Articles - Page 141

The Top 10 AI Tools for Small Business: From Automation to a Coordinated Team of AI Agents

matt-garrepy

<a href="http://vlinksmedia.com" target="_blank">Vlinks Media</a>, the company behind LearnCore, have recently introduced some new usability improvements and branding features for their platform.
<a href="http://learncore.com" target="_blank"> LearnCore</a> is an interactive learning management system designed to provide a user-friendly experience to both administrators and learners. The feature-heavy platform can help you create personalised courses and tests to help learners progress.
LearnCore is ideal for educational institutions, as well as corporations looking to induct new staff, or provide training to existing team members. A few months ago, <a href="/revolutionize-corporate-staff-training-with-learncore/#.UzFdR_l_vvU" target="_blank"> I covered LearnCore's features in detail</a>.
For now though, let's take a look at what's new.
<h2>Improved Test Creation &amp; Branding Options</h2>
First of all, LearnCore administrators can now benefit from a newly improved test creation interface.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/survey_1700x0.png" alt="LearnCore Surveys" /> 
The delivery of test questions has also now been randomised, whilst a new Survey System has been introduced. The surveys allow learners to give feedback and suggestions straight after their test or course is completed. In order to function, the surveys need to be set up prior to courses being published
Furthermore, custom branding for companies and educational institutes is now available. This includes a custom login page, custom URL, customized initial e-mail and customized accolades.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/custom-accoung-management700x0.png" alt="LearnCore Branding Options" /> 
All custom package items can be configured under “Account Management” in the LearnCore admin panel.
To learn more about what LearnCore can offer your organization in terms of training and learning, <a href="http://learncore.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>.
Additionally, you can explore further key information about LearnCore via our CMS Directory.

LearnCore Release Survey & Branding Updates

mike-johnston

2014 was not just another year for <a href="https://www.prestashop.com/" target="_blank">Prestashop</a>.
The eCommerce giant, which powers over 230,000 websites, took leaps towards becoming one of the most powerful and accessible online store solutions in existence. And that’s no mean feat.
They did that by revamping their entire platform with Prestashop 1.6, before launching Prestashop Cloud, a totally free and cloud-based eCommerce solution.
Yes, you did read that correctly.
The launch of Prestashop Cloud was an exciting move by Prestashop at time time, it still is today, and it probably always will be. That’s why I’ll be focusing on it with this review.
Here’s a video to kick things off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KZLXokFnl8
<h2>Prestashop Cloud &amp; Prestashop Download: The Difference</h2>
So what’s the difference between Prestashop Download and Prestashop Cloud?
Well, not a lot, really. That’s the beauty of it.
Prestashop Cloud gives you a quick, automatic installation, followed by totally free cloud hosting.
The only drawback is that Prestashop Cloud users don’t have access to the source code or database, whereas Prestashop Download users do.
Other than that, it’s the exact same product — both of which are free.
<h2>How Can PrestaShop Cloud Be Free?</h2>
It’s hard to imagine such a comprehensive and cloud hosted platform being completely free, but Prestashop cloud really is just that. Free.
I’ll let PrestaShop themselves explain how that’s possible:
“PrestaShop Cloud and PrestaShop Download are entirely free and ready to support your ecommerce activities.
PrestaShop earns money through modules-specific features-you can add to your store using our marketplace, PrestaShop Addons (it's like the Apple Store for iPhone or the Play Store for Android).”
<h2>Initial Thoughts</h2>
If you are familiar with my reviews, you’ll know that I start my journey as any customer or client would, which is with the vendor’s website.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-181079x0.png" />
Prestashop’s website (which was revamped along with the launch of Prestashop Cloud) is sleek and inviting.
The features of the platform are well laid out and simply explained, and that’s accompanied by a live demo of the product, which anybody can quickly get into.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-191079x0.png" />
It’s a shame more products don’t offer such accessible live demos, as they do a great job of showing potential users the interface first hand.
<h2>Getting Started</h2>
It all starts with clicking “Cloud” on the Prestashop homepage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-20.png" />
You can then type in your store’s name, followed by your email address.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1.png" />
After that, you can configure your store’s URL (which, by default, is your store name), along with your location and why you’re using Prestashop. This includes “I am just trying Prestashop” and “I have a physical store”.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2.png" />
The final step asks you for your first and last name, as well as a password.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-21.png" />
Now, the signup process isn’t long or difficult. But it definitely could be made shorter and simpler.
I don’t see why the user needs to specify what kind of customer they are using Prestashop. I also think that their location and full name could be configured later on within the Prestashop dashboard.
An email, store name and password should suffice at this stage.
<h3>Prestashop Cloud Dashboard</h3>
Once you get past signup, you’ll be presented with your admin dashboard. Here, you can see all of the stores you have control of, along with a bunch of administrative options.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3.png" />
The dashboard enables you to configure the more technical stuff, like your domain name, password, and other settings.
You can also access help and support from here, but I’ll be touching on that later on in this review. To get access to your store, you just have to click “Manage My Store”.
<h3>Back Office</h3>
Prestashop's admin panel for each store is also known as the back office. Clicking “Manage My Store” will take you there.
However, I was surprised to see that I needed to log in again, despite just clicking a link from my Prestashop dashboard.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-5835x0.png" />
But as for the back office itself, it’s pretty damn sleek.
As I mentioned in my hands-on preview with PrestaShop 1.6, it's a colossal improvement on the previous PrestaShop admin panel.
It isn't text heavy, nor does it suffer from crammed menus and pages. Instead, it’s spacious and modern.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-221079x0.png" />
The top menu, which provides access to latest orders, registrations, messages, achievements, and more, is very neat and unintrusive, even with its drop-down menus. The left-hand sidebar contains the bulk of available features and functions, all of which are listed below a handy search bar.
The biggest attraction though, is the array of stats and facts presented on the main page of the dashboard.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-23.png" />
You can monitor the amount of visitors currently online, active shopping carts, order totals, net profit, and much more. It’s a thoroughly impressive hub of statistics, all of which are relevant.
I covered Prestashop’s love affair with statistics recently, if you would like to know more.
<h3>The Tour</h3>
Prestashop Cloud gives users a quick, yet very useful guided tour to get their stores up and running.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-241079x0.png" />
It’s the first thing you see when logging into your back office, until you complete it. (Although there really should be a way to close it without having to actually use it first).
The four steps of the tour are; “Customize Your Shop”, “Add Products”, “Configure Payments” and “Choose Your Shipping Options”.
<h3>Customize Your Shop</h3>
The first step takes you to a page where you can adjust some of the default theme’s settings, including your logo, invoice logo, website icons and so on.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-6.png" />
Clicking “Theme Configurator” will present you with a range of theme options (which will change depending on which theme you’re using).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-7.png" />
Such options include the appearance of social media icons, banners, logos and so forth.
Clicking “Advanced Settings” will enable you to define things like the number of products displayed per page, column positions and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-171079x0.png" />
<h3>Adding Products</h3>
The process behind adding a product is perhaps the most important element of each eCommerce platform.
Prestashop lets you get to uploading quickly, by clicking the “Quick Access” button on the top menu, followed by “New Product”.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-9.png" />
The page for adding products is initially quite simple, letting you configure a name, condition, description, and more. You can also specify whether the product is physical, virtual or a pack of products.
However, Prestashop Cloud also lets you get technical and very, very detailed. If you want to.
The list of options down the left include pages dealing with SEO, images, product features, attachments, and much more.
<h3>Configure Payments</h3>
Configuring payment gateways is relatively easy.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-111079x0.png" />
The default options are bank wire and payment by check, although PrestaShop Cloud has a nice variety of free options in the form of modules.
PayPal, Stripe &amp; Skrill are amongst the popular names. Further options like PayPal Pro are available, but only at a price.
<h3>Shipping &amp; Taxing</h3>
When it comes to shipping options, PrestaShop does a solid job of allowing you to set up different carriers as you would expect. Additional options include the ability to set handling charges, default carriers and so on.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-131079x0.png" />
If you wish, you can also configure at what order value free shipping begins at.
Things get a little confusing when it comes to taxing though. To set up taxes for different locations, you need to head over to “Localization”, and then “Taxes” on the sidebar.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tax_700x0.png" />
Firstly, you can simply add the name of the tax, before giving it a percentage value.
However, to actually configure tax rules for these same taxes, you'll need to navigate to another page called “Tax Rules”, where you may then select your existing taxes, before assigning things like location, zip/postal code range, etc.
I don’t see why these options can’t be presented on the same page.
<h3>Front Office</h3>
The front office of Prestashop Cloud lets you see your store as though you are a visitor. But there are also some further settings which you can access by clicking on the gears button located on the left.
Here, you can adjust the colours of your theme, and also the fonts used across the store.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/frontoff2_700x0.jpg" />
I personally expect there to be some further settings here, though. Setting colours and fonts is great, but things like logos, favicons and so forth should also be present on the same menu.
Also, the “Reset” and “Save” buttons at the bottom of the menu can only be seen once you close either the theme colour or font sections, which are open by default. This issue is compounded by the fact that there is no scrolling feature on the menu.
For me, Prestashop could go a few steps further with their front office feature. It’s a little light when it comes to functionality beyond simply previewing your store.
<h2>Apps &amp; Extras</h2>
Prestashop Cloud users get the exact same access to apps as Prestashop Download users.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-29.png" />
As previously mentioned, Prestashop’s primary income stream runs straight through their app and theme marketplace. It’s no surprise then, that the marketplace is filled with a wide range of extensions to help with everything from marketing to website design.
Over 2,000 templates are hosted there, some of which are made by Prestashop, while the rest are from partners and the community.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-30.png" />
PrestaShop Module Marketplace also hosts hundreds upon hundreds of modules to browse through, many of which are free of charge, to be fair.
However, many modules aren’t free. Many are quite expensive, actually.
In fact, some modules can be as expensive as $260, while the most expensive template on offer comes to a sum of $245.
Although in fairness, the templates demanding such fees are generally extremely well crafted. The same can’t always be said for the free templates, but that’s hardly surprising.
One thing's for sure though, Prestashop offers a great deal of flexibility and extensibility with an array of modules and templates.
<h3>Stats &amp; Real Time Profit Margins</h3>
The “Stats” page found on the left hand sidebar offers metrics for things like; best product categories, best customers, best sellers, search engine keywords, visitors, best vouchers and many more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/stats.png" />
PrestaShop really flexes it's statistical muscles here, giving you a huge amount to monitor. Yet, the simple graphs and lists associated with each parameter makes that monitoring a piece of cake.
Another unique Prestashop feature comes in the form of “Real Time Net Profit Margin”, which enables you to keep track of your takings in real time.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/9.png" />
<h3>Intelligent Merchant KPIs &amp; Forecasts</h3>
Two highly interesting Prestashop Cloud features worth mentioning, are intelligent merchant KPIs and forecasting.
Firstly, remember all of those stats found on the Prestashop Cloud dashboard? Well, forecasts can be found alongside those.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-16.png" />
As the name suggests, the feature literally forecasts your store’s sales based on recent activity and sales records. It’s a supremely useful and downright interesting tool.
The graph forecasts traffic, conversions, average shopping cart values, and sales.
As for intelligent KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), they are non-obtrusive metrics which appear on numerous pages within the back office.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/7_700x0.png" />
They offer up statistics which are relevant to the page you’re viewing.
For example, the Intelligent Merchant KPIs found on the “Orders” page display conversion rates, average order values and net profit per visit over the last 30 days, along with abandoned carts per day.
In the grand scheme of things, this feature is but a small touch. But those small touches across the Prestashop back office definitely add up.
<h2>Getting Help</h2>
You might think that a free and cloud hosted solution would need to scale back it certain areas, but Prestashop continues to impress when it comes to support.
This is mainly due to the awesome Prestashop community, which is arguably the backbone of the support system as well as the platform itself. <a href="/a-closer-look-at-prestashops-global-community/" target="_blank">You can read more about Prestashop’s community right here</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-311079x0.png" />
Official support options include a helpline which is open during business hours only, along with a standard contact form. It should also be noted however, that there is a large quantity of documentation available from the PrestaShop website, which provides help and support concerning the platform's different features and functions.
Despite this, I felt that the most useful support feature was located within the dashboard itself. A “Help” button is located in the top-right corner of every page on the back office.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/help_700x0.png" />
When clicked, the Help button brings up a window with information relevant to the page you happen to be viewing. For example, if you hit Help on the Statistics page, you will be presented with a window detailing all the workings of the Statistics page.
I found this little feature to be extremely useful.
Finally, it's worth noting that Prestashop Cloud users are given 10 free support tickets to get them started.
<h2>The Verdict</h2>
PrestaShop is a very sleek and very detailed platform, which offers a heavy dose of statistical data for merchants to study and work with.
All the core functions needed for an ecommerce solution are present, and in good working order. Meanwhile, additional features like Intelligent Merchant KPIs and Forecasted Data add further quality.
In fact, those graphs and counters all work in tandem to make PrestaShop a seriously powerful ecommerce analytics engine, on top of being a well oiled ecommerce solution.
Also, I previously mentioned the “small touches” dotted around Prestashop’s back office. These include the intelligent merchant KPIs, module suggestions, help buttons, stats and more.
For me, these small, individual touches come together to give Prestashop Cloud an edge. It feels like the platform is constantly speaking to you, and that’s pretty damn awesome.
And finally, Prestashop’s bubbling community and expansive module and theme marketplace help to round off the product quite nicely indeed.
<h3>Pros</h3>
<ul>
<li>Prestashop Cloud is totally free and cloud-hosted, and that’s nothing short of epic.</li>
<li>The dashboard is sleek, modern and easy to use.</li>
<li>Stats and helpful facts are everywhere, and yet are not overwhelming.</li>
<li>Product creation can be quick and easy, but the options to set up more complex products are all there too. </li>
<li>Huge amount of modules and templates, many of which have been developed by PrestaShop and certified partners. </li>
<li>Templates are generally of a very high standard, while various front end features make shopping easy.</li>
<li>Unique features like Intelligent Merchant KPIs and Forecasting adds tremendously to PrestaShop's statistical prowess.</li>
<li>Getting support is relatively easy</li>
<li>Prestashop has a global community which is as helpful as it is massive.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cons</h3>
<ul>
<li>No access to the source code or database for Prestashop Cloud users.</li>
<li>Although many templates are of a good standard, the pricing system concerning community built and premium themes in particular, are in need of review. </li>
<li>Module &amp; template prices can add up quite easily if you're looking for a truly professional set up. Not a great amount of built-in marketing options.</li>
<li>Minor menu display issue in Prestashop Cloud’s front office.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Final Remarks</h2>
In case I haven’t spoken about it enough during the course of this review, Prestashop Cloud being totally free is seriously epic.
It’s the kind of thing that friends and family won’t believe straight away. “There’s got to be a catch”, they might claim. But there isn’t.
Sure, the Prestashop Addons marketplace is where you’ll likely spend a few bucks, but there’s no necessity on that front at all. Plus, the marketplace offers its fair share of free content, too.
The platform itself is stellar. There’s no denying that Prestashop is now one of the world’s best eCommerce solutions, as it combines simplicity with optional complexity like very few other platforms can.
Prestashop has come a long way, and thanks to its community, open-source nature and cloud offerings, it’s here to stay.
To conclude, it’s safe to say that there is simply no other software available that’s as good as <a href="https://www.prestashop.com/" target="_blank">Prestashop</a> which also offers a free, cloud-hosted route into the world of eCommerce.

PrestaShop Cloud Review

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/work-1515801_1280-1-e1470658642294.jpg" alt="work-1515801_1280" /> Business owners are well aware that increasing staff equals increasing expenses (and, often, an increase in headaches!). But a DMS – a Document Management System – can be a worthy alternative.
A DMS allows for a range of techniques that grow sales without incurring additional costs to your business. Some of these strategies vary based on industry, but there are things you can do no matter what type of business you’re in that can boost your sales without requiring additional employees.
Here are three techniques to consider:
<h2>1. Increase Customer Satisfaction</h2>
In this age social media, never has it been more important to keep your customers happy. If someone loves the service they received while interacting with your company, you may get lucky and get a rave review on Twitter, Facebook, or Yelp.
However, if they have a bad experience, chances are much higher they’ll post all about it online. Focusing on customer experience is a very effective way of increasing sales. If your customers (or prospective customers) have a better experience with your company than with that of your competition, your sales opportunities expand without increasing staff.
Research states that the key drivers of customer satisfaction have to do more with customer experience than cost. Price falls lower on your customer’s list, somewhere between #4-#6 in priority. And, if your happy customers tell other prospective customers, they’ll do the selling for you with their valuable referrals, and referrals are the best kind of lead to close.
Ensure your business is employing technology and business process solutions that allow your employees to provide quality care to your customers. Choose systems that allow speedy turn-around times when responding to customers. The easier it is for your team to take care of the customer, the better they will be at it.
<h2>2. Increase Operational Efficiency</h2>
If your employees are spending large chunks of their time doing non-billable tasks, it’s eating into your bottom line. Studies indicate that office workers spend 5-15% of their time reading information, but up to 50% (yes, that’s 50%) of their time looking for it. And that’s just one way your employees’ valuable time is being underutilized. There are many ways to become more operationally efficient, which means more customers are serviced with the same number of headcount.
Effective employee training is an important piece of office efficiency. Ensuring everyone knows how to do their job well and is familiar with all procedures and processes makes employees not only more effective, but is also proven to help boost office morale.
And, if your office is running smoothly, you’ll feel at ease dedicating a percentage of time to continual employee education, which delivers a myriad of positive results. With the right technology, you can easily provide excellent training materials in easy-to-access, user-friendly online repositories. This makes training affordable and accessible to employees at all levels.
It’s also important to define and understand current work processes. The better your workflow is defined, the more efficient it will be. For example, do you have a lot of confidential documents? Is compliance an issue? How are your invoices tracked? Who needs access to documentation? Where is financial information kept? Who owns which step of each workflow? How do you manage office accountability? The proper technology can greatly simplify these processes and manage workflow. Make sure you don’t let technology dictate workflows and office processes; rather, know what your business needs to stay cutting-edge sharp, and build or buy your technologies to fit.
Encourage your team to continually evaluate what is working and not working. Learn from mistakes and failures, give and receive feedback, and then adjust. Keeping your team (and their processes) from becoming ‘stale’ is key to being an efficient office, and being an efficient office allows more flexibility for growth that results from smart evaluation.
<h2>3. Reduce Other Office Costs</h2>
It’s simpler than you might think to reduce costs typically associated with running a business. Office space is valuable real estate. How much of it is currently being used by filing cabinets and other paper-heavy materials? When was the last time you tallied your mailing costs, or how much you really spend on paper supplies and the true cost of printing? These expenses are easier to track than the vast amount of time your labor force spends doing paper-heavy tasks that generate no revenue.
Paper – and all the expenses associated with it – is pricey. Storing documents in paper forms costs businesses worldwide roughly $30 billion a year.  According to research by efilecabinet.com, a business with 50 employees spends an average of $612,620 per year just to house paper.
Again, technology plays a vital roll in the solution. Choose solutions that offer both security and mobility while freeing valuable employee time for revenue-generating activities. Not only will it save your business money, it will make for a much happier workforce.
<h2>The Right DMS Goes a Long Way</h2>
The right Document Management Solution addresses each of the three sales growth tactics detailed above.
It allows businesses to serve customers with improved quality and speed, increases operational efficiencies in almost every area while maintaining security and compliance, and eliminates all costs associated with paper.
DMS is vital to boosting sales without having to increase your headcount, and you may just be surprised by all the additional benefits the right solution provides your business.
<hr />
This post is <a href="/advertising/">sponsored</a> by eFileCabinet. Find out more at <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/">efilecabinet.com</a>.

3 Ways to Increase Sales With a DMS (Without Hiring More Staff)

<img alt="Squarespace Plugins" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-9.png" />
Although I'm a big fan of <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/">Squarespace</a>, it's no secret that there's a frustrating shortage of Squarespace plugins. However, that might be about to change.
If you aren't already familiar with it, Squarespace is a popular website builder with a focus on elegant website design. It was originally geared towards photographers, although it now caters to many other industries.
As far as customization is concerned, Squarespace users have traditionally been confined to the native website builder and whatever code they could muster up (Squarespace allows you to insert custom code).
Squarespace Plugins on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen – until now.
<h2>Squarespace Plugins: They Exist</h2>
<img alt="Square Plugins Squarespace Plugins" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-8.png" />
I recently came across <a href="http://squareplugins.com/">Square Plugins</a>, a website dedicated to producing Squarespace Plugins.
They have over 200 Squarespace plugins to date, including plugins that deal with:
<ul>
<li>Galleries &amp; slideshows</li>
<li>Video backgrounds</li>
<li>Accordions</li>
<li>Buttons</li>
<li>Social icons</li>
<li>Navigation styles</li>
</ul>
They even offer a handful of <a href="http://squareplugins.com/freebies">freebies</a> to help bolster your Squarespace website. Not too shabby.
I had a short chat with Tom Bull, the Founder of Square Plugins, about how his project came about:
<blockquote>
We've been building websites on Squarespace for years now, and have become increasingly aware of the platform's limitations as well as its benefits. Building a basic, beautiful site is wonderfully easy with Squarespace, but integrating additional features or designs that are not included in the platform's offering is very challenging.
Just over a year ago we launched an online plugin store with over 200 coded plugins that Squarespace users can add to their site's with ease. Our vision is to help ambitious Squarespace users take their websites to the next level, both in individuality and ‘wow' factor.
Our code is now live on over 8,000 Squarespace websites, and we're adding to our range of plugins every week.
</blockquote>
To add a plugin to your Squarespace website, Square Plugins send you the code, along with detailed instructions on how to add it from your Squarespace admin panel.
The prices start from $6, which isn't too bad, although some of their better plugins (like the plugin which allows for video backgrounds) cost as much as $59 – which isn't very reasonable.
<h2>The Need For Official Squarespace Plugins</h2>
Don't get me wrong, I'm thoroughly impressed by Square Plugins – but I'd like to see Squarespace dishing out their own plugins, too.
A flourishing third-party plugin market is a good thing (just look at how well the WordPress community handles its own plugin needs), but not all Squarespace users will want to wander outside the safety of the official Squarespace website.
Plus, the need to manually insert code into your Squarespace website isn't ideal. In fact, the need to handle code will only alienate novice webmasters – a key demographic within the Squarespace community.
This prolonged alienation from plugins leads to a problem which I feel is growing within the website builder market as a whole:
If you take a sample of websites built by Squarespace, you'll see that they end up delivering minimal functionality with similar design elements, making them look and feel very similar (particularly if they use the same templates). Squarespace plugins by Squarespace, would change that.
I will refer once again to WordPress to illustrate my point here. The <a href="https://jetpack.com/features/">WordPress Jetpack plugin</a> was developed by Automattic – the company behind WordPress – as a free all-in-one solution to boost functionality, visibility, and security for WordPress.org websites.
It provides features like automatic social sharing, website speed tweaks, image galleries, related content widgets, and much more.
I'd personally love to see a Squarespace equivalent to what Automattic have produced for WordPress (Squarespace Jetpack, anyone?). That, followed by a steady release of additional plugins, would open up a whole new world of possibilities for the Squarespace community.
For now though, it's good to see third-parties like Square Plugins stepping up the the plate.

How to Get Squarespace Plugins

A new version of the popular open source CMS, Typo3 has been announced. Typo3 6.2 is the latest long term support release of the popular CMS from the Typo3 Association.  This means that TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS will receive at least three years of support from the development team behind the open-source software.
The newly developed Install Tool with its practical wizard makes it very easy to upgrade from the still widely used 4.5 LTS version. Integrators can use a compatibility check to test existing installations for upgradability, identify possible challenges, and immediately resolve general problems. Backward compatibility facilitates the smooth migration of 4.5 LTS extensions, which need little, if any, adapting for 6.2 LTS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typo3_logo_safearea.png" />
<h2>New functions</h2>
The solution contains numerous new functions for optimized use: the file abstraction layer serves as an interface for the TYPO3 system and extensions to allow uniform treatment of files wherever they are stored, whether locally or in the cloud. In addition, a drag-and-drop upload function makes it easier to upload to the file repository and to link files to content elements.
With the new Distributions concept, the core application is delivered as an “empty” installation, so users can subsequently install configured distributions via the management module. The distribution management functionality enables third-party developers, agencies, and hosts to create and realize their own distributions.
The new version provides optimum support for modern web design, including full HTML5 support and responsive image rendering.
Security is a top priority for TYPO3, and the security team had a big hand in shaping the new release: the formerly optional salted passwords extension is now pre-installed in order to safeguard the passwords of back-end users and the Install Tool. In addition, there are comprehensive mechanisms to guard against cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
The new package manager ensures the interoperability of TYPO3 CMS with Composer-based PHP libraries and TYPO3 flow packages. To this end, it implements PSR-0 autoloading and supports vendor namespaces. Other new features include a core updater in the Install Tool, a PSR-3-compatible logger, standardized back-end styles, and a style-guide extension.
Further information on TYPO3 is available at typo3.org; for more on TYPO3 CMS, visit <a href="http://typo3.org/about/typo3-cms/" target="_blank">http://typo3.org/about/typo3-cms/</a>

New Typo3 6.2 Release Introduces New Install Tool with Easy Upgrade Capabilities

<a href="http://www.useremarkable.com/" target="_blank"> Remarkable</a> is a platform that's all about where content management is going, not where it has been.
Designed from the ground up for modern mobile and web app content management, Remarkable is completely scalable and ready for the a world of rapidly changing content delivery channels and all its constantly emerging innovations.
In other words, Remarkable is moving with the times, and was built with future-proofing in mind.
<h2>Not Your Average CMS</h2>
According to Remarkable, their platform isn't actually a content management system:
<blockquote>“Remarkable is not a ‘CMS’. We like to call it the world’s first ‘AXM’ system– that’s App Experience Management.”</blockquote>
Instead of simply managing content, Remarkable enables you to build and customize content across mobile and web apps in a way which suits the end user. For example, content is managed via modules or blocks, allowing you to build pages specifically for different devices.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/remarkable4700x0.jpg" alt="Remarkable Layout Bocks" /> 
This approach re-invents the traditional “page-based” content paradigm by instead providing a modular platform for delivering live app content which is customised for a range of mediums including wearable devices, Smart TVs, and beyond.
Remarkable's native SDKs for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Javascript make it a breeze to integrate into any section of a new or existing mobile or web app.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/feature-integration450x0.png" alt="Remarkable Integration" /> 
Furthermore, Remarkable empowers content owners to replenish their native mobile and web apps with fresh content at any time. As a result, there is no need for new app builds, submissions, or lengthy App Store approvals.
<h2>Easy to Use, Simple to Monitor</h2>
Along with module based content creation and delivery, Remarkable enables non-technical users to preview their changes and updates as they happen using an advanced multi-device previewing system. This ensures that each app update is tailored perfectly for every device before going live.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/feature-preview450x0.png" alt="Remarkable Previews" /> 
Analytics features are also built into Remarkable. With an advanced analytics engine and dashboard, you can keep up with up-to-the minute stats and performance figures on every piece of content on every page of your app.
Remarkable is also cloud-hosted, meaning that there is nothing to install, manage or setup – and so you can access your dashboard from any device, where ever you may be.
To find out more about Remarkable, visit their <a href="http://www.useremarkable.com/" target="_blank">official website</a>.
Additionally, you can explore more of Remarkable via our CMS Directory.

Remarkable: Re-writing the Content Management Experience

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shopgate.png" alt="shopgate logo" /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.shopgate.com/">Shopgate</a> has just rolled out marketing and design services to compliment their mobile commerce platform, which integrates with major eCommerce platforms like Shopify and <a href="/products/bigcommerce">Bigcommerce</a>.The addition of marketing services is expected to give retailers a lift in both app downloads and customer engagement, continuing Shopgate’s dedication to driving mobile revenue for their customers.Shopgate’s SaaS platform enables online retailers to create, maintain, and optimize native apps and mobile websites for the iPhone, iPad, Android smartphones, and tabletsPreviously, Shopgate was offering online retailers the technology needed to build and maintain mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Android smartphones and tablets. But with this new suite of marketing features, Shopgate retailers now have the option to build and execute sophisticated marketing campaigns that maximize reach and improve key metrics like app downloads and sales conversions.Here's how it all works.<h2>Fully-fledged Mobile Marketing</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/section1_imagery-768x512.jpg" alt="Shopgate marketing" />Here's a breakdown of what mCommerce marketing includes:<ul><li>Quarterly marketing strategy review</li><li>App store optimization (ASO)</li><li>Push notification campaigns</li><li>Targeted app downloads</li><li>Design packages</li></ul>Shopgate has announced different packages which are designed to accommodate every size retailer from small to mid-size – particularly those with no in-house marketing resources at their disposal. They also cater to larger enterprise-scale retailers with what it calls its “High Volume” package.<h2>Marrying Mobile eCommerce &amp; Mobile Marketing</h2>Casey Gannon, VP of Marketing at Shopgate. thinks that marketing was the perfect match for Shopgate's existing eCommerce platform:<blockquote>“Shopgate Marketing Services represents our effort to marry best-in-class mCommerce technology with proven marketing strategies to help our customers gain a competitive advantage over other online retailers.Help with marketing has been a popular request from customers for some time and we are finally ready to bring out a range of helpful marketing tactics and strategies to a large audience. Our mCommerce technology continues to be our primary source of revenue but we expect as much as 25% of current and new customers to utilize our services by the start of 2017.”</blockquote>For more information about Shopgate and its services, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.shopgate.com/en/services?utm_campaign=Services&amp;utm_source=PR">visit their website</a>. The official press release  can be <a target="_blank" href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160803005807/en/Shopgate-Adds-App-Marketing-Services-mCommerce-Offering">found here</a>.

Shopgate Adds Marketing Features to its Mobile eCommerce Solution

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

#ffffff

No. It's not just a "figma" of your imagination. 
<a href="https://www.figma.com/blog/a-new-collaboration-with-adobe/" target="_blank">Adobe has agreed to spend $20 billion</a> – that's billion, with a "b" – to buy <a href="https://www.figma.com/" target="_blank">Figma</a>, the popular web-based collaboration and UI design platform. 
We'll give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the ground. 
Adobe said it expects the transaction to close sometime in 2023. That said, the deal has not yet been approved by Figma stockholders and must proceed through customary closing. The dollars are a mix: about half the total will be paid in Adobe stock, with the balance paid in cash. 
If you're not familiar with Figma, you will be now – but it's worth noting how awesome a platform it really is. It offers a deep set of collaboration options for joint software development, as well as its popular FigJam collaborative whiteboarding environment. If you haven't used that wipeboarding feature before, we highly recommend it. 
By now, we’re accustomed to Adobe spending big bucks to expand its copious monolith. These tasty acquisitions have bolstered its stronghold on the digital experience category – and while there may not be an Iron Throne to claim, it has certainly earned the crown as the King of the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3995917" target="_blank">Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXPs</a>.
But forget all that. Forget the fact that <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3673934/adobes-20b-figma-acquisition-highlights-web-based-collaboration-trends.html#:~:text=The%20%2420%20billion%20figure%20is,a%20dedicated%20following%20among%20developers." target="_blank">Figma was valued at around $10 billion</a> at its last funding round in 2021 (meaning this purchase doubled the bounty). And let's not overlook that the market has been in a bout of turmoil lately, especially for tech stocks.
No – what's been really interesting is how this acquisition triggered such an emotional response from the market. Despite Adobe's enthusiasm about the deal, the Figma fanbase seemed a little less enthusiastic…
<img style="max-width:800px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/09/luke-skywalker-meme-no.jpg" alt="Luke Skywalker meme" />
And just like that, the Empire Strikes Back.
<h2>Why Figma? And why the pushback from fans?</h2>
The Figma acquisition speaks volumes about the growth of web collaboration software and the central role of design. But for its users, Figma represented everything Adobe wasn’t. In fact, Figma was a sort of the anti-Adobe. 
The fanbase has reason to be concerned: Adobe could bring Figma aboard the mothership under its expensive subscription model. There could be some poor integration or uncomfortable bloat. Even worse, it could become the kind of bolted-on utility that's prone to crashing – kind of like the Millennium Falcon with a broken hyperdrive.
Or, Adobe could do wonders with this amazing platform, building deeper functionality that expands the frontier for web-based collaboration within its toolsets. Figma's flexibility could be a game changer for the company and removes one of its digital experience rivals from the chessboard. 
One thing both companies have in common is the commitment to design. Founded by Dylan Field in 2016, Figma has held to the mantra that design should be collaborative, web-based, and real-time – with the mission to “open up” and move from the solitary design process. Figma has crystallized the concepts of sharing ideas and working collaboratively, something that Adobe’s UI design products like Photoshop have struggled to embrace. 
As for the fans, that's a product of Figma's heavy emphasis on community, which they have nurtured and grown over the years. This was likely a big driver of <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/figma/company_financials" target="_blank">Figma’s unicorn valuation</a>, which skyrocketed from <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-24/software-design-startup-figma-is-now-worth-10-billion" target="_blank">$2 billion to $10 billion</a> in just a year. With more than 4 million users, including giants such as Microsoft, Slack, Google, Dropbox, and Twitter, the company has achieved the kind of presence and loyalty that are the envy of the tech world.
 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/09/nothing-great-is-made-alone.jpg" alt="Figma - Nothing Great is Made Alone" />
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Adobe XD vs. Figma</h2>
So let's get down to brass tacks: Adobe XD and Figma are currently the most popular design tools on the market, both with similar features. For the past 5 years, Figma has been the biggest rival and competitor to Adobe XD, but Figma has managed to with the hearts of the design community. 
Figma believes the acquisition will help the Figma platform benefit from Adobe’s technology, expertise, and resources in the creative space. Figma has big ambitions for its products, with plans to improve its <a href="https://www.figma.com/design/" target="_blank">Figma Design</a>, <a href="https://www.figma.com/figjam/" target="_blank">FigJam</a>, and the <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/" target="_blank">Figma community</a> platforms while expanding into new areas.
“We will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D, and font technology to the Figma platform," said <a href="https://twitter.com/zoink" target="_blank">Dylan Field</a>, Co-founder &amp; CEO of Figma. "Additionally, we will have the opportunity to reimagine what the best creative tools could look like within the Figma technology stack.”
Top-down leadership is key in these kinds of earth-shattering transitions. Taking designers’ concerns into account, Field reassured the Figma community that he will remain CEO and that Figma will keep operating autonomously – without compromising its culture, the way it runs its business, and (perhaps most importantly) its pricing. 
<h2>Growth by Acquisition</h2>
The news from Adobe is huge – but maybe not that surprising. Adobe has been driving growth by investing in tools and products to execute complex workflows across teams. As part of this evolution, it <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2020/Adobe-to-Acquire-Workfront/default.aspx" target="_blank">acquired Workflow</a> – a leading work management platform for marketers – for $1.50 billion in 2020. Last year, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-acquires-video-collaboration-platform-frame-io/" target="_blank">Adobe also acquired Frame.io</a>, an industry-leading collaboration platform, for $1.275 billion. 
In its <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2022/Adobe-to-Acquire-Figma/default.aspx" target="_blank">press release</a>, Adobe stated that Figma’s web-based, multi-player capabilities will accelerate the delivery of Adobe’s Creative Cloud technologies on the web, making the creative process more productive and accessible to more people.
With this acquisition, Adobe once more solidified its position in the creative industry. With responsive design taking over about a decade ago, other apps such as <a href="https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle/" target="_blank">Omnigraffle</a> and later <a href="https://www.sketch.com/" target="_blank">Sketch App</a> were born – and embraced by designers by offering a better solution for creating wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes suited for the responsive web. This was a huge departure from Photoshop and Illustrator and their respectively rigid structures. 
Figma is not alone in the web-based collaboration and UI design space. Platforms like <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uxpin-merge-review-sync-react-components-with-prototypes/">UXPin</a>, another subscription-based wireframing and prototyping tool, are effectively <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/uxpin-merge-review-sync-react-components-with-prototypes/" target="_blank">bridging the gap between designers and developers</a>. 
As Figma zeroes in on $400 million in revenues at the end of 2022, it's safe to say that there's ample potential in this growing market space – and we'll have to see how Adobe's mindboggling acquisition brings imagination to life. 
<h2>About Figma</h2>
Figma is the open design company founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace. With Figma’s cloud-based screen design tool, teams achieve a shared understanding around design without worrying about syncing, exporting, or installing software. Anyone involved in the product development process can always share up-to-date files with a link. That makes it easy to collaborate on the latest designs and prototypes and see their code attributes. Figma has simplified collaboration across the entire design process for thousands of companies like Microsoft, Slack, and Uber and millions of users, including designers, developers, product managers, marketers, and others.

Shock and Awe: Adobe to Acquire UI Design Platform Figma for $20 Billion

paris-tuzun

Squarespace, one of the world's most widely used and respected website builders chosen for coverage over at <a href="https://www.websitebuilderscritic.com/" target="_blank">Website Builders Critic</a>, has released a small yet notable update.
The newest Squarespace feature allows users to select their own design, layout, and imagery for their password-protected site or pages.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace-lock-screen-021079x0.png" />
<h2>Protect Client Areas, Pages &amp; Entire Websites Your Way</h2>
Squarespace claims that these new customized lock screens can serve as a client area for photographers, who can inform clients that their photos are now ready for viewing behind a password-protected page.
Customizable lock screens can also be used to inform visitors that a website is under construction, or that changes are coming soon. Finally, it can also make visitors aware that they are entering a secure area.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/squarespace-lock-screen-051079x0.png" />
The new lock screen feature includes six different layout options, each of which can be further customized in the Squarespace Style Editor.
Users can also upload their own images for their lock screens, with Squarespace recommending a minimum image width of 1500px.
To find out more about Squarespace's new lock screens, check out their <a href="http://blog.squarespace.com/blog/introducing-customizable-lockscreens" target="_blank">official blog announcement</a>.
Otherwise, be sure to explore more of <a href="/products/squarespace/" target="_blank">Squarespace via our CMS Directory</a>. Otherwise, you can <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/" target="_blank">start your Squarespace website today</a>.

Squarespace Reveals Customizable Lock Screens

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typing-690856_1280-e1470054607247.jpg" alt="typing-690856_1280" />
Think good customer service is still as simple as being friendly and helping customers? Think again.
Technology has played a pivotal role in the way businesses operate and that includes how they handle customer service. It has given customers the ability to be connected all day, every day, and have access to platforms that they are able to use to talk about your company – both the good and bad. Because of this, businesses are adapting to the changing customer needs so they don’t put their reputation and quality of service at risk.
A company’s website needs to make a great impression. Here's why:
It’s typically the first place a potential customer goes to when they want to learn more about the company. A majority of information about the company (or at least information that answers the most frequently asked questions) should be visible. 
This way, customers are able to answer their own questions without having to create multiple requests. Some of the things that are commonly provided include:
<ul>
<li>Forum/comment section</li>
<li>Contact information</li>
<li>Documents</li>
<li>Online chat</li>
</ul>
<h2>A CMS Only Takes Care of Content</h2>
Content Management Systems (CMS) supports the creation of digital content under a common user interface, which is typically the first place that customers will go to for information about the business, such as your website. Your CMS gives your customers access to information, get help, and stay connected. But with all this, a CMS comes with challenges.
It’s no longer enough to provide customer support within “business hours” only; you need to be there for your customers right when they need you. 
Businesses who have troubleshooting guides or FAQ pages on their websites are taking the first steps to empowering their customers to seek out information themselves. 
Self-service allows customers to solve their own questions without having to wait for a customer service representative to respond. But when customers can’t find the information they need, they will become frustrated. 
These expectations are driving many companies to leverage technology in new ways to meet these rising customer demands. Unfortunately, a CMS can’t do this alone. There needs to be a more robust solution if you want to take your customer service to the next level.
So what’s an alternative way to manage all these changes to customer service, you ask?
That's simple: <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal">a customer portal solution</a>.
<h2>Great Customer Service Comes From Customer Portal Solutions</h2>
<a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2016-07-29-1024x731.jpg" alt="Magentrix Customer Communities" /></a>
With a customer portal, you are able to store all your information in a single location. Say goodbye to disorganized information, and hello to a fantastic place for self-service customer support! By providing customers with information that they can access whenever they want, you will be able to reduce the amount of support tickets coming through in addition to being there for your customers 24/7. This can be done through uploading informative documents in a documents section, setting up a Live Chat, or opening up a dialogue among the customers themselves through a forum.
Not only are you able to provide support at any time of the day, a customer portal is a secure place to connect to your customer data.  While a CMS helps you manage content, they are missing the customer data that is critical for a truly self-service environment. <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal">Customer portals</a> allow you to seamlessly synchronize with your CRM data so that customers can track and manage information about their help requests and account information.
A customer portal shifts the power to customers through collaboration and communication. Collaboration allows customers to connect from practically anywhere in the world, and this principle can and should be applied to customer service, both among departments in the business and between businesses and their customers. By encouraging <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/socialintranet">social collaboration</a> in an online community, you’re giving customers access to utilize and <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/articles/blog/Redefining-Collaboration-in-a-Digital-27-6-16">collaborate on business data that is important</a> to them.
No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important to invest in the necessary time and resources into providing the best customer service – ESPECIALLY in today’s digital world. All the interactions you have today have the potential to leave a positive (or negative) impression, which will ultimately lead to how new audiences will view you. It’s in your best interest to make that impression positive and create a mutually beneficial relationship between your business and your customers.
<a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal">Magentrix Customer Community Solution</a> enables you to introduce your customers to a full self-service experience. Help your clients get support whenever they need it, access resources at all times, and create a community where they can help and interact with each other. A seamless CRM integration allows you to share any data with your customers through the portal. 
Learn More about <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal">Magentrix Customer Communities</a>.

How to Deliver Great Customer Service With a Customer Portal Solution

This week, the Agility CMS Team began the process of pushing its brand new user-interface live.
The Beta One Release is the first iteration of a major Product Release that includes a brand new user-interface, robust workflow improvements and big performance updates.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/unnamed-1.png" />
This Release was made available to a small group of Agility CMS power users, the company’s most active development partners, to test on a sample site.
Their feedback will be gathered and used to make changes and improvements before the next iteration of the Release, which will be rolled out to a select group of customers for continued testing and feedback.
“We’re very excited to get feedback on our updated content management platform from our power users,” Jon Voigt, Agility's CEO and co-founder, said. “We began working on redesigning and rebuilding Agility CMS a year ago, so it’s great to share the hard work that the team has put in to make this Release possible.”
Agility’s CMS new user-interface and updates will make it even easier for online teams to create, manage and deliver compelling content to engage their audiences.
For developers, Agility CMS is a highly-advanced, scalable and speedy platform that removes any barriers to building and developing powerful websites.
The final Production Release will be rolled out over the course of a month later this year, to all customers and live sites.
<a name="_GoBack"></a> To learn more about Agility CMS, visit: <a href="http://agilitycms.com/">agilitycms.com</a>

Agility CMS Launches First Iteration of Major Product Release for Testing & Feedback

There is no disputing that there are tons (and I mean tons) of premium WordPress theme providers out there but for those on a budget who are looking for excellent quality themes with solid support, there simply is no better option than ElegantThemes.
These guys offer 100% access to over 70 themes all for one price, $39! This is an absolutely tremendous price and for most themes you find in theme stores such as ThemeForest, you'll pay that price for a single theme, never mind access to over 70 of them which you can use as you wish.
Here are two of their most recent themes:
<h2>Nimble</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nimble_blogpost_full-469x1024.jpg" />
<h2>Lucid</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/lucid_preview31-423x1024.jpg" />
Beautiful aren't they? Don't forget there are over 70 themes for various types of websites ranging from Business to Personal to pretty much everything.
Check them out if you want the best bang for your buck and are in the market for a solid WordPress theme. There's no point in paying hundreds of dollars for multiple themes when you can get them all for under $40.
<a href="/elegantthemes">Visit ElegantThemes now</a>.

ElegantThemes Review - Quite Possibly The Best Value for WordPress Themes

The principle of “think global, act local” has been used in a wide variety of contexts, from tackling environmental issues to managing business strategies. At its core is a simple, perhaps even algorithmic idea: that solving big problems requires an understanding of the smaller components.There’s no question that we live in a global economy – one where international companies are thinking across time zones and driving supply chains that stretch across our planet. While digital transformation has made our world more accessible, websites have struggled to provide a truly localized language experience.Translation: we want to think global, but often miss the local.That’s where Weglot comes in. The France-based translation solution is providing a dynamic alternative to the deprecated (but now resurrected) Google Translate, and elevating the role of localization. With over a hundred languages and a bevy of backend features, this easy-to-use service will have you saying “thank you” (or merci, gracias, dankie) in no time.In this review, we’ll explore Weglot, dive into its pros and cons, and touch on some of the CMS and eCommerce plugins available on the market. But let's start with some of the foundational concepts that impact website translation – and how Weglot is answering these challenges.<h3>The Value of Website Translation</h3>It goes without saying that English has become a global language for many applications, particularly in business and technology. But it’s simply not enough to have your website content available in a single language. Again, this is part of the charter to “act local” even if you’re connecting or selling on a global scale.Take eCommerce as an example. If the details for a product are in a language you don’t understand, are you more inclined to buy it… or seek out another source?The fact is, if you can’t communicate with your customers, you’ll be losing out on sales. With so many diverse languages being spoken across the globe – or even across the street – it’s clear that translation is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity.Here are a few more reasons why you should add translation to your website:<ul><li>Attract new customers: Simply put, a multilingual website can help you reach a broader audience. While most content online is written in English, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262946/share-of-the-most-common-languages-on-the-internet/">only 25% of internet users are native English speakers</a>. By adding more languages to your website, you’ll reach a larger segment of customers both in new regions and within your own. As an example, Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S. – so by going multilingual, you could expand your reach both domestically and internationally.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weglot-website-audience-stats-per-language.png" />Source: Statista<ul><li>Increase sales: As noted above, people are more likely to buy products when they’re presented in their own language. When you provide a translation for your customers, you’ll make it easier for them to search and find the products or content they’re looking for. You’ll also build trust and enhance loyalty.</li><li>Reduce bounce rates and increase conversions: According to CSA, 72.1% of users spend all their time on websites that are in their own language – and <a target="_blank" href="https://csa-research.com/More/Media/Press-Releases/ArticleID/31/Survey-of-3-000-Online-Shoppers-Across-10-Countries-Finds-that-60-Rarely-or-Never-Buy-from-English-only-Websites">60% of people never buy from English-only websites</a>. Based on these stats alone, it’s clear that your website visitors are less inclined to bounce – and more inclined to convert – if they have access to their own language.</li><li>Improve SEO: In almost every case, Search is what brings people to your website. With a multilingual SEO, your website will be indexable and optimized in multiple languages. And if your competitors aren’t offering translated content, you have even more of an advantage from a search perspective.</li></ul><h3>What about Google Translate?</h3>Historically, there have been two options for translating websites in multiple languages: build and maintain separate websites, or add a translation tool like Google Translate.While the former solution provides significant manual control over the frontend experience, it also requires more management. This might be OK if your products are markedly different depending on the region or country – or if you’re maintaining only two languages. But what about 50? And how do you track hundreds of changes across different dialects without losing control?For this reason, many companies have relied on Google Translate to provide a quick, easy, and free solution for translating content at the browser layer. While Google Translate features a wide range of language options, there’s no manual control over the translation itself. Further, the rendering on a webpage is clumsy at best, making the frontend expression less desirable.To confuse the matter, Google deprecated their Translate service in early 2019, meaning it was no longer available for new applications. With no sunset date in sight, companies were scrambling to find an alternative solution. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-translate-widget-is-free-again-for-some-websites-to-use/370104/#close">But according to Search Engine Journal</a>, Google is resuming support as of May 2020 in an effort to support the global response to COVID-19.<h3>The difference between translation and localization</h3>While translation typically refers to the automated process of converting text on a website or webpage (like Google Translate), localization is the ability to adapt your website’s content to a specific region through language, design, and even cultural elements.Localization can go much further than altering the dynamic text on your website’s frontend. In a truly localized application, the entire customer experience is geared to a user’s regional and linguistic preferences. That might include landing pages, emails, logo graphics – multiple dimensions of their journey.Obviously, automating all of these components requires varying degrees of human support. For that reason, translation serves as the bedrock, and companies can elect to further enhance their localization posture as desired. But the more localized you can get, the more relevant and compelling the experience.<h3>What is Weglot?</h3>Weglot is a platform-independent website translation tool that helps users and organizations transform their websites into multilingual experiences. Weglot finally delivers the best of both worlds, allowing you to have both manual and automatic states for your translations.Easy to use and quick to install, Weglot is designed to work with almost any kind of content management system (CMS) or website. It’s also unique in that it provides professional translation and multilingual SEO services as part of their offerings.<h3>Features</h3>Here are some of the top features you get with Weglot:<ul><li>Quick installation: Weglot is compatible with all CMS and website technologies. All you need to do is install the plugin to your website and configure it all with no code.</li><li>100+ languages: Weglot features one of the most robust libraries of language translations.</li><li>Team collaboration: Invite your team members and collaborate on translations together inside Weglot.</li><li>Context Editor: When translating a page, you need to see where the content resides and what kind of content it is (e.g. title or text). Weglot’s context editor allows you to translate inside an editor and see the website design and structure.</li><li>Automatic, manual, and human translation: In addition to rapid, automatic translation, you can edit translations manually. If you need help or additional bandwidth, you can order professional translation services and get the translated content in 48 hours.</li><li>Visitor auto-redirection: Weglot can detect a user’s language and redirect them to feature content in their language – automatically.</li><li>Localized all along the way: Weglot can translate everything from your landing page to the e-mail confirmation in your customers’ language, providing a deeper level of localization.</li><li>Dedicated customer service: Problems? Weglot offers world-class customer support via email.</li></ul><h3>Optimized SEO</h3>As we mentioned before, SEO is crucial to driving visitors to your website. With Weglot, you can optimize your SEO across your translations and improve your search performance. Here’s how:<ul><li>Create a unique URL for each version of your page. For example, with a Spanish version of your pages, you will have an “/es/” subdirectory.</li></ul><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/kjC8q74LcJtKtkzYNEqNexSnTX4xvyFW3zAXwF6yfVMQueY-be6UAYAKkTeqIgNIO1c5ZP2oT-m1aCS2BfYr0ab5RKe_nQkn4FkQIu6nBaMxvko_h3Kks1awOUcvP34ffp7u6vsPlVTShnaGqw" /><ul><li>Adding hreflangs in your source code. These tags let Google know you have different versions of the same page and favor indexing of these pages.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weglot-hreflang-attributes.png" /><ul><li>Have your content translated into the source code and not just dynamically. Weglot translates the content on the server side so your content is translated in your source code – not at the browser layer.</li><li>Detect and translate SEO tags. For example, here are two websites in English and Kazakh:</li></ul><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vkJycrQRCjUJU2z7YsR5zP6rg-jtWjiXffKj1WNc3DQXqJmogDfaSBW0b2I46ylirY1s-Iuqomv9zT6laPcskgtXGRSFRX4ENrDEmsu2aqa5vfXxWTXT1jdqByQNj1BCoxdszig4VXy1IG0K7A" /><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_BQHkMVhzi8K_SWuOXsgbDkPfm1LsUKD5c-xXZkUh6PLrkHdy_nFSnVvio2Vs3fNH0Dcr7IOtIlOqFFHtZn8nur40WqlU0_qtX-d3I3hxM9lkTPSheNstpuLV65mzjTiRe_KNNiETf5y7kiTZg" /><h3>How to add Weglot to your website or CMS</h3>Integrating Weglot is very easy – and it doesn’t even require touching any code. All you have to do is install the plugin and configure Weglot to start translating.When you install the app, you’ll get an API key from your Weglot account. Copy paste the API key in your CMS and you’re good to go:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/how-to-add-weglot-to-your-website-or-cms.png" /><h3>Pricing</h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weglot-princing.png" />With Weglot, pricing is generally based on how many languages you want to offer, and the number of words you need translated. Pretty simple to understand, and very easy to upgrade in the future.It’s worth noting that Weglot offers a free plan that translates up to 2000 words for one language. Not bad if you have a very small site with a single additional language.Weglot offers monthly and annual pricing plans. With the annual, you get an extra 2 months of free translation, which is a nice bonus. Each monthly plan offers a 10-day free trial, and there are 5 tiers:<ul><li>Starter: € 9.90 / month for 1 translated language and up to 10,000 words</li><li>Business: € 19 / month for 3 translated languages and up to 50,000 words</li><li>Pro: € 49 / month for 5 translated languages and up to 200,000 words</li><li>Advanced: € 199 / month for 10 translated languages and up to 1,000,000 words</li><li>Enterprise: € 499 / month for unlimited translated languages. The word limit is not listed on the website but you can contact Weglot to learn more about your custom translation needs.</li></ul>You can sign up for a trial for <a target="_blank" href="https://dashboard.weglot.com/register?fp_ref=solodev">Weglot</a> here.<h3>Final Thoughts</h3>There’s no question that Weglot is one of the most practical, user-friendly translation solutions on the market today. It supports 100+ languages with automatic, manual, and professional translation capabilities. It’s incredibly easy to install on both websites and in CMS, and it’s currently available as a plugin for platforms such as <a target="_blank" href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.shopify.com/">Shopify</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wix.com/">Wix</a>.Like any software, there’s always room for improvement. Weglot's translations can sometimes be a bit fickle when it comes to dynamic content – specifically anything that loads via Javascript. iFrames can also be a little difficult to troubleshoot, and there seems to be a lag time of a day or two before you can manually override a translation. The good news is that their support is incredibly responsive.When it comes to pricing, Weglot can get a little pricey for websites with lots of pages. For an enterprise, this is more than manageable. But for mid-tier sites going from free Google Translate, there could be some sticker shock.That said, it might just be worth every penny. Or centavo.<h3>About Weglot</h3><a target="_blank" href="https://weglot.com/">Weglot</a> is a SaaS tech start-up that helps businesses turn their websites multilingual. They offer a fast, simple and user-friendly way to translate and display your translations without bothering your developers.

Review: Weglot brings powerful translation for multilingual websites and CMS

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