sNews SEO

sNews SEO amazes me. When I started blogging with the sNews CMS (Content Management System) I did so initially because I felt the Wordpress install was rather cumbersome. Once I realised Fantastico Deluxe takes care of the Wordpress install for you, I began to post less on my sNews blogs and began playing round with Wordpress instead. But something keeps pulling me back to the sNews CMS. What has grabbed my attention of late is the fantastic sNews SEO. When I started bloggging I had no concept of search engine optimization. Now that I have used various blogging platforms, e.g. free hosting such as Blogger, my own Wordpress installations and sNews blogs, I see that without trying, the sNews SEO functionality appears to provide the best results.

sNews is an amazingly lightweight CMS. Rather than the multitude of files that come with a Wordpress install, sNews has only two PHP files. Initially I did have some difficulty with the sNews installation but after some personal assistance from one of the sNews developers followed by a few practice installs I am now much more comfortable with the installation process. Even now, I still refer to instructions I worte on installing sNews just to make sure I don't miss a step.

If ever you do have problems with your sNews install, there are helpful experts available on the sNews forum willing to help you if you are in a bind. My latest issue had nothing to do with sNews SEO. What I actually managed to do was delete the database from the server containing this website! Everything was gone. Regardless of how good the sNews search engine optimization is, I was in trouble as I had no data to display. Even after getting my database restored by my hosting company it wasn't working correctly. Fortunately for me, one of the sNews experts provided some suggestions that got everything going again.

This is what the sNews CMS homepage has to say about sNews SEO:

Search Engines dig sNews. Really.
sNews uses search engine friendly URLs throughout, to make your website truly loved by Google and other search engines (as well as your visitors). This makes a sNews driven site highly Search Engine Optimized from the get-go and will greatly assist in your site obtaining a good SEO ranking.

The following comment from one of the sNews dudes on the forum is paradoxical in that it highlights their gift for developing a search engine optimized sNews CMS even though their focus is not necessarily SEO.

Seo isn't a hot topic on this forum I believe. sNews is more appealing to coders and designers.

So while the sNews dudes' focus may not be SEO, they certainly knew what they were doing when they created the sNews CMS.

Another feature of sNews blogging that I love is that Google Page Rank (PR) appears to propegate throughout the site very effectively. Many of the articles and categories of this site are PR 1 without any external links pointing at them.

I have other sNews blogs whose internal pages are even higher with only a few external backlinks. Whether or not this correlates directly to sNews SEO is unclear. While many people involved with making money online (MMO) will tell you, high PR pages is less important than ranking highly in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

If the goal is to make money from programs like Google adsense, then ranking highly in the SERPs is of paramount importance. This is an area sNews SEO that comes as part of the standard sNews install can help in. There is no need to install plugins which is something most of not all Wordpress users are familiar with. The sNews SEO functionality is simply part of the regular install.

In the sNews administration > settings > settings, there is an option:

Home SEF (used as link to Home):

sNews SEF

This option is where you can set the anchor text of the 'home' link on every page of your site. In effect giving yourself highly optimised anchors to yourself! This is perfectly legitimate. Normally the 'home' link would simply have the anchor "home" but this option allows you to optimise your site very easily. The more you post, the more optimized keyword anchors you will create, all pointing at your own site!

Without really trying, sNews is a highly optimized CMS for the search engines. As an extremely lightweight installation, it could be seen as a frugal content management system. Frugal with the space it uses on the server that is. For anyone interested in trying out new blogging platforms, sNews is one I highly recommend. Currently it is my CMS of choice. It is great for me as I endevor to learn more about PHP. As it is a smaller install than Wordpress, it is easier for me to find my way around the installation files. And once you get it up and running you have the excellent sNews SEO to look forward to!

Comments (0) 30.06.2009. 00:00

Keeping things simple with sNews

I am buzzing for sNews right now! Currently I am working on a few site ideas based around my own personal interests that I aim to generate income from via Google adsense.

For my own personal blog here I decided on sNews. However for my other projects I have been building regular html/css sites and also fiddling with Wordpress.org blogs.

Then last night it all became clear. I'm making things much more complicated than necessary. Why does each site have to be different? I can use sNews for everything. Further using the same theme means I just have to design it right once and I can build all my sites off the same template.

What I love about sNews is that it is a Spartan CMS. Clover Content is also a simple CMS but I have not yet played around with it. There are many different blogging setups available these days. It is simply a case of finding a platform that you like and going with it.

Installing sNews caused me a few issues the first time I configured it but successive installations have been a breeze. It is a CMS that doesn't require a great deal of computer knowledge to use. It could argued that it doesn't have functionality to rival a self hosted Wordpress install. This is probably true but unless you need the functionality of numerous widgets sNews is a perfect choice.

For this site I am going to continue to use Matt Jones' themes to pay homage for the excellent sNews hacks/mods resource he has created. What I love about his site is that he's coding well above my level but he manages to explain how to implement his hacks and mods clearly so even beginners like me can implement them.

25.03.2009. 00:44

Installing sNews

The sNews website provides detailed instructions regarding how to set things up. I still managed to get myself muddled up but soon had things going after some assistance from a user at the sNews forum.

After realising where I went wrong I decided to practice installing sNews for myself. Using the readme.html file that comes with the sNews download I have detailed the steps I went through.

In addition to the instructions contained in the file mentioned above, these are the steps I followed to install sNews.

1.a) Creating the database using cPanel > MySQL Databases.

- create database
- create user
- add user to database and assign permissions (I gave user full permissions)

b) Copy text from sNews instructions to set up MySQL Database.

- copy text
- from cPanel go to phpMyAdmin
- select database
- click 'SQL' tab
- paste text and click 'Go'

The message "Your SQL query has been executed successfully" told me I had done it correctly.

2. Editing snews.php file. The only changes I made were to near the very top of the file. I entered my own values for DATABASE_NAME, DATABASE_USER and DATABASE_PASSWORD as follows:

// DATABASE VARIABLES
function db($variable) {
$db = array(
// Edit here for the database information only
// MySQL host
'dbhost' => 'localhost',
// Database name
'dbname' => 'DATABASE_NAME',
// Database Username
'dbuname' => 'DATABASE_USER',
// Database password
'dbpass' => 'DATABASE_PASSWORD',
// Table prefix for multiple sNews systems on one database
// if you don't need it just leave it blank
'prefix' => ''

3. Copying files to chosen directory on server. When I tried to FTP the files to my host I got an error saying the .htaccess file cannot be uploaded. The front page looked okay but when I clicked on any links I got a 404 error. This in my case was related to a missing .htaccess file.

Even though I couldn't upload the .htaccess file via FTP, I was able to do it via cPanel as follows:

- Open cPanel > File Manager
- locate directory of sNews install
- change name of htaccess.txt to .htaccess
- tested my sNews install and all was working fine

It is not particularly difficult to install sNews but reading the instructions is a necessary step. Once you have your sNews blog installed the fun can really begin.

Comments (0) 10.03.2009. 19:11

Blogging beginner

I am a blogging beginner. I've started blogs using various blogging software. Until now though I've never found a blogging interface I enjoyed using so much.

This blog is powered by sNews CMS (Content Management System) which makes use of PHP and MySQL.

Providing you use a web hosting service that meets some minimum requirements it's possible to get an sNews blog up and runing without any specific PHP knowledge.

It was the clean and simple blog themes that first attracted me to sNews. On reading more, I discovered that not only does the frontend look beautifully clean but it is also a very lightweight setup. You only create one webpage and the sNews engine does the rest!

Although I've built a few webpages using html/css, I'm no expert. And when when it comes to PHP I'm a complete beginner.

The good news is that there's useful help documentation and expert advice available on the forums of the sNews site.

If you're looking for a clean blogging solution, sNews CMS may be for you.

Comments (0) 05.03.2009. 20:09