Create Websites with Evernote

Yet another function I use Evernote for is as a simple CMS, or Content Management System. Simply by adding a note in Evernote, I can update a Web site.

A CMS system can be a large, proprietary and expensive system capable of supporting giant web sites. And they can also be free, open source but still complex products.

And there are free, easy to use CMS systems, like the Blogger.com I use to maintain this blog.

Evernote though can also be used as a quick and dirty way to move and update data to the web by exploiting Evernote's Public Folder ability.

I first started using this when I replaced Delicious with Evernote (something you can't do anymore since the Evernote import from Delicious is off Evernote's Web site). It occurred to me as I started bookmarking sites that some of the links were on topics I often blog about here (Evernote, Dropbox, etc.). I created a public notebook called "Public Bookmarks" and any link I save to that Notebook appears on the web after the next Evernote sync.

When I began writing my weekly column for the News & Messenger newspaper, I needed a Web site with links from the column. I could have used Blogger to do it I now realize, but back then I was a new Evernote user totally enthralled with Evernote and looking for more and more ways to use it (I guess I still am enthralled). Since I use Evernote to capture research I do for each column, it seemed natural to copy the pertinent links to one note, format it a bit, and then move it to a Public Notebook. And voila, the links page for that week was created.

Evernote's blog post describes how to set this up. It is cheap, easy, convenient CMS.

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Ideas from Mark Stout

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