoo! …
In November 2010, OpenSocial has reached version 1.1. Version 2.0 is under development; it will consider HTML5, which will become the default format, work flow redesign and the appearance of gadgets depending on the execution environment.
Create an Open Social gadget is very simple, it offers an interesting alternative to the development of Java portlets (JSR 168 standard or 286) and in general the development of services very dependent of a server technology as Java or PHP framework owner.
Containers usually display the gadget inside an iframe, which makes it "tight" with portal host.
To integrate any OpenSocial Gadget within your platform (website, social network, portal, CMS) it’s necessary to deploy a "container", which is responsible for implementing the OpenSocial standards into your social network or your web portal.
Several implementations exist; the most common used is Apache Shindig, which exists in Java and PHP.
The software is stable and implements many of the OpenSocial specification, but the documentation is sparse, especially you want to make an advanced integration into an existing application.
In its standard distribution, Shindig is intended to run as a standalone, and it is relatively difficult to integrate it as a library in another application, how it is done in Ametys: it overload is part of the source code and redefine certain components.
To provide the full customizable service: Plugin Gadgets in Ametys; the development team has made the logical choice to use Apache Shindig as container.
Drag and Drop OpenSocial GadgetsThe Plugin Gadgets is a turnkey solution for webmasters using Website powered by Ametys. In addition to the classic features of OpenSocial container, the plugin Ametys has some additional elements:
- Possibility for the webmaster to impose a number of gadgets that the user can not remove
- Ability to restrict user choices from a library of predefined widgets
- Automatic conversion from any RSS or any UWA widget (mini-format applications Netvibes) to OpenSocial gadget in order to display it
From a user perspective, this integration allows displaying most of the iGoogleand Netvibes gadgets, in the same time as favorite RSS feeds…
Références
Open Social website: http://www.opensocial.org/
Documentation wiki : http://docs.opensocial.org/
Apache Shindig : http://shindig.apache.org/