As promised in an earlier blog entry, we have completed the sixth version of Common Goal WebManager! While I hold a certain fondness for the earlier versions, I know I speak for the whole team at Silverscape when I say that I am very excited about the new features, the new interface, and some of the technology we have brought into it to make the maintenance of site content even easier than it was in earlier versions (and our clients can speak to how easy it has always been)!

The driving force in the new version has been to really bring the system in line with how web sites are created in the modern age. Content does not simply appear in one place on a page by page basis. Instead, content takes the form of assets which can be pulled into many areas of a site. These assets are well suited for interactive search interfaces and for display in sidebars and the home page.

For use with all of the social media resources available throughout the internet, all content can be tagged. We can use these tags to correlate with blog entries (did you know WebManager has its own integrated blog application?), products from our ecommerce application (and its own ecommerce application...), news, banner ads, youtube videos, flickr galleries, and more.

This tagging of content assets puts Common Goal WebManager way ahead of other content management systems in its ability to leverage and syndicate content both to the site itself and to other sites.

We've added an entire task system. You can assign tasks and connect them to specific content assets or have the CMS create tasks on a scheduled basis to remind you to update certain pages. This is an important addition both from a workflow perspective and from the perspective of having a better web site. You'll always know when to update content to keep it fresh and keep those visitors coming back.

Our CMS generated URL's have become shorter and more search engine friendly than before, getting the keywords from the page title near the beginning of the URL. Because of this change in the URL structure, creating landing pages is easy. Just make a new top level page and tell the CMS where it should be found (i.e. www.mysite.com/mylandingpage). This is excellent for creating memorable, short URLs that can be used in advertising campaigns.

We've completely overhauled the user interface as well. The dashboard provides a wealth of information on what has is happening with your site content, such as a display of content needing approval and content that was recent published or edited. The list view gives faster access to tasks such as enabling and disabling pages or reordering sections of the site with click and drag. The edit views hide the more advanced functionality, giving easy access to commonly used fields.

This only scratches the surface of the great new features and functionality in Common Goal WebManager 6. I'd love to show you a demo, so contact us at Silverscape so we can discuss how our latest release can make maintenance of your site a breeze!