Articles - Page 37

Bland Brands Beware: Optimizely’s New Identity Brings Human Creativity to its Agentic AI and AEO Ambitions

matt-garrepy

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sackcloth-1280539_1280-1-e1467294497959.jpg" alt="sackcloth-1280539_1280" />
When building a website, it’s obviously important to create an easy and enjoyable experience for the end-user. Often forgotten however, but just as important, is the content editor’s user experience.
Content editors will be logging into the backend of a site regularly – everyday even – for as long as the site lasts (which can be years). So, you have to create an interface that they won’t dread working with every time they have to create a new page, edit an article or moderate user content.
Since a project’s success depends on the content editor’s happiness just as much as the end-user’s, we have tips on where to start and what to consider in making their job easy.
<h2>Know Your Content Editor (Or Editors)</h2>
Who exactly are you building for? Before any planning or building begins, get to know your content editor's level of expertise and experience. The user-interface should reflect a content editor's skill and comfort working within a content management system. For example, if they're totally new to managing online content, the user-interface should be configured to be as simple as possible to accommodate their beginner mentality.
Getting to know your content editors will help you make decisions like choosing to use rich text areas versus a module with properties that lays out the content depending on its associated logic. While one option is more flexible, the other is easier to update.
If you find out that your editor will be consistently updating content that is shared across the site, you should make that task as easy as you can; a module that lays out the content differently in each area makes the most sense.
The more you can gather about an editor’s experience, abilities, their learning-curve and habits, the easier you can make their job.
<h2>Create Use Cases</h2>
Once you understand who you’re building for, the next step is to create use cases for your editors – and then make them part of your development plans.
For example, editor use cases include:
<ul>
<li>Creating and placing a poll question in an article to get reader feedback</li>
<li>Creating an image slider and placing it on a page</li>
<li>Creating a new font class in CSS and applying to specific parts of the site</li>
<li>Updating the homepage with links to new content</li>
</ul>
<h2>Define Content Structure &amp; Proposed Setup Before Development</h2>
Now it’s time to set up a workflow for the use cases that you came up with. As an example, let’s use placing an Image Slider on a page and then linking photos and thumbnails. A basic workflow is as follows:
<ol>
<li>Navigate to the page that you want to drop the Image Slider.</li>
<li>Click the “+ADD” button within the Main Content Zone and find the Image Slider Module from the list provided.</li>
<li>Within the module, hit “New” to add the first image in your slider. Once the main image is linked, you can follow the same process for the thumbnail image.</li>
<li>Hit “Save &amp; New” to link the second photo in the slider.</li>
<li>Once all images have been linked, hit “Save &amp; Close”. Then “Publish”.</li>
</ol>
The workflow for each use case should be intuitive for your content editor, and each one should be planned out before any development begins.
<h2>On-going Best Practices &amp; Planning</h2>
Content organization is key at this stage. Within a couple of years into a site’s life cycle, files and folders can start to get messy, which can be very frustrating for anyone trying to navigate through it or manage it. By setting content editors up with an organization structure (uniform naming conventions, folder structures, etc.) it will be hard for them to deviate in the future.
<h2>Plan for the Future, Now</h2>
Build modules that are reusable to make future expandability easy. Your content editors will definitely thank you when it’s time to expand and grow their site. It lessens the learning curve of having to adapt to a completely new functionality.
Examples of ways to make a module reusable include:
<ul>
<li>Include fields for properties so that content editors can easily input text, HTML, Date, URLs, images or linked content</li>
<li>If you are creating a module that will be used for a short campaign that will only be on the site temporarily, make it generic so that the same module can be reused for another campaign without needing to get a developer involved</li>
<li>If you're building a module that displays a menu for a micro-site, make it reusable so that you can drop it on any page, and it will display a menu for all the pages beneath that current page in the page tree</li>
<li>For a page that need lots of different UI elements, such as Tabs, Sliders, Rich text, Ads – create each of these UI elements as modules so that they can easily be added separately to other pages in the future</li>
</ul>
It’s also important to plan for new people that will join the online content team down the road. Whether it’s adding new content editors to a growing team or replacing ones that have left, new hires should be able to pick up the workflow easily.
A great way to prepare for new hires is to create a training guide that is easy to follow. The training guide should be very detailed, and it should outline how to use different modules and functionality step-by-step.
Content editors should also be able to quickly reference it on-the-go as they’re using the CMS and get stuck. A training guide is a great resource to have in every content editor’s arsenal.
<h2>Automate As Much As Possible</h2>
To make your content editor’s experience as streamlined as possible, automate whatever you can.
This includes things like URL generation and thumbnail generation. Implementing automation for small tasks like this will save your editors a lot of time down the road.
<h2>Train Your Editors</h2>
The final step in ensuring your content editor’s happiness is to give them plenty of time – during development – to get familiar with the new interface.
Getting your editors to enter content during the development stage is important because it allows them to get comfortable with the system well before the site goes live. It also allows time to get their feedback and to make adjustments accordingly. This will help avoid hiccups or frustration after launch.
<hr />
[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Agility is a cloud-based, agile and powerful content management system equipped with tools and features that make building and managing your online properties easy and stress-free. To learn more, visit <a href="http://agilitycms.com/?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=blog">agilitycms.com</a>.[/dropshadowbox]
<hr />
This post is <a href="/advertising/">sponsored</a> by AgilityCMS. Find out more at <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/">agilitycms.com</a>.

How to Build a Website that Content Editors Will Love

mike-johnston

A new version of PHPFox has been released. Version 3.30 became publicly available on the 1st of this month and includes some new features for this popular software for <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/list-of-social-network-software/">social networking</a>. For those who are unfamiliar with PHPFox, check out our <a href="/phpfox-review/">PHPFox Review</a> to learn more.
On with the changes!
<h2>Timeline</h2>
The timeline feature includes an update on the users profile. Admins can control if the Timeline should be forced on all users or whether they will have the option to enable Timeline on their own profiles. If  optional, it can be enabled by visiting: Profile &gt;&gt; Edit Profile. This is somewhat similar to the way Facebook Timelines work and is a pretty cool addition.
Here's how it looks:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-timeline-620x472.png" alt="social network" />
 
<h2>Theater Mode for Photos</h2>
By blending Facebook and Google's photo viewing capabilities, the PHPFox developers have come up with a new feature called Theater Mode  that looks great and, in my opinion, is the best of both worlds for your users when they are viewing photos on your social networking website. 
Here's how it looks:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-photo-theater-620x284.png" alt="social networking" />
 
<h2> Membership Comparisons</h2>
Perhaps your social networking website is set up with membership levels. You can now add a comparison chart to showcase the differences between the two quickly and easily.
Here's how it looks:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/roi_instagram-1080x1080_bilznk.png" alt="social networking" />
<h2>New Sharing Features</h2>
Perhaps you've uploaded a great photo and (since the point of social networking is sharing) you want to share it on a friend's wall. Now you can, as this capability has now been included in version 3.30.
Here's how it looks:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-share-item-on-wall-620x474.png" alt="social networking" />
This is just a sampling of the changes in this release. The development team at PHPFox have really been working hard on making their software more and more powerful and it shows with this release. There aren't many products on the market that stay on top of the trends as well as these guys do so if you are looking for a solid piece of software to run your social networking based site, you can't go wrong with PHPFox.
You can learn more about PHPFox's great social networking suite (or to try their demo) visit their website: <a href="https://www.phpfox.com/">PHPFox</a>

PHPFox Social Networking Software Updated to Version 3.30

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tie-690084_1280-3-1-e1467309523237.jpg" alt="tie-690084_1280 (3)" />
As Oscar Wilde once said, “there is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” 
If he were alive today, he would probably rephrase that as “there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is your website going down so that nobody can see why they were talking about you in the first place.” 
Many things can cause sudden spikes in traffic, including breaking world news or new releases of hotly-anticipated products. Any of these scenarios can cause your steady stream of website traffic to morph into an unmanageable torrent that can slow your site down to a crawl, or even worse, cause it to stop functioning altogether. 
What kind of measures can you take to prevent this situation from occurring? What are the important factors you should consider to prevent this embarrassing scenario from scuppering your marketing plans?
<h2>Clouding the Issue Is Good!</h2>
Today, with the availability of cloud technology, it is no longer something that only technical people understand – the cloud is something that is a normal part of how most businesses deploy their sites. With the cloud, you can configure the cloud hosting environment that if there are more than X number of people looking at your site, or more than X concurrent users submitting forms, if the CPU utilization on the server is more than X%, or the application is eating more than X GBs of RAM, then these metrics and the conditions you set cause the system automatically to expand – scale. 
Also, when the spike goes down, the cloud shrinks the environment to remove that extra server so that you are no longer paying for it. So the best way for people to prepare for this is to take advantage of the cloud’s elastic infrastructure and, based on simple rules, it is able to expand or shrink the number of servers that are running your application accordingly.
In the past, there was resistance to the cloud in general, towards the privacy or insecurity of the data, when exposing sensitive data to a third party. That is why most cloud providers reacted to this by introducing the concept of a private cloud, where you keep sensitive data in-house behind a firewall, meaning it is safe from a third party. Instead, you are running your applications in the cloud, and they are consuming the data from your private data center, as a hybrid. But it is important that the application you want to run supports auto scaling.
<h2>Web Farm Support – What Is it and Why Should I have It?</h2>
The web farm concept is based on the fact that you have multiple servers running separate instances of the same application. 
If the nature of the application requires those separate instances to be synchronized, you have to have a way to keep them in sync. Kentico, as an app, stores some of the data in memory on the server. So if you have three servers all running Kentico, you have three separate memory spaces on each server that have their local copy of the form of data. 
If you change the data on one of the servers, you need to make sure that all those other servers know that the data changed there, and as all servers are supposed to display the same content and provide the same experience, the other servers need to refresh their data to reflect whatever is there. So you have to consider how you are going to synchronize the memory of the application that is distributed in the web farm environment, and how to synchronize whatever is stored on the file system on those separate servers.
<h2>A Step-by-step Guide to Setting Up a Scalable Environment</h2>
<h3>1. Key Metrics</h3>
You need to consider what the key metrics you should use to understand what is going on in your environment are. You have to know what the red flags are. Noticing that the site is not responding is too late! You need to know what precedes that breakdown of the system. Typically it is: constantly high CPU utilization, the servers disks are too busy, or too much operating memory is being consumed. It could also be the length of the queue of page requests sitting idle waiting for processing, and if the queue is getting longer, it means that something is going wrong. It could be that the server is too slow to handle all those requests. So you need to know how to identify that there is a problem with your environment.
<h3>2. Expectations</h3>
Estimate what your realistic expectations are. Do you usually have 100,000 users a day? Based on historical performance, as soon as you run a campaign through a certain channel, you can expect two or three times more traffic. What triggers those spikes? What is typically the highest amount you need to be able to handle? You need to load test that this environment, based on your estimation, would be able to handle this peak scenario you know happened in the past. Online tools like the Load Impact can help with distributed load testing. You need to set up a baseline, which is what your environment is able to handle under normal circumstances, and your new web farm environment needs to able to handle it.
<h3>3. Calculate</h3>
Now you are almost ready to implement your new web farm environment, but first you need to make some calculations. 
Based on the fact that you are currently running on two servers, and they can handle 50,000 page views/hour, using simple mathematics, you can work out that one server = 25,000 page views/hour. So if you need to handle 100,000 page views/hour, you need four servers. Be aware, though, the relation between the number of servers and number of page views, in this case, is not always linear. If the weakest part of the infrastructure is the SQL DB, adding web servers to the environment will not really help. 
According to this, you set up what you estimate as being sufficient to handle the expected peak and you load test and stress test the environment. This means that you do not have to reach the highest peak only, you need to go above it. You need to keep pushing the architecture and extending it until you can handle whatever expected level you have set, plus, a certain buffer zone.  15 – 20 % more than what is expected can be considered safe. And if it is not sufficient, you need to add another server and test it again until you get to the point where you know it can handle it. 
Of course, the process of setting up the environment is either easy, or it may become more complicated if the application does not contain built-in support to enable you to do this.
After that, all that's left is to roll it out.
<hr />
This post is <a href="/advertising/">sponsored</a> by Kentico. Find out more at <a href="http://kentico.com/">Kentico.com</a>.

Dealing With Traffic Spikes: How to Avoid Being a Victim of Your Own Success

<a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank">Shopify</a>, a platform considered to be high up in the eCommerce food chain, has unveiled a storefront editor which lets anybody customize the look of their Shopify store in detail and across devices.
With price plans to suit all business sizes, combined with a feature-filled platform, Shopify is one of the world's leading eCommerce solutions for companies large and small.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/storefront_hero_image.jpg" /> 
This new Storefront Editor feature enables merchants to easily customize things like logos, menus, typography, and more. The short video below takes you behind the scenes for a first hand look.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N08ftKJ4c1U?start=36&amp;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Via their <a href="https://www.shopify.com/blog" target="_blank">official blog announcement</a>, Tom Burns of Shopify said:
<blockquote>“Storefront editor simplifies how you make changes to your store’s design by splitting your screen into two panels. In one panel, you’ll make design choices like picking colors, fonts, photos, and more. In the other, you’ll see a live preview of your store that updates as you make changes.”</blockquote>
You can learn more about <a href="/products/shopify/" target="_blank">Shopify via our CMS Directory</a>.

Shopify Unveils Storefront Editor

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/study-789631_1280-1-e1467386627900.jpg" alt="study-789631_1280" /> The best customer support portals are more than just web interfaces between a company and its customers. They are <a href="https://financesonline.com/magentrix-pros-cons-top-collaboration-software/">collaboration hubs</a>, empowering a vendor to host its partners and clients to share ideas, come up with new strategies and innovate as a community.
Customer support agents can spend less time answering routine customer cases, and act as community managers to ensure:
<ul>
<li>Knowledge base articles are accurate, current and indexed/tagged for discoverability</li>
<li>News feeds are up to date with current news about product enhancements, security patches and bug fixes</li>
<li>Customers are aligned with resources for training, support, design and/or development as needed</li>
<li>Content is pushed out to customers and prospects via newsletters and social media</li>
<li>Website visitors can engage with customer service through live text chat on their desktop or <a href="http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2956618">mobile device</a> of choice</li>
</ul>
Many companies are looking for omni-channel approach to customer service utilizing one of the many channels available, such as:
<ul>
<li>Email marketing tools</li>
<li>SMS messages</li>
<li>Online ticketing</li>
<li>Live chat</li>
<li>Phone calls</li>
</ul>
If you have a comprehensive, high-performance web presence in place, but want to scale up your customer self-service options, you have at least five possible paths moving forward:
<ol>
<li>Leverage your existing content management system and write code to provide a live, or batch integration with a back office CRM or ERP application</li>
<li>Develop a custom portal, and “bolt” it on to your existing website. Build an API connection to your help desk application</li>
<li>Subscribe to a customer ticketing/support application in the cloud, and embed it in your CMS/custom website</li>
<li>License a separate CMS, and CRM connector bridge application. Or possibly, a CRM portal framework which is installed directly into your customer service application of choice</li>
<li>Subscribe to a cloud-based system which doesn’t require a separate CMS or take up any digital real estate in your support/customer <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/features/casemanagement">service case management</a> application</li>
</ol>
Each of these options has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. How you rationalize these factors will vary based on your business priorities, the technical resources you have available, and budgetary availability.
Customer service and support portals generally offer these benefits:
<ul>
<li>A support knowledgebase, and/or an FAQ page (or pages)</li>
<li>A ticket generation and tracking system</li>
<li>Technical help documentation, and/or how-to videos</li>
<li>A <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/features/forum">community forum</a>, where customers can seek out similar questions from their peers, and best practices. Many forums allow members/subscribers to suggest new features for the product roadmap, or find known bugs, workarounds and/or release notes.</li>
</ul>
Considering options 1-5 above, you can probably achieve most of the functionality here with just about any CRM portal you deploy, provided you have enough expertise and funding available. The top ten key decision making factors which determines which portal path businesses should take are:
<ul>
<li>Ease of implementation and ongoing management</li>
<li>Business application integration options</li>
<li>Capital/operating costs</li>
<li>Cohesiveness between your corporate website and the <a href="http://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/customer-self-service-portal-improves-cx/">customer service portal</a>, or option to consolidate on a single platform</li>
<li>The development/design/technical skills required to install, design, develop, publish and management of the portal and related content</li>
<li>The availability of a Software as a Service portal solution</li>
<li>Impact of the portal on the <a href="http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/microsoft-dynamics-partner-roundup-electronic-signatures-retail-self-service-crm-portals-publi">xRM business application</a> performance, and the xRM app on the portal performance for that matter</li>
<li>Opportunities to add extended functionality to the self-service support portal, such as a community hub, acceptance of online payments, and/or e-mail marketing functionality</li>
<li>Reporting capabilities for the portal, either through Google Analytics, or a platform-specific <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/articles/blog/Analytics_and_Metrics-4-01-2015">content analytics</a> engine</li>
</ul>
When you integrate the client experience with your internal case management system, such as Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you reduce calls and e-mails into your support center, drive down support costs and improve customer satisfaction. According to a <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/telecommunications/our%20insights/lessons%20from%20digital%20telcos%20five%20initiatives%20to%20improve%20business%20performance/higher_satisfaction_at_lower_costs_digitizing_customer_care.ashx">McKinsey study</a>, many companies have realized cost savings with forums and collaborative communities of over 80 percent.
When you combine the ease of deployment and management of a cloud based, collaborative customer portal platform with a powerful online CRM business solution, it’s a win-win for the company and its customers.
Are you reluctant to contract costly, extensive programming projects to deploy <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3013177/creative-conversations/why-the-future-of-customer-service-is-self-service">self service platforms</a> on enterprise CMS applications like Sitecore or Kentico? Cautious about investing in costly CMS support, maintenance and/or licensing, like with Sitefinity and/or SharePoint? Your existing CRM might be ideal for your static content; but might lack interoperability with your business applications.
Though CRM applications were not built to act as a CMS, some CRM portals such as Microsoft’s CRM Portal (formerly Adxstudio) and Salesforce.com’s native portal platform require their customers to do just that. Purpose-built ticketing apps might be sufficient for small businesses with limited needs.
The Magentrix platform for collaborative customer self-service is at the nexus of ease of deployment, affordability and ease of business application integration. As a complement to an existing CMS deployment, or as a stand-alone customer service platform, Magentrix portals deliver customer service efficiency, minimize technology overhead and controls cost. <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal">Learn More about the Magentrix Solution.</a>
<hr />
This post is <a href="/advertising/">sponsored</a> by Magentrix. Find out more at <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/aspx/trypartnerportal">Magentrix</a>.

Customer Service Portals: Fitting in With a CMS or CRM

I'm pleased to announce that the nominations stage for the 2016 CMS Critic Awards are now open. You can cast your nominations by visiting the <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">awards page</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cmscritic-awards.png" alt="cmscritic-awards" />
This year, we've decided to go with the following categories so please be sure to submit your favorites in each:
<ul>
<li>Best Blogging Software</li>
<li>Best Website Builder</li>
<li>Best Free CMS</li>
<li>Best Open Source CMS</li>
<li>Best New CMS</li>
<li>Best Enterprise CMS</li>
<li>Best Small Business CMS</li>
<li>Best Document Management System</li>
<li>Best Learning Management System</li>
<li>Best Intranet Software</li>
<li>Best Enterprise Portal</li>
<li>Best Social Network Software</li>
<li>Best eCommerce Software</li>
<li>Best Marketing Automation Software</li>
<li>Best Forum Software</li>
<li>Best CRM (Client Relationship Management) Software</li>
<li>Best Analytics Software</li>
<li>Best Managed Hosting Provider – WordPress</li>
<li>Best Hosting Provider</li>
</ul>
Also, please ensure that when you submit your nomination, you provide a detailed reason why you feel the product or company you are submitting should be included in the shortlist for an award. We appreciate your submissions but single line answers aren't helpful when it comes to determining the best of the best so please do be descriptive.
Thanks!

Nominations for the 2016 CMS Critic Awards are Now Open

Hotjar - Spot what confuses

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

#ffffff

To wrap up this featured week with Ecwid, we’re focusing on the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ecwid.com/apps/Featured">Ecwid App Market</a>.Coming back to today’s topic, it’s my view that no platform is truly complete without at least a basic app store to provide optional functionality boosts. And Ecwid has that – and more.Let’s take a look at Ecwid’s App Store.<h2>Keep Your Store Growing</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3-1-1024x489.png" alt="sshot-3" />Adding functionality to the front-end and back-end of your store will help keep its growth on track. And Ecwid recognized that by making weekly additions to its App Store.Some of the categories found within the store include:<ul><li>Marketing</li><li>Shipping</li><li>Store Management</li><li>Theme customization</li><li>Accounting</li></ul>And what’s more is, many of the apps are totally free.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ecwid-apps.png" /><h2>Developer Friendly</h2>I could tell you that Ecwid is developer-friendly, but I think it sounds better coming from an actual developer:<blockquote>“Most eCommerce platforms only partially support 360º views. Crazy, I know, but there is good news…Many eCommerce platforms are catching up, albeit slowly. We've built 360º view Apps for other eCommerce platforms, but most platforms are hesitant to let us build a deeply integrated App that works perfect.And then, there's Ecwid.Ecwid is the first eCommerce platform that decided to have 100% compatibility with our 360º viewer at Imajize. In fact, we worked directly with the software engineers at Ecwid.The result? Together, we built one the most polished 360º view Apps yet. With this App installed, you can easily add our 360º viewer into your Ecwid product page. It's almost too easy.The team at Ecwid played a huge role at making this happen (so thanks, Ecwid!).”</blockquote>All that praise for Ecwid came recently from Imajize, an app developer that was happy about Ecwid’s support for its 360 degree view image producing application. Support that, they say, has been hard to come by elsewhere in the eCommerce industry.If that’s not developer friendliness, I don’t know what is.To check out the Ecwid App Market for yourself, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ecwid.com/">head over to their website</a>.And with that, we tie up the last entry of Ecwid’s featured week here on CMS Critic.

The Ecwid App Market: A Hub of Growth & Customization

<img alt="sshot-1" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1-2.png" /> WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world – for many good reasons. One of those reasons, is the flexibility it offers through third-party plugins like the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/ecwid-shopping-cart">Ecwid WordPress Plugin</a>, which makes for an impressive eCommerce extension. 
<blockquote>
“Ecwid is the best e-commerce solution for WordPress applications. Ecwid offers a solution that easily integrates with a responsive WordPress platform and is much easier and more cost effective [when] compared to most other e-commerce solutions.” 
— Mikel Bruce, CEO and Founder at tinyfrog.com.
</blockquote>
Let’s take a closer look at what Ecwid’s WordPress plugin brings to the table.
<h2>Ecwid WordPress Plugin Features</h2>
<img alt="sshot-2" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2-1.png" />
The Ecwid WordPress plugin boasts all the native features of Ecwid that can be integrated across a number of platforms.
Those features include:
<ul>
<li>Install Ecwid in minutes</li>
<li>Sleek interfaces and product catalogs</li>
<li>Responsive design</li>
<li>Personalised customer accounts</li>
<li>Product favoriting </li>
<li>Automatic language detection</li>
<li>Smart shipping calculator</li>
<li>Multiple POS system integrations (including Clover, Vend, and Square POS)</li>
<li>Detailed tax automation</li>
<li>Personalised retail apps for iOS and Android via the Ecwid ShopApp feature (for Ecwid Unlimited users only)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Free for WordPress.org </h2>
Ecwid also offers a totally free plan that doesn’t require any further modules or plugins to function. And the Ecwid control panel is now accessed from inside your WordPress dashboard so you don’t need to log in to separate locations.
At the time of writing, the plugin boasts over 20,000 downloads and a 4.6/5 star rating on the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/ecwid-shopping-cart">WordPress plugin repository</a>.
<h2>Smart &amp; Secure</h2>
Furthermore, Ecwid’s WordPress shopping cart offers seamless and automatic upgrades, hosted on powerful and secure Amazon EC2 servers for free.
Ecwid is also PCI-DSS Level 1 Service Provider certified, which ensures a robust level of digital security and makes transactions with your payment gateway and bank airtight.
From a personal standpoint, I’m beginning to see Ecwid as one of the most helpful eCommerce solutions on the market. It lets you launch your own retail app, configure taxes in one click, and integrate with WordPress and WordPress.com via a simple plugin.
To find out more about the Ecwid WordPress plugin, <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ecwid-shopping-cart/">check out the WordPress plugin repository</a>.

Ecwid for WordPress: An Easy & Secure Ecommerce Plugin

With the number of ecommerce platforms out there, how does one determine which ones work as intended and offer the best bang for the buck? Today, we're going to help answer this questions by sharing with you our Top 5 Ecommerce Solutions for your Website.There's no doubt that ecommerce is playing a strong role in the content management market of late. Products and services are consistently being sold online more and more and traditional brick and mortar retailers are quickly discovering that without an online presence, they are sacrificing valuable opportunities to their competition.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bigcommerce.png" alt="Bigcommerce" /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/">Bigcommerce</a> is one of the largest and most popular ECommerce providers out there. With a number of offerings including the recently announced <a href="/bigcommerce-launch-bigcommerce-next-beauty-brawn-brains/">Bigcommerce Next</a>, they should definitely be considered as a major player.Check out this video showcasing Bigcommerce Next that was just introduced today: We recently did a <a href="/bigcommerce-review/">Bigcommerce Review </a>, which highlights some of the advantages to using their system. Check it out or <a href="/products/bigcommerce">visit their website directly </a> to get the skinny on this great solution for your business.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/magento-go-logo236x0.jpeg" alt="magento go" />Magento Go is the hosted ecommerce edition of Magento, the powerful enterprise ecommerce suite. With Magento Go, you get tons of power and configurability for a reasonable cost. It's intended for customers who are new to ecommerce and offers an app store, marketing tools and tons of options for the price.This video showcases (in less than a minute) what you need to know about Magento Go:http://youtu.be/2_1vPLB23LcIf you want to learn more, <a target="_blank" href="https://magento.com/">check out Magento Go</a> and see if it's the right fit for your business needs.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3dcart-logo236x0.jpg" alt="3dcart" />3dcart is another excellent platform for ecommerce. Unlike several of their competitors, 3dcart does not charge transaction fees and offers 24/7 free technical support. With costs that are certainly within reason, they are an excellent option. You won't be sacrificing features either, 3dcart is loaded with all of the features you'd expect from a great online store builder / ecommerce solution.Here's a quick video introducing the product: If you want to learn more, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.shift4shop.com/">visit the 3dcart website</a> and see if it's the right fit for your business needs.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shopify-bag-and-logotype236x0.png" alt="shopify" />Shopify is another popular ecommerce solution. While it doesn't have as many years on the market as some of it's competitors, the company and the product have developed a very good name for themselves since coming to market. Shopify is a great solution that's very easy to use and chock full of features. By comparison, Shopify isn't as strong on the feature set as say, Bigcommerce but it offers a far more attractive set of themes and is more visually appealing. You can check out our in-depth <a href="/shopify-review-ecommerce-only-simpler/">Shopify Review</a> to learn more.Here's a quick video introducing the product: If you want to learn more, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.shopify.com/">visit the Shopify website</a> and see it's the right tool for you.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ecwid-cart236x0.png" alt="ecwid" />ecwid has been making a great name for themselves recently. Having <a href="/ecommerce-integration-arrives-for-wordpress.com-business">recently been selected by WordPress.com</a> as an ecommerce integration partner, along with Shopify, the ecwid brand has seen a big boost in adoption. Setup is very simple and the costs (aside from their free plan which is available for up to 10 products) is quite low and very competitive considering the features you get in return. With unlimited storage and bandwidth, ecwid is a great option to consider. You will find, however, that when compared with some of the bigger ecommerce players, there are some gaps in both feature set and visual appeal.Visit the <a target="_blank" href="http://open.ecwid.com/3htsZ">ecwid website</a> to check it out and learn more.Do you know of an ecommerce solution that you feel should be on this list? Share it with us in the comments below. Have you had experiences (good or bad) with any of these vendors? We'd love to hear from you! Please feel free to share in the comments.

Top 5 ECommerce Platforms for Your Website

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ipad-820272_1280-1-2-e1466076927587-1024x538.jpg" alt="ipad-820272_1280 (1)" />
Why do organisations need to consider a digital transformation?
Organisations need to do more than just consider a digital transformation. It is a vital step when you need to kick start your company’s digital strategies overlooked during its evolution.
Being left behind and forced to play catch-up is an expensive gamble that will allow your competitors to gain a significant advantage over you. Digital transformation is not just an empty phrase, it is a true philosophy for defining a content strategy that charts the needs of your target audience by establishing the kind of content they should find engaging, by identifying the channels and schemes for reaching them and formulating the KPIs necessary to measure it effectively.
Only by defining the touch points you want to track across all channels, both online and offline, and then optimising the customer journey accordingly, can you determine the tools essential for you to capture and gather the data required for optimising your content strategies. In this way, you can achieve a marketing performance that goes way beyond just satisfactory.
Also, segmenting your customers using their behaviour or character traits and making sure you are integrating your e-commerce strategy with your multi-channel strategy, makes it possible for you to achieve customer delight and boost your sales revenue.
By delivering a consistent user experience that exceeds customers’ expectations across all devices and channels through things such as having a responsive web design, your digital presence can achieve a true single customer view.
These tools are vital parts of your digital brand marketing strategy, as well as ensuring that the client data you gather fully integrates with your email data through your CRM. Plus, when you are keeping your corporate vision in line with a thorough understanding of both your customers and current digital trends, you can help your company resonate as a brand-leading multi-channel business. This in turn will assist you in achieving your strategic objectives.
<h3>Can you point to examples of large organisations with traditional business models that embraced digital transformation, as well as the results they’ve seen?</h3>
Groundforce (part of the Vibroplant group) have been offering total solutions to the construction industry for the last 30 years in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. They had an obsolete CMS and it was crucial to improve the speed, functionality and usability by incorporating all websites into a one-domain strategy on a fully-responsive website. The challenge was to import products, users and technical documents to the new site and unify them into a consistent user experience.
As Claire Locker, Account Director at NetConstruct explains, “Our client, Groundforce, was very forward thinking… Rather than the website branding being born out of the existing marketing requirements, the website has been the driver for their branding and marketing. These aspects are now found in all their communications, from brochures to presentation formats.” Since that digital transformation, there has been a rapid upturn in results. Several large orders were placed on the UK and German sites shortly after launch and there is now a drastic reduction in page load time. These are precisely the ways in which digital transformation can improve the customer experience, promote brand advocacy and boost ROI.
By keeping an eye on how your customers relate digitally to their interaction with your company, you can actively continue to enhance and refine the customer journey, garnering favourable responses from your users.
<h3>What are the consequences for companies that don’t embrace digital transformation?</h3>
Ignoring digital transformation can be perceived by customers as you having a lack of interest in them. Clunky and awkward customer experiences quickly result in customers looking elsewhere. Users are no longer limited to where they can access online content, and they know it. With mobile phones, tablets and laptops affording consumers access on the go, it is necessary to keep your site fast and efficient, regardless of the device on which it is viewed. It is essential to understand the way in which your website is accessed as it is a defining factor in understanding your customers.
Claire Locker goes further to illustrate users’ perceptions of a bad digital experience. “Any obstacles in their way such as poor usability, poor navigation, links which don’t work or poor design are held against the company.  The website is possibly the first point of call for a potential client – if they do not like what they see, the chances are that they never contact the company at all – a missed opportunity.” It is then a tough, if not impossible, task to try and win that visitor over again. So, consider this when implementing digital transformation without a proper understanding of whom you are attempting to engage with.
<h3>What is the value of approaching digital transformation as a coordinated strategic programme as opposed to through separate digital initiatives when individual needs arise?</h3>
Coordinated strategic plans must be based on an understanding throughout all areas of the organisation. This means knowing what the goals and expected outcomes are, and what they mean to the people involved. They should have an clear understanding of the transformation process, and how their roles fit into it. Creating measures that in turn unify the look, the feel and the perceived identity of the company is an essential part of making sure that digital transformation has a consistent and homogenous quality.
Welcome the constructive input of all staff in the process, and gain an understanding of how the customer will relate to your changes – determine whether this reaction is favourable for your digital business model and your users’ needs. Implementing digital transformation based on deliverables and a realistic schedule means regular departmental meetings to assess the process, the project’s progress, measuring the real-time effect and checking that the vision is still relevant and being implemented correctly.
Claire Locker has done a lot of work with clients performing such transformations. In her experience, having a, “holistic and recognisable approach to all the marketing channels – website, social media, advertising campaigns, brochures and development internationally – serves to strengthen the design aesthetics and build customer loyalty and recognition.”
Making sure all processes are fully supported through the correct structure and tools will ensure the transformation promotes the digital maturity of your company.
After all, businesses need to grow and develop. A badly implemented digital transformation that generates a misaligned digital experience and loses customer loyalty will result in a King Midas in reverse effect, and nobody wants that.
<hr />
This post is <a href="/advertising/">sponsored</a> by Kentico. Find out more at <a href="http://www.kentico.com/">Kentico.com</a>

The Importance of Digital Transformation for Large Organisations

Business users of WordPress.com were today treated to the eagerly awaited arrival of ecommerce integration. 
 The release allows <a href="http://store.wordpress.com/plans/business/?ref=ecom" target="_blank"> WordPress.com Business</a> users to connect their website to three popular online store solutions – <a href="/shopify" target="_blank">Shopify</a>,  <a href="http://open.ecwid.com/3htsZ" target="_blank">Ecwid</a> &amp;  <a href="http://en.support.wordpress.com/shoplocket/" target="_blank">ShopLocket</a>.
 Using the new ecommerce integration system, you can showcase, promote, and sell products to your customers directly from your WordPress.com site.
<h2>A Quick &amp; Easy Ecommerce Connection</h2>
Alongside features like live-chat support, unlimited storage, and free access to all WordPress.com <a href="http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/sort/premium/">premium themes</a>, Business users of WordPress.com can turn your site into a sleek online storefront, and let visitors shop from any post or page..
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2014-02-25-at-10-31-51-am700x0.png" alt="WordPress.com Ecommerce" />
Connecting to your store is supremely quick and easy. All you have to to is head over to ” eCommerce Plugins” on the left-hand side of your WordPress.com dashboard, and then simply select your desired service from either <a href="http://en.support.wordpress.com/shoplocket/" target="_blank">Shopify</a>,  <a href="http://en.support.wordpress.com/ecwid/" target="_blank"> Ecwid</a> &amp;  <a href="http://en.support.wordpress.com/shoplocket/" target="_blank"> ShopLocket</a>.
<h2>Endless Possibilities</h2>
Once your WordPress.com Business site is connected to your online store, the possibilities are endless. 
 Although each of the three services is slightly different, you can feature your products by simply embedding a link to your product into the editor, pasting in a shortcode from the services’ back end. Furthermore, in some cases at least, just copying over the embed code into the editor will suffice. It's just that easy. 
 Regardless of the method you choose, the WordPress.com platform is ready to automatically convert each link into a highly professional product image.
Options to tweak your products’ appearance are also available. You can modify the look and feel of the products on your page by customizing the shortcode, from image size and background color to “Buy” button text. 
Also, depending on the ecommerce service you’re using, you can add products to your sidebar with a designated widget, or even have a shopping cart on your page. 
 All three ecommerce options are now available, so if you're a WordPress.com Business user, you can <a href="http://wordpress.com/landing/ecommerce-plugins/?ref=ecom" target="_blank"> try out the new ecommerce integration feature right now </a> .

Ecommerce Integration Arrives for WordPress.com Business

The open source content management system <a href="http://typo3.org/" target="_blank">TYPO3 CMS</a> is available for Microsoft Azure effective immediately.
<a href="http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/" target="_blank">Microsoft Azure</a> is the Microsoft cloud solution for enterprises looking to integrate on-premises apps and data, whereas TYPO3 is a free and open-source web content management framework based on PHP. The Swiss software company was founded in 2004.
According to the TYPO3 Association, more than 500,000 active websites worldwide use TYPO3 CMS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/typo3-logo-webdesign-duisburg1-1_400x0.png" alt="Typo3" />
Microsoft Azure customers now have total access to TYPO3 CMS on the Azure Web App Gallery. Naturally, this will enable such users to build, manage and/or adapt complex websites. Additionally, they can now easily change system requirements through autoscaling.
Peter Jaeger, the Senior Director Developer Experience &amp; Evangelism (DX), and Member of the Management Board of Microsoft, Germany, had this to say:
<blockquote>“Microsoft is increasingly embracing open source applications for the company‘s platforms and solutions. This is because we do not attach priority to technologies, but to people who wish to be productive across platforms and devices.
In recent months, we have made several development tools like .NET open source, thereby intensifying our collaboration with the open source community.
Deployments of TYPO3 on our Microsoft cloud platform Windows Azure are another step towards the community: not only do we address developers, but also many thousands of web designers and website administrators who benefit from Azure as a high-performance, secure and easily scalable platform.”</blockquote>
For more information on this integration, check out <a href="http://typo3.org/news/article/typo3-cms-now-available-for-microsoft-azure/" target="_blank">TYPO3's official announcement</a>.
Also, you can explore more of <a href="/products/typo3/" target="_blank">TYPO3 via our CMS Directory</a>.

TYPO3 CMS Now Available For Microsoft Azure

Semrush - Be an SEO hero

Be an SEO hero with Semrush

<a href="http://buildwithcraft.com/" target="_blank">Craft</a> has made itself accessible in a new, faster, and much easier way.
Recently, Craft came out on top as the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-php-cms-for-small-to-midsize-business/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award Winner for Best PHP CMS for Small to Midsize Businesses</a>. This news comes just a few weeks after <a href="/craft-2.3-arrives-with-flurry-of-features/" target="_blank">the release of Craft 2.4</a>.
The all-new <a href="https://demo.buildwithcraft.com/" target="_blank">Craft Demo Website</a> allows users to try out the dedicated demo site is called, “Happy Lager”. Each user who signs up will get a personalized version of the site — so there's no having to share the demo with the rest of the community. All users need to provide is a name and an email address.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1700x0.jpg" alt="Craft" /> 
Essentially, it's a super-easy way to try out Craft for yourself, and perhaps introduce it to friends or co-workers.
Furthermore, <a href="https://github.com/pixelandtonic/HappyLager" target="_blank">Craft have open sourced Happy Lager via GitHub</a>, so you can freely tinker with it on a deeper level.
To find out more, c/dir/products/craft/heck out <a href="http://pixelandtonic.com/blog/meet-happy-lager-crafts-new-demo-site" target="_blank">Craft's blog announcement</a>, and of course <a href="https://demo.buildwithcraft.com/" target="_blank">the demo website itself</a>.
Plus, be sure to explore more of <a href="/products/craft-cms/" target="_blank">Craft via our CMS Directory</a>.

Craft Launches New Demo Site

Weglot - The easiest way to translate a website

The easiest way to translate a website

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