Articles - Page 155

Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

janus-boye

<p>This year has been an amazing one and we've had tons of nominations for all kinds of great projects in all of our categories. Over this month until voting begins on September 1, 2013, we're going to announce the nominees for each category in the awards.  Without further delay, here are this year's Peoples Choice Nominees for Best Free CMS  in our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/"> Critics Choice CMS Awards</a>.</p>
<h3>Processwire</h3>
<p>Build bigger, faster, stronger, easier. ProcessWire is a free PHP5 open source CMS built to save you time and make development fun at any scale. It works the way you do.</p>
<p><a href="/products/processwire/"> Visit their profile page. </a></p>
<h3>Tiki</h3>
<p>Tiki is the Free and Open Source Web Application with the most built-in features. So whatever feature you can imagine running in your browser window, chances are Tiki does it.</p>
<p><a href="/products/tiki-wiki-cms-groupware/"> Visit their profile page. </a></p>
<h3>Concrete5</h3>
<p>concrete5 is a building material for the web. Working with a web designer or pre-existing theme, a site owner can create and easily change the content and structure of a website.</p>
<p><a href="/products/concrete5/"> Visit their profile page. </a></p>
<h3>WordPress</h3>
<p>WordPress CMS started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on hundreds of thousands of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.</p>
<p><a href="/products/wordpress"> Visit their profile page. </a></p>
<h3>Umbraco</h3>
<p>Umbraco is an open-source content management system (CMS) platform for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets. It is written in C# and deployed on Microsoft based infrastructure. The open-source backend is released under an MIT License while the UI is released under the Umbraco license.</p>
<p><a href="/products/umbraco"> Visit their profile page. </a></p>
<p>Congratulations to all of these fabulous nominees. Voting begins on September 1, so be sure to check back and vote for your favorites!</p>


Announcing the Peoples Choice for Best Free CMS Nominees!

mike-johnston

<p></p>
<p>As a heavy internet user and a bit of a gadget geek, I’ve been accused of being one of those people who’s always glued to some kind of interactive screen. This is part of my life, as well as hundreds of individuals across the world. Gone are the days when you would wake up, check the morning paper and head out to go to work. These days, the first thing you’d check upon waking up is your email using your phone, and then probably flick through a couple of websites on your iPad or android tablet while sipping your coffee.</p>
<p><img style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/responsive-design-hero.png" /></p>
<p>This presents an interesting challenge for web designers who have, for the longest time, been creating websites for laptops and personal computers. This challenge is in the form of responsive web design, and something that can make web pages adapt to different screens to accommodate the numerous handheld devices that are currently being used by a large segment of the world’s population.</p>
<p>It is estimated that more that by 2014, the number of mobile devices will exceed the world’s population. This means that web designers simply can’t afford to ignore mobile users anymore given the incredible demand for mobile-based services and websites. At the same time, continents such as Asia and Africa lead the pack in having the most number of mobile phone users. This peculiar statistic is due to the cheapness or easy availability of internet-based mobile devices compared to that of laptops or tablets.</p>
<p>If you’re a savvy business looking to gain more exposure, the best thing you can do for yourself is to ensure that your customers can navigate through your website on any device that’s currently being used by many people within your target market. This means that you need to know of some basic web design tenets to help you build a responsive site. What follows is a list of tips that can help you come up with a versatile and easily adaptable website.</p>
<h2>Keep It Simple, Stupid</h2>
<p>The KISS acronym is like a cactus tree for most web designers. This group of people likes to play around with code and design template in their quest to come up with a website that has all the bells and whistles you can cram into it without causing a server crash. The problem with this kind of overzealousness is that most of these design principles don’t translate when you try to view these sites on smartphones or tablets. The idea here is to exercise some self control and simple but classic design aspects. For example, the designer might want to use a simple HTML5 doctype and guidelines, as well as a simple and semantic core layout which can go a long way in helping the website make a smooth transition from laptop to mobile screens. Another way of simplifying web design is to get rid of all inline styles.</p>
<h2>Content Matters</h2>
<p>One of the most ignored aspects of web design has to be content. This is because there might not be clear collaboration during website design between copywriters and web designers. The result is often a clunky website with chunks of text that can only be read with a magnifying glass. Jokes aside, this is something that may drive away potential clients to your website. You want to have a marriage between content and web design that is complementary. You can do this by ensuring that your content is ready for uploading during the early design phases so you can see how the puzzle pieces fit. Waiting until you’re done will be like completing a huge puzzle game and realizing that you have an extra puzzle piece remaining.</p>
<h2>Media Queries to the Rescue</h2>
<p>Media queries let you specify width, height, orientation and color conditions, helping you create websites that can shrink down to fit different screen sizes and resolutions. These are easy to use, and can be set once without you having to reset them over and over again. You can come up with a media query via an external stylesheet as well as writing directly inside a stylesheet. It’s worth noting that media queries aren’t only made for smaller screen, as it’s not uncommon to have gaming devices that connect to the internet via browsers splashed on huge LED screen. The fact is that media queries can be manipulated to fit either small or large screens, making them infinitely versatile.</p>
<p>Lastly, other tips such as having a fluid layout to enable you to have flexible sites can go a long way in making your brand visible on handheld devices. Lastly, use breakpoints for alternate pictures if you have enough bandwidth to pull it off. There are so many things you can do to create a responsive website, and the best way to approach the whole thing it to test and retest, whittling down to what works for you in the end. Do you have any responsive web design tips you’d like to share with our readers? Please leave a comment with your suggestions in the text box below. </p>
<p></p>


A Quick, Easy and Basic Guide to Responsive Web Design

<p>This year has been an amazing one and we've had tons of nominations for all kinds of great projects in all of our categories. Over this month until voting begins on September 1, 2013, we're going to announce the nominees for each category in the awards.</p>
<p>Without further delay, here are this years Peoples Choice Nominees for Best Enterprise CMS in our <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critics Choice CMS Awards</a>.</p>
<h3>Liferay</h3>
<p>Liferay Portal is an open source enterprise portal written in Java and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and proprietary licenses. It is primarily used to power corporate intranets and extranets.</p>
<p><a href="/products/liferay/">Learn more.</a></p>
<h3>Adobe Experience Manager</h3>
<p>Adobe Experience Manager is last year's Critics Choice for Best Enterprise CMS and was nominated again this year for Peoples Choice. Adobe Experience Manager is part of the Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud and is an easy-to-use enterprise CMS with a heavy marketing side.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/solutions/web-experience-management.html">Visit their Website</a></p>
<h3>Cascade Server</h3>
<p>Cascade Server is a web content management system that uses push technology and is developed by Hannon Hill. Cascade Server is built with Java, and comes bundled with Apache Tomcat as its Servlet container.</p>
<p><a href="/products/cascade-cms/">Learn more.</a></p>
<h3>Episerver</h3>
<p>EPiServer is a .NET Content Management and E-commerce product company providing robust, flexible and highly customizable software solutions for the next generation of websites.</p>
<p><a href="/products/episerver/">Learn more.</a></p>
<h3>Sitecore</h3>
<p>Sitecore is a web content management system software company that provides enterprise website, intranet, portal and marketing automation software.</p>
<p><a href="/products/sitecore/">Learn more.</a></p>
<p>Congratulations to all of these fabulous nominees. Voting begins on September 1, so be sure to check back and vote for your favorites!</p>


Announcing the Peoples Choice for Best Enterprise CMS Nominees!

<p></p>
<p>Despite still being in its development stages, AllianceCMS is on its way to becoming a flexible, powerful and feature extensive content management system.</p>
<p>Currently, AllianceCMS is at a stage where it is installable and ready for experimentation. However, it should be noted that the platform is still pre-alpha, which means it is still being developed and honed.</p>
<p>The developers who are carrying out work on the system are actively adding new features on a daily basis, and have also made the theme and plugin API available for public use and experimentation.</p>
<h2>Current Features</h2>
<p>Although AllianceCMS is in the pre-alpha stage, you can install it via a browser based installation, and begin tinkering with the various features available.</p>
<p>At the time of writing, AllianceCMS offers a flexible template system which allows you to create templates that can be used inside your main site theme. You also have the ability to create templates that will can be used within another template.</p>
<p>Additionally, a useful FormHelper class which makes building form elements a lot easier, which is a big help when creating themes and templates.</p>
<p>To help speed up initial installation and streamline future updates, AllianceCMS is divided into three separate folders consisting of axis, public_html and zones.</p>
<p>The axis folder contains the main functions of the system, and should therefore be left well alone. The public_html is of course where other basic files such as themes reside, whereas the zone folder contains all custom plugins, as well as database connection files.</p>
<h2>Planned Features</h2>
<p>As AllianceCMS grows, more features are being planned and implemented.</p>
<p>From amongst these features, the developers over at AllianceCMS are working on fully incorporating an installation/updates database schema API for all major system updates. Essentially, this feature will allow all users to install or update from any version to the most current version, almost instantly.</p>
<p>It goes without saying that such a feature would offer plenty of convenience, and the most exciting part is, the developers are currently working on how to automate the updating process even further.</p>
<h2>Can You Help?</h2>
<p>As previously mentioned, Alliance CMS is currently pre-alpha, and thus there is still plenty of work to be done before it can experience its first stable release.</p>
<p>In order to speed up the development process, AllianceCMS have appealed for assistance in the following areas:</p>
<ul>
<li>Graphic Design / CSS / Theme Creation</li>
<li>Plugin Development</li>
<li>Data Management</li>
<li>Documentation</li>
<li>Translation</li>
</ul>
<p>AllianceCMS is without doubt on track to be an open-source platform which is genuinely interested in enjoining communities. Their name, slogan and website all reflect their social awareness, and reaching out to the public for development assistance is also a friendly touch.</p>
<h2>Screenshots</h2>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/alliancecms-home-page1395x0.png" alt="Alliance CMS - Home Page" /></p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/alliancecms-wiki1395x0.png" alt="Alliance CMS Wiki" /></p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/alliancecms-api1395x0.png" alt="Alliance CMS - API" /></p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/alliancecms-installation-start1395x0.png" alt="Alliance CMS - Installation Start" /></p>
<p>If you can help out in any of the areas listed above, or if you simply wish to find out more about the exciting Alliance CMS project, visit their <a href="http://www.alliancecms.com/"> official website </a> .</p>
<p></p>


Introducing AllianceCMS

<p></p>
<p>WordPress have announced the official release of WordPress 3.6 “Oscar”, lovingly named after the famous Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. </p>
<p>New features include the all new Twenty Thirteen Theme, an improved menu editor, a built-in HTML5 video &amp; audio player and enhancements to post revision, autosaving and locking.</p>
<p>To grasp the basics of WordPress 3.6 Oscar, take a quick peek at the snazzy introductory video laid out by WordPress below.</p>
<p>http://youtu.be/gu0B7OQZ2mY</p>
<h2>New Twenty Thirteen Theme</h2>
<p>WordPress' default themes are traditionally neat, bold and professional, with the new Twenty Thirteen theme being no exception.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1.png" alt="WordPress 3.6 Oscar" /></p>
<p>The theme's design was inspired by modern art, and aims to help focus the message of your content to readers and visitors via a single column layout.</p>
<p>WordPress' all new Twenty Thirteen theme is also as flexible as it is vibrant. The clean design works well on any device, both big and small, helping your blog or website to reach a wider audience.</p>
<h2>Built-in Media Player</h2>
<p>Instead of having to rely on third-party video and audio platforms, WordPress now supports its very own built in HTML5 media player. The design of the Twenty Thirteen theme certainly seems to encourage the use of video as a means of communication, and WordPress' new native media player will only make it easier to publish such content on a more regular basis.</p>
<p>What's more is, WordPress 3.6 also introduces built-in support for both Rdio, SoundCloud and Spotify, making it faster to embed and share audio content.</p>
<h2>Enhanced Autosaving, Revising &amp; Post Locking</h2>
<p>When it comes to blogging and publishing content, every word counts. So, a new autosave feature brought about by WordPress 3.6 ensures that your content is safely saved after every keystroke.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2.png" alt="WordPress 3.6 Oscar" /></p>
<p>Revising your posts is also now easier than ever. A brand new revisions interface enables you to scroll through every single change made to a post, and informs you of the changes made by each individual author. A clever colour coder also breaks down posts into revisions made, helping you to identify who said what, and when.</p>
<p>Additionally, an enhanced post locking feature ensures that whenever one author is reviewing or editing a post, all other users are locked out, thus preventing any editorial mishaps.</p>
<p>Without doubt, each of these new features will be of huge benefit to websites who rely on numerous authors to submit, review and publish their content.</p>
<h2>Developer Extras</h2>
<p>As expected, WordPress 3.6 Oscar also brings about a host of new options for developers to get their teeth in to.</p>
<p>These include a new video &amp; audio API, HTML5 markup options, better filters for how revisions work, and so forth. A full list of developer features can be found via the <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.6"> WordPress Codex </a> .</p>
<p>For additional information on WordPress 3.6 Oscar, and for some deeper insights into the features listed above, check out the <a href="http://wordpress.org/news/2013/08/oscar/"> official release notes</a>.</p>
<p></p>


WordPress 3.6 Oscar Goes Live

<p></p>
<p>The TYPO3 development team have released a slew of updates to the open source content management system. Namely versions 4.5.29, 4.7.14, 6.0.8 and 6.1.3.</p>
<p>According to the release notes, these are all maintenance updates that include bug &amp; security fixes – notably a fix to a Cross-Site Scripting and Remote Code Execution exploit. It is highly recommended that all users update their systems to these latest releases to maintain secure platforms.</p>
<p><strong>Fixed regressions:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>A regression in the file abstraction layer (FAL) made use of the deleted flag for sys_file objects that was not handled properly. The changed that caused this regression has been reverted again. The “File Abstraction Layer Indexing job” in the TYPO3 scheduler can be used to fix possible inconsistencies in the database that have been produced by this regression.</li>
<li>Another regression in the Extbase MVC component, which produced wrong language overlays in the website front-end of nested domain entities, has been completely reverted as well.</li>
</ul>
<p>For details about the releases, please visit the following websites:<br /><a href="http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_4.5.29" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_4.5.29</a><br /><a href="http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_4.7.14" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_4.7.14<br /></a><a href="http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_6.0.8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_6.0.8<br /></a><a href="http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_6.1.3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://wiki.typo3.org/TYPO3_6.1.3</a></p>
<p></p>


TYPO3 releases a slew of updates

<p></p>
<p>It can be quite daunting to have to learn <a href="http://website.1and1.com/how-to-build-a-website">how to build a website</a> from scratch, which means that it is often a better idea to use some kind of website builder. Most people have absolutely no knowledge of programming with HTML, and a ready-made solution will always offer the highest amount of convenience. Modern website providers (such as 1&amp;1) offer a website builder that can provide a professional looking site, without the hassle, time and aggravation of programming and coding.</p>
<h2>WYSIWYG</h2>
<p>The main benefit of a website builder will be that it is ‘WYSIWYG.' This term means ‘What You See Is What You Get', and it is pretty much self-explanatory. When using one of these applications, the version that is displayed on the screen will be an exact representation of the final product once it has been published. This avoids the traditional pitfall of web design, where creators and editors spend many hours trying to get everything in alignment, with the correct fonts and sizes.</p>
<h2>Website Structure</h2>
<p>Every individual and business will have a unique set of needs, and while a single page may be suitable for some, many websites need to have a large number of pages, sections and sub-sections. Website builders allow the creator to specify an exact layout and structure, with many products even offering an unlimited amount of pages. When starting a website with a lower hosting package, most companies offer a product that is completely scaleable – meaning that the level of service can be upgraded in the future to allow a greater number of pages.</p>
<h2>Traffic</h2>
<p>Alongside the number of pages, traffic may also be something that needs to be considered carefully. Modern hosting solutions will usually offer unlimited traffic (i.e. visitors), but many users could benefit from a lower-cost service level with a fixed amount of traffic. In any case, this is also something that is saleable, and it can be upgraded as the site's popularity increases. If the website is going to be rich in media (videos, music and images), it may be worth considering an unlimited package due to the data transfers that are involved.</p>
<h2>Media Integration</h2>
<p>Although video content can usually be hosted within the main website, many site creators now opt to host content on YouTube or similar video sharing services. These media networks offer a set of simple tools that allow web authors to insert content directly into their pages, but the actual content is hosted on the original network's server. This means that when a visitor plays a video, the site creator benefits from the multi-billion dollar infrastructure of the network. Hosting YouTube videos is particularly popular, and high-traffic websites can also benefit from monetization programmes – these give the author a percentage of advertising revenues from all views. Overall, it is very straightforward to integrate a YouTube video into a website builder – it is often a case of ‘drag and drop.'</p>
<h2>Social Media</h2>
<p>It is extremely rare to find a company's website that doesn't have Facebook, Twitter and other <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/how-to-effectively-moderate-social-media/">social media</a> buttons that can be clicked. Website builders make it very easy to integrate social media networks into a site, and there are many options that are available. While some users will prefer a simple link, other apps and widgets can often be installed that automatically display the latest posts and tweets. These can also be customized by a ‘#hashtag' on Twitter, and this will show website visitors a clearly defined set of tweets from a variety of users.</p>
<h2>Apps and Widgets</h2>
<p>These ‘plug ins' are about a lot more than social media, and they provide a great way to generate content without having to put in a lot of effort. News tickers are a popular example of this, and they are offered by most of the major news agencies. They can usually be customized, for example offering business websites the chance to only display economics news stories. Many widgets are also ‘media rich', giving visitors a selection of videos and audio content that is created by a professional source.</p>
<h2>Earning money from advertising</h2>
<p>To make a website self-financing, website builders make it very easy to integrate services such as Google Adwords. This is a particularly popular example, as Google's servers will automatically generate advertisements that are relevant to the content of the website. There are other similar solutions available, and the best websites will often find themselves returning a healthy profit.</p>
<p></p>


When to use a Website Builder

CMS Summit 25

Find out at CMS Connect 25, August 5 - 6 in Montreal, Canada. Seats are limited.

CMS. Content. AI. Where is it all headed?

#ffffff

<p></p>
<p>We are down to the last two days remaining to get your nominations in for the <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">Critics Choice CMS Awards</a>.</p>
<p>These nominations will go towards the People's Choice portion of the awards.</p>
<p>We will be reviewing all nominations and creating a shortlist of nominees that you will be able to vote for within each of the alloted categories.</p>
<p>We have seen a huge number of nominations this year, way up from our inaugural year, 2012 and we are very grateful to all who've participated!</p>
<p>As a reminder, the categories for this year's People Choice awards are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Best Open Source CMS</li>
<li>Best Free CMS</li>
<li>Best Small to Midsize Business CMS</li>
<li>Best Enterprise CMS</li>
<li>Best eCommerce Solution  (New for 2013!)</li>
<li>Best Social Networking Solution</li>
<li>Best Website Builder</li>
<li>Best Hosted/Cloud CMS  (New for 2013!)</li>
<li>Best Forum Solution  (New for 2013!)</li>
</ul>
<p>Best of luck to everyone and we'll be announcing the projects that are shortlisted over the month of August with voting opening on September 1, 2013. With two days remaining, there's still time to get your nominations in!</p>
<p></p>


Nominations Closing in Two Days!

<p></p>
<p><img style="margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;display:block" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/responsivedesign.jpg" /></p>
<p>Responsive design has been hailed as one of the greatest greatnesses ever to grace the Internet. With myriad mobile users accessing the web, it seems as if responsive design is just about the only way to make an awesome website even awesomer. I've remarked on the <a href="/why-responsive-design-is-so-important/">necessity of RWD before</a>  However, not every website is ready for responsive design. There are three major hurdles that every organization must clear before they launch into the bliss of responsive design. </p>
<h2>1. Your content needs a major overhaul.</h2>
<p>A site is only as good as its content. You can't improve your content just by going responsive. That's why the very first thing on your agenda should be to <a href="/eight-tips-for-creating-readable-content/">improve your conten</a> . Content can easily become a company's bugaboo. It's outdated, low-quality, or inaccurate. There may even be some flash content lurking in the closets. Before you even thinking about tweaking your CSS and announcing your shiny new RWD site, clean house on content. </p>
<h2>2.  You need to switch your CMS.</h2>
<p>And you thought going responsive was going to be easy? The cold, hard fact of the matter is that your CMS may not be able to handle responsive design. By applying the right coding skills, just about any quality CMS will be able to dish out RWD. But it's not quite that simple. Although a site's overall presentation may be responsive, the actual functionality of the pages and content may not meet RWD standards. For example, some WYSIWYG CMSs automatically add bits of codes that can wreck a responsive framework. Auto-inserts of inline CSS, Java, HTML tables, or unclosed tags may be added to a page of content, thus conflicting with the responsive site layout. Many of these easy-to-use WYSIWYG editors generate non-semantic markup that clashes with responsive design. In other words, if you're going to go responsive, you need to make sure that your CMS is going to help you, not hurt you. Choose <a href="/sitefinity-cms-5-hits-the-web-brings-cutting-edge-mobile-tools/">a CMS that does responsive righ</a>t. </p>
<h2>3. You need to rework your collaborative approach.</h2>
<p>Responsive design is far more than a design tweak. It's a complete change in the way that you work. The old model of web design and development looked like this. First, the designer created a Photoshop template. Next, the developer created the website from that template. This waterfall model of web development has served its usefulness. Now, it must give way to the more Agile-oriented approach required by RWD. It bears repeating:  Responsive design isn't just about design. It's about fluid grids, breakpoints, load times, style guides, front-end development, mobile form factors, pixel density awareness, mobile native controls, and a host of other factors that you haven't thought to think about. Old process flows simply aren't going to cut it. Intensive interactive collaboration among UIs, IAs, designers, digital strategists, developers, and other team members is crucial to a successful RWD rollout. </p>
<p>Don't let these three major hurdles prevent you from jumping into a responsive design implementation. You might be able to hold off RWD for a little while, but give it a few months, and responsive design is going to be even more important. Now is the time to begin considering your strategy for going responsive with your website — hurdles or not. </p>
<p></p>


How to Get Ready for Responsive Design

daniel-threlfall

<p><a href="/how-to-build-your-portfolio-website-fast-with-webydo/">Webydo </a> and  <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ecwid.com/">Ecwid </a>have announced a partnership that offers Webydo users a sophisticated e-commerce solution that can be installed in minutes. Webydo provides graphic designers with a full solution for both the creation and management of sophisticated HTML websites, without writing code.</p><p>With more than 70 percent of today's websites created by developers, Webydo’s cloud platform empowers designers with full creative control and independence, helping to build over 66,000 business websites to date. Through this partnership, Ecwid, used by more than 300,000 merchants in 175 countries and the most popular store builder on Facebook, will now be available for Webydo users who can add an Ecwid-powered online store to their Webydo websites with a few clicks.</p><blockquote><p>“Ecwid and Webydo are transforming the way the web is created with powerful tools and stunning design options,” said Shmulik Grizim, Webydo’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Through this partnership, professional designers can now use the best e-commerce solution on the market within Webydo’s professional web creation platform, enjoying total creative freedom and independence in creating custom designed business websites with sophisticated online stores.”</p></blockquote><p>Ecwid can be embedded into any Webydo site in minutes, is available in 45 languages and integrated with all major payment gateways. Based on a recent Webydo survey, e-commerce focused industries are greatly contributing to the growth and development of new websites.</p><p>The survey, which reviewed more than 30,000 new websites created on the Webydo platform, found that service industries like design and web services created more than 12 percent of new business websites while product driven industries like fashion and retail, at 11 percent, were also major contributors – see below chart:</p><p style="text-align:center"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ec_graph741636.jpg" /></p><p>“Because Ecwid is a full-featured storefront solution, we’re a good match for Webydo’s professional web and graphic designers,” says Jim O'Hara, president of Ecwid, Inc. “Our simple, drop-in installation also integrates beautifully with Webydo’s platform. We look forward to providing Webydo’s global user base with a comprehensive e-commerce functionality.” </p><p><i>To create a stunning Webydo site with a sophisticated Ecwid online store go to  </i><a target="_blank" href="http://www.webydo.com"><i><strong>www.webydo.com </strong></i></a></p><p> </p>

Webydo and Ecwid - Working Together To Bring E-commerce to your Site

<p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Acquia </a>today unveiled the Acquia Cloud Site Factory, a turnkey digital experience platform that empowers marketers to deliver hundreds or thousands of brand, campaign and promotional websites with agility, velocity and freedom.</p>
<p>Acquia Cloud Site Factory provides Digital Experiences as a Service, enabling marketers to create dynamic, highly-branded sites in minutes with pre-configured templates that include repeatable content, design and structure. It provides an intuitive authoring experience so even non-technical users can create effective, content-rich sites rapidly, without the extensive training or coding that traditional, proprietary web platforms require. With Acquia Cloud Site Factory, marketers can dedicate their time to creating unique branded experiences built on the open source Drupal content management system.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Global organizations that struggle to keep up with the pace of change for their digital marketing initiatives now have a solution for building immersive experiences across their brands with Acquia Cloud Site Factory,” said Tom Erickson, Acquia CEO. “We’re knocking down the barriers of cost, procurement, and technical complexity so organizations can grow their capacity to support multiple brands and gain the freedom to disrupt their markets with engaging campaigns and digital experiences that win market share and increase revenues.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a fully managed service, Acquia Cloud Site Factory enables organizations to focus on the core elements of their business, simplifying the operations and management of their digital experience platform to Acquia. Site builders have the freedom to add any of the 20,000 Drupal modules to their own site factory, while managing their multi-site deployments from a centralized dashboard to automate actions and reduce their maintenance burden. With a single dashboard, Acquia Cloud Site Factory makes it possible for just a few administrators to build and manage hundreds of sites, managing users centrally, and integrate sites with their entire digital marketing toolset.</p>
<p>Acquia Cloud Site Factory is a great fit for media and entertainment companies, as well as consumer products companies with many brand and campaign sites. Additionally, digital agencies who create and run digital campaigns for clients and franchise business owners who want to deliver cost-effective, consistent digital platforms to their franchisees can do so at a fraction of the cost of proprietary alternatives.</p>
<p>http://youtu.be/ESZR7kEv3qA</p>
<p>Interscope, a division of Universal Music Group, is one company that is taking advantage of Acquia Cloud Site Factory, integrated with their digital marketing toolset, to promote many of its artists with highly branded sites. Among the more than two dozen artists who were part of Interscope’s initial launch on the platform are Lauren Alaina, Ahsan, Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre, Nelly Furtado, Lady Gaga, Candice Glover, Matthew Koma, LMFAO, One Republic, Phillip Phillips, Timbaland, and Zedd.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Connecting music fans with the artists and music that they love requires a great digital experience. Our artist sites bring together social interactions, great audio and video content, touring and appearance details and opportunities to purchase and download music,” said Lee Hammond, vice president of digital at Interscope. “Digital is the connection point for our artists, the place where we engage fans with exclusive content and opportunities, promote new releases and start the conversation with fans. Acquia Cloud Site Factory provides the agility to bring sites for new artist or campaigns to market quickly with the same great experience and contextual engagement that we offer across our label.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Using Acquia Cloud Site Factory, organizations will accelerate digital campaign execution while reducing the costs and complexity of managing an expensive, bespoke multi-site platform. Acquia Cloud Site Factory is a better platform to create and manage multi-site deployments at scale, simplifying new site creation based on pre-configured templates and automating multi-site management tasks. Most importantly, each site benefits from the innovation that only the Drupal open source content management system can deliver.</p>
<p>To learn more about Acquia Cloud Site Factory, attend a webinar on July 25 on <a href="http://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/how-create-websites-scale-experience-management-imperative" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">How to Create Websites at Scale: An Experience Management Imperative</a>, or visit <a href="http://www.acquia.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.acquia.com</a>.</p>
<p></p>


Acquia Launches Acquia Cloud Site Factory

<p></p>
<p>Since launching in 2005, Zenfolio has helped thousands of photographers display, share and even sell their work in a highly professional manner.</p>
<p>Essentially, Zenfolio offers a simplistic point-and-click system that makes it easy to create your own photography portfolio. High quality images and HD videos are displayed via beautifully designed galleries, alongside a blog, general website pages and even a built-in shopping cart fully equipped with marketing tools.</p>
<p>Zenfolio offers unlimited storage space for your content, allowing you to share as much of your portfolio as you can – without breaking the bank.</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BkLgDEutxBY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<h2>Website &amp; Blog</h2>
<p>As a photography, you will naturally want your images to be of the highest quality, and diplayed in a fashion which befits their elegance. Zenfolio allows you to build stunning websites to house your portfolio, which can be customized using simplistic point-and-click features.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1700x0.png" alt="Zenfolio " /></p>
<p>The comprehensive CMS allows you to create a professional, fully functioning website, which gives your visitors all of the right vibes – even before they view your images or video content.</p>
<p>Your Zenfolio website can be accompanied by a blog, which you may use to market, explain or show off your content. Additional features such as background music also help to create the perfect ambience for your website.</p>
<h2>Galleries</h2>
<p>Naturally, the most important part of any online photography portfolio is the gallery. Using Zenfolio, you can present your content in a captivating way, across all types of devices.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2700x0.png" alt="Zenfolio " /></p>
<p>As well as being aesthetically pleasing, your galleries will also be extremely safe. Zenfolio allows you to limit access to certain galleries via passcodes, and also allows you to turn off the option for visitors to right-click save, or drag your images to their desktop.</p>
<p>What's more is, Zenfolio enables you to automatically add a unique watermark to all of your images. With all of these effective security measures in place, you can be sure that copyright issues will never arise.</p>
<h2>Shopping Cart</h2>
<p>Unlike a number of other <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-8-website-builders-for-photography-websites/">photography CMS</a>, Zenfolio allows you to quick and easily turn your photography hobby into an online business.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3700x0.png" alt="Zenfolio " /></p>
<p>Zenfolio's fully equipped shopping cart comes with 500 products ready to sell via Zenfolio's own vendors. These include picture frames, specialised printing paper and other photography tools and accessories. Of course, you will also be able to sell digital downloads of your very own work, directly from your website.</p>
<p>Payment options are pleasantly diverse, allowing customers to checkout with multiple currencies via PayPal, or their credit cards.</p>
<h2>Marketing</h2>
<p>No CMS is truly complete without some in-house marketing tools, and Zenfolio offers pretty much everything you need. Social media buttons can be tastefully incorporated into Zenfolio's themes, to help with your social visibility.</p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4700x0.png" alt="Zenfolio " /></p>
<p>All of your images can be embedded within social media, along with watermarks if necessary. Additionally, you can offer your visitors the option to signup to your website using their email addresses, which in turn allows you to begin an email marketing campaign.</p>
<p>To top everything off, Zenfolio gives you the chance to reach out to your potential or past customers with gift certificates and coupon codes.</p>
<p><em>Interested? Check out <a href="http://www.zenfolio.com/">Zenfolio's 14-day free trial</a><a href="https://en.zenfolio.com/">.</a></em></p>
<p></p>


Looking to Create a Photography Portfolio? Try Zenfolio

<p></p>
<p><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/goodwebcontent.jpg" /></p>
<p>Whether you're an old pro at creating content or whether you're new to the field, it never hurts to hear the essentials of effective and readable content. And let's just remember that great content is crucial to a successful site. What follows are eight of the most important things to remember when you're creating readable content for your website.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Use an attention-grabbing headline.</strong> Readability isn't just a matter of dragging one's eyes across a screen of text. It's about engaging interest. That is the number one job of a headline — to grab someone's attention so they will follow through and read your content. </li>
<li><strong>Break up the content with subheadings, numbers, or bullet points.</strong> Most web readers aren't coders — people who can stare at screen full of symbols and make sense of it all. Your content should be delivered up with plenty of paragraphs, bullets, numbers, subheadings, breaks, and pictures. Text is still primary, but you should allow it to give way to the beauty of white space. If you don't, your content will be extremely unwelcoming. </li>
<li><strong>Feature an image.</strong> Everyone loves pictures. Eye-tracking heatmaps have long confirmed that a web visitor looks at an image before he or she looks at anything else on the page. It may seem as if images are a separate issue from the actual words of your content, but they are both important to readable content. Your content may be really good, but even so, an image provides a visual oasis in a desert of words. People need the refreshment.</li>
<li><strong>Keep the tone personal, professional, and engaging.</strong> When you're writing a blog, it's time to be yourself. Go ahead and use first- and second-person pronouns. Keep it relaxed and casual, but maintain professionalism. The most effective copy is copy that sounds genuinely human, devoid of a stilted stuffy tone. That's what will <em>get</em> people reading, <em>keep</em> people reading, and ensure that people get your message.</li>
<li>E<strong>nsure good grammar and spelling.</strong> Since I've sneaked in two things here — 1) grammar, and 2) spelling — let me explain them both. First, grammar:  Be accurate, but don't be a slave to it. There are legion rules of grammar that are meant to be broken. Sure, you want to do the best you can, but if you need to break a grammar rule now and then, go for it. Readability trumps the scientific exactitude of grammatical impeccability (did you get that?). Now, for spelling: Get it right. There is no excuse for misspelled words. Unless, of course, you're creating new words.</li>
<li><strong>Keep things varied.</strong> Successful bloggers and content creators understand that variety is the spice of blogging life. If every one of your articles sounds the same, looks the same, and basically says the same thing, you're going to bore your readers. Mix it up with an occasional infographic, photo, video, or different article style. </li>
<li><strong>Keep your audience in mind.</strong> Someone will only read your content if they're interested. And the only way for someone to be interested in your content is if it speaks to them in some way. Figure out who your audience is, and write content that they are going to read. For example, if you have a website that caters specifically to motorcyclists, your content is probably not going to include tips on migrating to a cloud server. This point is obvious enough, but often overlooked. Figure out what your audience needs, wants, or will be interested in. Then, write content that satisfies that need, want, or curiosity. </li>
<li><strong>Make it long enough (but not too long).</strong> There are no hard and fast rules about article length. There is simply a commonsense recommendation. Simply put, don't make it too long. But don't make it too short, either. Few people read laboriously lengthy articles. And super short articles don't gain the kind of sustained interest and SEO-rich content that your site needs. Like virtually all rules, these can be broken. If you spin out a masterful 3,000 word article, sure. Just make sure it's readable. And if you have time for a quick 100-word post, that's fine, too. Sometimes.</li>
</ol>
<p>Content is at the heart of your web strategy. It's worth giving it your best shot to make it even better. </p>
<p></p>


Eight Tips for Creating Readable Content

Semrush - Be an SEO hero

Be an SEO hero with Semrush

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 155