10 Rules for Keywords and Description Meta Tags of A Page in Search Engine Optimization

1. First let's assume that you already know what the page is about and have already created it. This is not a tutorial on how to write web pages. Rather guidelines for search engine optimization using your meta keywords and description tags.
   
   Depending on the type of page you are creating determines how many keywords you should use. For instance a sales letter is typically 2000 or more words. In that type of page you need to describe all the advantages of your product and why it is the right solution. You will want to get testimonials and place them in appropiate places. You may even want to tell a story relating to how well the product has performed. Don't over do the page or you will lose your prospect to boredom.
   
   The product page (different from the sales letter) should be between 500 and 750 words. All you are trying to do here is sell a product. Visitors that make it to these pages probably already know what they are looking for and are only looking for specific information. Your job is to convince them that your product is the right one. Beyond that and there is more opportunity for your visitors to disagree with your pitch and move on.
   
   The article page should be at least 1000 words and not more than 5000 words. Okay some might say that 5000 is too long and others have said that isn't 1000 words aren't enough words to describe what they have to say. Too long - some say that 500 words is good for an article page. So lets look at this: a person who can read 10 words a second will be through your page in 50 seconds. Not enough time for them to soak up your message. A person reading 3 words a second will take about 2-1/2 minutes. Plenty of time for your message to sink in.
   
   The average reader can read somewhere around 6 words per second. Which would take them 83 seconds to read your 500 word article. Barely enough time to get your visitors comfortable. At 1000 words the avearge reader will read your page in roughly 3 minutes. At 6 words a second your reader needs around 3 minutes to read a 1000 word article. This plenty of time for the reader to make a decision to click on your most wanted response.
   
   At over 2000 words the average reader will need 5-1/2 minutes to get through it. This is stretching the limit of time most visitors will spend reading one web page. At 5000 words the average reader takes over 13 minutes to read your page. This is well past the amount of time a visitor will need to decide to click on your most wanted response. If your article is really good most people will read all the way through it. If not they are off to the next website in a flash. If you have more than 2000 words you may want to consider breaking the article into 2 pages.
   
   Use the right amount of words for a particular type of page. Not too many and not too few.
   
2. Primary meta keyword (the first one) must be an exact match with the file name of your page. This lets the search engines match up your keyword with your page and give your page higher relevancy.
   
3. Use only 5 keywords in your meta keywords tag. More than that and the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and won't list your page. The search engines rank your keywords in the order that they appear. This makes the first one the primary keyword and the second one a secondary keyword and so on. You should line your keywords up in the order of relevance to the page.
   
4. Use all of your keywords in your meta description, with the primary keyword as close to the front as possible. Definitely within the first 5 words of your description. The search engines don't read your description verbatim, but can find and match them with your keyword list. So try to use them all but don't repeat them if at all possible. Again if your meta description repeats your keywords too often the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and not list your page, so don't do it.
   
5. Meta description should be between 100 and 200 characters. It is important to get a solid description of your page. Less that 100 characters and the search engine may not find it relevant enough to list. More than 200 characters and the search engines may truncate it. Which looks unprofessional on your part. Truncated meta descriptions may leave searchers with the impression that your content will be too wordy and full of you know what. Too short a description and your visitors may think there is not enough information on your page and move on to the next result. So try to get your description just right, not too long and not too short.
   
6. Line up your meta keywords up too resemble a sentence. Although search engines don't read your keywords as a sentence verbatim, it should reflect well what your page is all about.
   
7. Proof read your content twice. You should always proof read your work before you post for a lot of good reasons like spelling, grammar, placement and paragraph distribution. Once your page looks great proof read it again with your focus on keyword placement and repitition. You want your keywords placed in your content sparingly. What? you say. Again over use of your keywords might result in the search engines thinking you are keyword spamming. That isn't to say you shouldn't have too few. My rule of thumb is 3 uses of a keyword for every 300 words. This lets the search engines know that there is a lot of supporting content for the keyword.
   
8. Put your meta description all on one line in your html code. This will ensure that the search engines reads it all. I have noticed that some search engine results leave off the second line of a description. That may leave out some of your meta keywords if that happens.
   
9. Never use more than 3 words for your primary keyword (and file name). People rarely search for a keyword phrase over 3 words long. Too many words in a keyword phrase and the search engines may not find enough relevancy to list your page in the results. Two words in a keyword phrase (and file name) is ideal.
   
10. Use your primary keyword in the first and last paragraph of your page. The search engines will give more relevancy to your page if they find your keywords at the beginning and the end of your page. Also your primary keyword should appear in the first 90 characters of your content.

Use your primary keyword as a text link in your page only once. Not twice but definitely once. If you don't want your visitors to leave your page make that link an "add to favorites" bookmark. On a product page this works great because you don't want to give your visitors the opportunity to go else where.

About the Author: Tim Koen - web developer, http://www.best-website-tools.com. Tool Time blog. All the best website tools, tips and techniques to grow your online business.

What is the deal with Meta Tags?

Search Engine Optimizers often have two different views when it comes to meta tags. One this is unanimous meta tags have definitely been devalued for use in most major search engines but you will find they are still being used as the description often times when your site is listed in the search results.

Meta tags were started back in the early 90's when the Internet was just getting its brand new legs and they were used to help the search engines organize the growing number of web pages. This was an easy way to get your site indexed and listed high.

Soon after unethical webmasters started to abuse the meta tag by either spamming the page full of keywords or sometimes even made different websites appear in the results for a completely different keyword. Gambling sites would stuff their meta tags with more commonly used phrases in order to bring their sites to the first page and trick the search engine and moreover the user.

Now obviously, most search engines have discontinued the use of meta tags for organizing their search results. Algorithms have become much more technologically advanced and they use a number of other methods for indexing and sorting. The big question is if they are no longer viewed as a helpful tag, why do some SEO's still use them?

Meta tags come in a multitude of different names and uses, so which ones do you use? There are four that I often find myself using when I am optimizing a site. They are as follows:

• Meta Robots:This tag is still widely supported and it simply tells the search bots to either follow the URL through or you can ask them not to index certain parts of your site for aspects that may not be relevant to your actual site.
• Meta Description:My favorite tag. This is your first impression, if you don't have this tag search engines will just tag clips of your index page including the keyword that was being searched for by the surfer. First impressions often is the difference between a sale or no sale.
• Meta Keywords:A controversial meta tag, some use it, some don't. I still thinks it holds a bit of value if you keep it simple. Don't add more than 20 or so keywords, as I think it does increase your on-page keyword density.
• Meta Content Type:This is recommended because you may find that if you do not have this tag it could cause display problems.

Now, most search engines don't use the meta tags as they did in the early nineties, but as I explained you can still use them for a variety of other reasons. There is of course a number of opinions on this matter: Some SEO firms are strong believers in the meta tag and other firms are strongly against it.

In conclusion, my opinion is that meta tags can be used for a number of alternative reasons and still offer you a great place to sell your stuff.

I always will recommend the use of at least a small number of Meta Tags, and if used correctly they will greatly improve your chances of more sales and higher rankings.

About the Author: Carrie Haggerty has been working in SEO and Internet marketing for the past 3 years. She has started her own SEO Firm and also her own SEO article website.

Optimizing Your Site for Both Google and Yahoo!

Search engine optimization techniques for Google and Yahoo are quite different. Many websites rank well in one search engine but not the other. This is the direct result of each search engine having its own unique ranking algorithm. For example, the Google algorithm predominantly values the anchor text of in-bound links. Yahoo places more emphasis on keyword density and meta tags.

The primary reason for the difference in ranking algorithms is that Google owns the patent on Page Rank (PR), named after Google's founder Larry Page. As a result of owning this patent, other search engines need to place more emphasis on different optimization factors including website URL, keyword density and so on.

What are the greatest differences in search engine algorithms?

Google places a significant amount of emphasis on inbound links to your website. The value of these inbound links are measured based on their Google PR. The more links you receive from high Google PR web pages, the better your search result placements will be for a given keyword or search term.

Yahoo places emphasis on website URLs, meta tags, and keyword density. These factors can be analyzed on any website with a limited amount of effort, allowing Yahoo to quickly and easily rank websites properly.

How you can optimize your website for both Google and Yahoo!?

The challenge all website owners face is making the most of their optimization efforts. When thinking about search engine optimization, you need to cover all the bases. To do so, pay particular attention to the following guidelines.

Keyword Targeted URL
If your website URL doesn't contain your keywords, consider purchasing a new one or creating a new page off of your root directory (ex: marketingscoop.com/internetmarketing.htm). Having your keywords in the URL helps improve both your Yahoo and Google search results. Yahoo weighs the website address as an important ranking factor. Google values a keyword rich URL when third party websites place a link to your site using nothing but a web address.

Meta Tags
Although not as important as they once were, Yahoo still uses meta tags to help align search engine rankings and appropriate website pages. Make sure that your meta tags are complete and include your keyword phrases in the title, description, and keyword tags.

Keyword Density Between 6 - 8%. Although much has been written about the importance of keyword density remaining between 2 - 3%, Yahoo looks for sites with keyword densities as high as 8%. Don't be afraid to include your keywords throughout your webpage content. Make sure however, that your keyword density is not more than 8%.

Link Building
This is the most important factor for increasing Google search result placements. Develop a link building campaign and give other sites a reason to link to your site. This may include free downloads, tools, or other valuable resources.

Site Map. Publish a sitemap. This makes it easy for search engines to spider your website and access all of your most important web pages. Site maps should be accessible from your home page and kept up-to-date.

Following basic seo principles and working to develop incoming links can help you reach the top of the largest search engines. Apply these techniques regularly to see the greatest results.

About the Author: Michael Fleischner is a marketing expert with more than 12 years of Internet marketing experience. Learn how to improve search engine rankings with his latest ebook, The Webmasters Book of Secrets at http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com.

Mistakes Of Pay Per Click Advertising: The Terrible 10

Vigilance, micromanaging and attention to detail can help you avoid some common and costly mistakes of PPC advertising. What are those mistakes?

Here are the terrible 10 that are typical to most pay per click campaigns.

Too Many Keywords Per Ad Group
It's important to target your ad to be as relevant as possible. Don't group all your keywords into one or two ad groups. Break them out. Keep them tight. This gives you more control over ad variables so that you can be as relevant as possible.

Not Using Negative Keywords
Negative keywords reduce unwanted impressions, and more importantly, unwanted click throughs. However, with increasing priority given to "quality scores" and click through rates in the PPC engines, it's key to trim the fat from your keyword campaigns. If your company sells "widget management software" then be sure that you have keywords like "-serial" or "-free" assigned as negative keywords (unless, of course, you offer it for free in some manner). You can find good negative keywords in your log files or when you build your lists.

Weak Testing

Split-testing your ads is critical. Even the smallest of changes can boost results. In addition to testing your ad copy's "call to action" or value statements, every ad has multiple variables to test. The titles, the two lines of copy, and display url all can be optimized. If you don't have time for hands-on testing, a good professional pay per click management company can run daily split testing for you. You'd be surprised how well this can pay off.

Poor or Non-Existent Tracking

Of course, testing your ads and fine tuning your keyword lists only works well if you are tracking results. The search engines will tell you what your click-through rates are ... but you need bottom-line results. You need to know your return on investment or what your cost per action is. It's not enough to know that you spend $5,000 and get back $10,000. You might be able to spend only $3,000 and get that same $10,000.

Not Getting Keyword-Level Tracking

Proper and exact analytics or using an experienced pay per click management company is essential to get the data you need. If you have keywords that are not performing and leaking your account on a daily basis, you are throwing money away. Getting results to the keyword level allows you to adjust bids for maximum effect. If you have one keyword with a $1.34 earnings per click and another at 37 cents, this is key information that allows you to maximize profits. Lower one bid if you are above your "EPC" and raise another to eek out more profits from that sweet-spot keyword. Don't waste money on a daily basis.

Not Specific Enough Keywords
Some broad and generic keywords can certainly push a ton of traffic to your site. They may even be very successful. Often, however, they can also do just the opposite -- drain your funds with poor results. A user searching on one of these generic phrases is often doing research in an early part of the buying process. Knowing your keyword-level results and filtering out bad variations with negative keywords can help you get a true read on these generic keywords.

Not Going After Long-Tail Keywords

This follows the above item on generic keywords. Building a list and individual ads for the long-tail keywords can be a major time-sucker. It can also be profitable if the task is performed correctly. Those earnings per click will likely vary widely from a generic keyword like "mp3 player", "sony mp3 player" and "sony 2GB S610 walkman video mp3 player". One consumer is doing research, the other knows what they want and is most likely looking to purchase.

Not Separating Content and Search Networks

An easy way to get scorched on poor performing traffic or even click fraud is to not separate your search network ads from your content network ads. Chances are that if you don't know what the difference is, then they are likely not separated in your account -- and bad keywords are leaking your funds daily. You are better off to build different campaigns for your keywords on the content and search networks.

Not Attracting Local Clients Through Geo Targeting

If you draw most of your business from a local area, the big three PPC engines allow you to geo-target your keywords to that area. This will bring the local market to your doorstep on non-local keyword phrases. This can be hugely profitable.

Not Frequently Monitoring Your Accounts

Not everyone has time to run split testing on a daily basis or frequently checking your EPCs (even though you should...because it's costing you). That said, there are still a high amount of advertisers who seem to ignore their accounts for days ... or even weeks ... or (don't tell me you're doing this!) months. The big PPC search engines are increasingly cracking down on poor performing keywords, smacking advertisers with that "Inactive for Search" status for individual keywords. When this happens, you lose traffic, you lose profits. If you are investing heavily in PPC, you can't just turn your back on your account for days at a time.

The Terrible 10 of Pay Per Click Advertising is a lot to consider, but it's vital for healthy pay per click campaigns. Whether you can actively manage your PPC accounts at this level or you need to hire a pay per click management company to do it, vigilance and precision can make a huge impact on your bottom line.

About the Author: Josh Prizer is a Senior Account Executive and PPC expert for Zero Company Performance Marketing, a pay per click management company.

Best Practices in Web Design

Good web design is something that can be achieved relatively easily by sticking to a small set of guiding principles and avoiding some very common mistakes.

Truly excellent web design skills are born out of years of experience, dedication and plenty of hard-learned mistakes. Fortunately, being truly excellent at web design is not a pre-requisite for building a fantastic website and the lessons learned from those mistakes can be passed on without the hardship.

1. Keep Everything Obvious - Don't Make Me Think

The book entitled Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug is one of the best selling books on the subject of web design and usability. Personally, I think thinking is a good thing but at the same time I don't want to be struggling to figure out how to submit a web form!

Visitors to a website expect certain conventions, breaking these is a great way of losing visitors. People expect to find the navigation at the top of a page or on the left hand side. Logos are mostly found on the top left. Much research has been conducted into how people view and use web pages. The good news is that you do not to know all of this; instead look at how larger companies such as eBay, Amazon, Google, Microsoft structure their pages and the language they use, then emulate them.

2. Limit Colors

A website using too many colors at a time can be overwhelming to many users and can make a website look cheap and tacky. Any users with color blindness or contrast perception difficulties may even be unable to use the site.

Limiting a palette to 2 or 3 colors will nearly always lead to a slicker looking design and has the added bonus of simplifying your design choices, reducing design time.

Software like Color Wheel Pro can greatly simplify the creation of a pallet by showing which colors sit well together. If you really do not have the eye for design then software like this provides the perfect way of escaping monotone or badly combined color schemes.

If your site uses blue and yellow together or red and green then it may present problems to anyone suffering with color blindness. Vischeck.com provides free software that can simulate different types of color blindness.

3. Be Careful With Fonts

The set of fonts available to all visitors of a website is relatively limited. Add to that the possibility of a user having a visual impairment then the options become even smaller. It is advisable to stick to fonts such as Arial, Verdana, Courier, Times, Geneva and Georgia. They may not be very interesting but your content should be more interesting than your font and if it can't be read, what is the point of having a site?

Black text on a white background is far easier for the majority of people to read than white text on a black background. If you have large amounts of text then a white or pale background is far more user friendly. Always ensure that there is a good contrast between any text and its background. Blue text on a blue background is okay as long as the difference in shade is significant.

Verdana is often cited as being the easiest to read on the screen. Trebuchet, Georgia is probably the best option for a serif font.

4. Plan for Change

If you fix the height of your page to 600 pixels will you still be able to add additional menu items without completely redesigning your page?

The ability to add or remove content from a website is fundamental to the ongoing success of it. Having to rewrite the entire web page or website each time you want to make a small change is sure fire way to kill your interest in your own site and will negatively impact your overall design and usability.

Getting a good idea of how your website is likely to grow will clarify how best to structure your layout. For example, a horizontal navigation is often more restrictive than a side navigation unless you use drop down menus; if your navigation is likely to grow and you hate drop down menus then your design choice has been 99% made for you!

Understanding how to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), avoiding unconventional layouts and complicated backgrounds will all help enormously.

5. Be Consistent

Again, don't make your visitors think! About how to use your site at least. If your navigation is at the top on your homepage, it should be at the top on all other pages too. If your links are coloured red ensure the the same convention is used on all sections.

By using CSS correctly you can make most of this happen automatically leaving you free to concentrate on the content.

6. Keep it Relevant

A picture is better than a thousand words but if the picture you took on holiday is not relevant to your Used Car Sales website then you should really replace it with something which reflects the content or mood of the page; a photo of a car perhaps!

If you can take something off of your web page without it adversely affecting the message, appearance or legality of your website you should do it without hesitation.

Avoid the need to add images, Flash animations or adverts just because you have space. This wastes bandwidth and obscures the intentions of your website. If you absolutely must fill the space, then exercise your imagination to find something as relevant as possible.
Keeping your content focused will ultimately help your search-engine rankings.

7. Become a CSS Expert

Cascading Style Sheets should be any web designer's best friend. CSS makes it is possible to separate the appearance and layout of your page from the content. This has huge benefits when it comes to updating and maintaining your site, making your site accessible and making your site easy for search engines to read.

CSS at a first glance is very straightforward but is definitely worth investing in one or more books. Two great books are: CSS the Missing Manual by David McFarland and Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm.

8. Avoid Complexity

Using standard layouts for your web page will save you development time and make your site easier to use. Pushing the boundaries nearly always leads to quirky behaviour, cross-browser problems, confused site visitors and maintenance headaches. Unless you really do like a challenge then avoid complexity wherever possible.

Many standard layouts are freely available online with much of the boring, repetitive work already done for you.

The principles above all border on common sense and are well known to most people, yet so many sites continue to deviate away from them and suffer as a consequence. Following these principles will help you keep away from trouble, although it still doesn't guarantee it!

Web Marketing Tips

Your web site marketing strategy is the essential factor that determines the success or failure of a business web site. This is true whether your web site is an extension of an offline business, or you run an completely online business. Web site marketing is unlike any marketing you may have done using other media.

However, marketing your web site on the internet shares many common core marketing foundations that underlie your marketing efforts regardless of the media you use. I am a strong believer that for a small business, all marketing should be based on the old direct marketing mantra of attention, interest, desire, and action. In this article I am going to discuss those aspects in terms of how they are crucial in marketing your web site on the internet.
Regardless of the media you choose, nothing will ever happen if you don't attract the attention of prospective buyers. This is one of the very basic tenets of successful marketing. On the internet, this concept is evaluated by the traffic that you receive on your web site. But there are a lot of factors that affect how much traffic you get, and only part of it is the actual content of your web site. There are two ways you can get attention in any media: you can earn it or you can buy it.

All the major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) show up two different types of results when a customer uses them.

The most relevant results based on the search algorithms used by the engine are called 'free' or 'organic' since they are the natural result of running a search.

The second type of result are actually paid advertisements, and they can be very difficult to distinguish from the results that are actually relevant to you query.

It is important to keep in mind that no matter how good the engine, the results are still hit or miss. It is a computer program sorting web pages based on mathematical formulae, not live people helping you select the best results, so as a person hoping to be indexed, you must be willing to put the time and effort into checking how you rank on the major engines and tuning your word choice to optimize that. If you can't make it onto the first (or second at the very least) page of results, your traffic will drop dramatically! Most people don't bother to wade through the hits on the pages after that. Even second-page ranking will hurt your ability to attract new users.

One of the most effective ways to increase internet traffic is buying some form of advertising. One of the most pervasive forms is banner advertising. Originally, these were very popular forms of advertising, but as they became more prevalent, their effectiveness waned. They can still be effective as long as you have a clear marketing strategy and are able to track your advertising statistics.

Text advertisements are probably the most common form of internet advertising today. Google has paved the way, and if done correctly, your internet traffic can multiply quickly by using Google ads. MSN and Yahoo also offer text advertisements on their sites. One downside to text advertising is that the cost can add up fairly quickly, depending on how many hits you receive for your ad. Each time a searcher clicks on your text ad, the provider charges you a set amount. Another way to increase traffic to your site is to buy traffic from someone who has an e-mail contact list or has a lot of traffic on their site already.

Any approach to publicizing your website or portal must begin with the aim of grabbing attention of the web surfers and internet addicts. To grab attention, you must deliver your message to surfers on websites they frequently visit. You can publicize your website by doing the hard work yourself or by availing expert help, or a mix of both.

Doing it yourself means you will have to commit your time, energy and money. It might sound daunting but ultimately proves to be cheaper as well. Availing expert help can get your results without eating your time. To set the cash registers ringing, it is suggested that you develop your own mix of both ways suited to your own needs and resources.

About the Author: You can get more information about Business Marketing at http://www.bizrave.com/. Eric Menzies writes about Search Engine Marketing Firms and other topics.

Understanding Modal window

In user interface design, a modal window (often called modal dialog because the window is almost always used to display a dialog box) is a child window which requires the user to interact with it before they can return to operating the parent application. Modal windows are commonly used in GUI systems to command user awareness and to display emergency states.

Creating a popup window is reasonably easy if you just want another browser window of a specified size and you don't care if your visitors swap back and forward between the various browser windows. Where it becomes difficult (if not impossible) is where you want the new window to stay in front of the original window and not allow your visitor to interact with the original window until the new window has closed. We call a window that insists on retaining the focus like this a modal window.

Usage

• Drawing attention to vital pieces of information. This use has been criticised as ineffective.
• blocking the application flow until information required to continue is entered. collecting application configuration options in a centralized dialog.
• Warning that the effects of the current action are not reversible. This is a frequent interaction pattern for modal dialogs, but it is also criticised by usability experts as being ineffective for its intended use (protection against errors in destructive actions) and for which better alternatives exist.

Modal Window Apllication Tools

ThickBox

Webpage UI dialog widget written in JavaScript on top of the jQuery library. Its function is to show a single image, multiple images, inline content, iframed content, or content served through AJAX in a hybrid modal.

TinyBox

TinyBox is an easy to use lightweight JavaScript library for creating modal windows/dialogs in an elegant manner, without using traditional pop-up windows. It can be used to overlay content on the current page (i.e. you can load a page and display it in a box above the current one).

Control.Modal

Control.Modal creates modal windows and lightboxes from any links/anchors elements on your pages. Since it attaches these behaviors to HTML that already has semantic meaning, it will degrade gracefully for browsers that do not support JavaScript, and is search engine friendly. It attaches in one line of code for simple use cases, but is highly customizable and can be used in a variety of edge cases.

MOOdalBox

A modal box (inline popup), used to display remote content loaded using AJAX, web 2.0 style, written for the mootools framework.

Lightbox JS

Lightbox JS is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It's a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers.

GreyBox

Webmaster as a profession

Webmasters are practitioners of web communication. Typically, they are generalists with HTML expertise who manage all aspects of Web operations. On a smaller site, the webmaster will typically be the owner, developer and/or programmer, in addition to the author of the content.
On larger sites, the webmaster will act as a coordinator and overseer to the activities of other people working on the site and is usually an employee of the owner of the Web site, hence webmaster can also be listed as an occupation. If the webmaster is hired by a larger Web site, or promoted to the position, they could do things from web design, to project management, or employee supervision. The range of activities to be undertaken by a webmaster may be estimated using the concept of Website scale.
In the early days of the use of the term "webmaster" (a take-off on the term "postmaster", the administrator of an e-mail system), this role encompassed all aspects of planning, coding, production, and user interface. The webmaster may have many of the duties of an information architect, including ensuring site usability, user experience and menu taxonomy.
However, since the late 90s, this type of webmaster role was typically only found working on small Web sites that could be managed by one person, or in environments where there was not a great deal of role definition. The current model tends to be more team oriented with a website manager or online producer leading a team consisting of web developers, designers, programmers, QA lead, Adobe Flash developers and often at least one usability expert or a UI/UE team. In established web development companies, especially those existing since the 90s, the term webmaster may be used by senior officers of the company, and may include usage such as "Webmaster-in-chief."
A broader definition of webmaster is a businessperson who uses online media to sell products and/or services. This broader definition of webmaster covers not just the technical aspects of overseeing Web site construction and maintenance but also management of content, advertising, marketing and order fulfillment for the Web site.
Core responsibilities of the webmaster include the regulation and management of access rights of different users of a web site, the appearance and setting up web site navigation. Content placement can be part of a webmaster's responsibilities, while content creation is typically not.
Typically, the webmaster is the agent who reads user feedback and complaints about site functionality.

Web content management system

A web content management system (WCMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A CMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential web maintenance functions.

Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.

Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system. Content is frequently, but not universally, stored as XML, to facilitate reuse and enable flexible presentation options.

A presentation layer displays the content to regular website visitors based on a set of templates. The templates are often XSLT files.

Administration is typically done through browser-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a fat client.

A Content Management System (CMS) differs from website builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver. A CMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. Web content management systems typically require an experienced coder to set-up and add features, but it is primarily a website maintenance tool for non-technical administrators.