Articles - Page 55

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

matt-garrepy

ButterCMS is designed to be the ideal content management system (CMS) enabling developers to use any technology and programming language and for marketers to produce new content independently.
An an API-driven CMS (also known as headless), <a href="https://buttercms.com/" target="_blank">ButterCMS</a> has a pre-defined data structure optimized to handle a variety of content allowing  developers to integrate it with any tech stack and speed up development. Using tools such as <a href="https://buttercms.com/react-cms/" target="_blank">React</a>, <a href="https://buttercms.com/angular-cms/" target="_blank">Angular</a>, or any other framework of their choice, developers can build a frontend that can act as an easy-to-use interface for marketing teams. As a result, non technical users, content editors and marketers can easily create and edit content.
For the marketing teams, it is extremely important to have a custom user interface where they can track their activities and plan for future tasks. With an API-driven CMS, marketers can specify and define their business requirements and needs through a flexible user interface.
The power of an API-driven CMS lies in its ability to simplify content management without users having to worry about the underlying data structure. Here are some product updates ButterCMS has made <a href="/buttercms-productivity-enhancements-for-content-editors-and-developers/" target="_blank">since our last post</a>, to provide a smoother content management process:
<h2>Collections Capabilities</h2>
ButterCMS unveiled major improvements to their collections, which are similar to databases with various content types that can be stored and fetched when required.  In ButterCMS, the collection builder has been upgraded to a single page application with a much quicker response time, which makes setting up collections a fast and smooth process.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/buttercms-collection-builder-_h20dlr.png" />
ButterCMS has updated the collections user interface to provide a more consistent experience when creating and managing items within the collections. You can now make updates, clone and delete collection items and view your entire content history.
There are more capabilities when it comes to fetching content out of your collection with the newly added parameters to the collection end point. In addition, ButterCMS has refined the format for filtering content in your collection.
<h2>Scheduling Pages</h2>
Another big capability Butter has added is scheduling pages, by allowing you to pick a specific date and time for your content to go live. This new feature gives content editors more control and flexibility to coordinate releases of content such as scheduling a blog post to go along with a major announcement you have on your site.
<h2>Export Blog Posts</h2>
ButterCMS also recently launched their export blog post function which facilitates the download of all your blog post data into an excel file. You can now download all your blog posts and conduct an SEO analysis to improve your ranking with this feature which is an important tool for all content marketers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/buttercms-blog-posts_i6mptl.png" />
ButterCMS is a highly effective and functional API-driven CMS offering flexibility and cost reduction. The content dashboard is a centralized platform complete with content management responsibilities and faster customization. Butter gives marketing teams the CMS they've always dreamed of without creating a hassle for developers.

New Enhancements to ButterCMS’ Collection Builder and more

mike-johnston

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/goodwebcontent.jpg" />
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.
<ol>
<li>Use an attention-grabbing headline. 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>Break up the content with subheadings, numbers, or bullet points. 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>Feature an image. 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>Keep the tone personal, professional, and engaging. 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 get people reading, keep people reading, and ensure that people get your message.</li>
<li>Ensure good grammar and spelling. 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>Keep things varied. 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>Keep your audience in mind. 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>Make it long enough (but not too long). 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>
Content is at the heart of your web strategy. It's worth giving it your best shot to make it even better.

Eight Tips for Creating Readable Content

daniel-threlfall

Top Flat File CMS Platforms for Building Simple Websites Fast

paris-tuzun

<a href="http://www.joomla.org">Joomla</a>! is perhaps one of the best known names in the world of Content Management Systems. Originally a fork of Mambo, Joomla has surpassed it's predecessor in popularity and size by a massive margin. Does Joomla! really deserve all the praise it's been getting? Let's examine it and find out in this Joomla 1.5 review.
First released in January of 2008, version 1.5 has since seen a number of point releases to cover security holes and issues.
With the new release a number of very anticipated changes have been put in place such as one central installation tool and improved theming.
Upon installation we are greeted with the following screen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomla1.gif" alt="Joomla 1.5 Review" />
I proceed to the screen below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomla2.gif" alt="Joomla 1.5 Review" />
This is an excellent preinstall check that quickly gives you a breakdown of problem areas and things that need to be resolved. For most people, if you are on a shared host and not a VPS .. if you have anything RED, you may need to contact your provider before proceeding.
After accepting the license agreement on the next screen, we are greeted with:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomla3.gif" alt="Joomla 1.5 Review" />
Enter your database details (for those first timers who've never had to do this before, Joomla has gone to good lengths to make sure they explain each field well). Once this is done, we proceed:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomla4.gif" alt="Joomla 1.5 Review" />
This is an option I quite like. The ability to add FTP configuration is a sweet function. This allows you to enter your ftp details to your site and let Joomla correct any permissions issues that it encounters without bugging you. In my books, this is immediately filled in every time I install it. Some people will want more direct control though, and for you, you can safely ignore this screen entirely.
Enter your site name, details and choose whether you want sample data installed.
CAVEAT: If you don't install the sample data, you will literally get a bare bones website with zero content and it'll look horrible right off the bat.. so make sure you know what you are doing.
If you want a populated site with content so you can see how it would look when populated.. click install sample data. Otherwise, click next. <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomla7.gif" alt="Joomla 1.5 Review" /> Here you see the default site with Sample Data installed. Joomla has one of the better default themes and it shows quite nicely. Let's check out the administration interface:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomla8.gif" alt="Joomla 1.5 Review" />
Joomla has a nice interface with dropdowns. One of the things I found a bit overwhelming was the number of places content can hide. I literally spent 15 minutes trying to find one article that as buried in a bizarre place not reminiscent of content.
Joomla does a good job of making everything available. There are tons of options and it'll take a few to get used to maneuvering within the admin panel, but once you get used to it.. it functions quite nicely. What I did not like was the breakdown of sections, categories and content. I found I had a hard time understanding which was which and where my article would end up. I also couldn't figure out why I had to have both a category and a section (I hate being forced to do things..)
Once nice new inclusion in 1.5 was the universal installer. Instead of trying to discern what is a mambot, module, component or theme.. you just install the zip from one box in the CMS and it figures it out for you.
Joomla, like Drupal has a very large community, a large number of modules and an amazing amount of beautiful themes available from either premium sources or free.
In this Joomla 1.5 review, we've given it the ratings below:
Community 9/10 (The forums are active, but I found from a few posts I made that it takes a while to get a reply)
Expandability 8/10 (There are modules, but you are still limited with the way views, content and such can be presented as well as there are quite a few essential modules which required payment) Themability 10/10 (Probably the best CMS when it comes to themes. There are thousands of beautiful ones available from a myriad of sources.) Useability 7/10 (Content sections can get overwhelming and using third party addons can get messy as I found quite a few that were not stable or had poor support themselves)
<h2>Overall Score: 8/10</h2>

Joomla 1.5 Review - A Look at the Popular Open Source CMS

When it comes to website traffic analytics, Google Analytics is by far the most popular and widely used tool on the market. It’s powerful, accurate, easy to install, and practically the industry standard at this point.
However, it’s not perfect, and there are a few flaws in GA that can leave some users feeling a little bewildered. Google has addressed this with a number of ‘hacks’ and native/third party plugins that can improve Google Analytics as you require.
I’ve put together a list of some of the best.
<h2>1. Track Clicks On Links To Other Sites</h2>
Tracking links that leave your site is exceptionally useful as it allows you to judge where and how your traffic flows away from your site. In order to track outgoing links within the system, GA users will have to code by hand which isn’t always the easiest task.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/picture_4.png" />
There are a number of different ways get around the coding aspect, such as adding a few short lines of jquery (which can be found in a number of sites like <a href="https://github.com/remy/min.js">min.js</a>,<a href="http://zeptojs.com/"> Zepto.js</a>,<a href="http://minifiedjs.com/"> and Minified.js</a>.
Using these lines of code, you can direct Google Analytics' pagetracker to track outbound link clicks extremely easily.
<h2>2. Google Analytics Filters Bot Traffic Automatically – You Just Didn’t Know It</h2>
This simple analytics hack makes life much easier by filtering all the automated bot traffic out of your metrics. So, you’re left with the real clicks that you’re actually interested in.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/picture_1507x0-is.png" />
To filter all the bot and search spider traffic from your metrics, just go to the Admin settings. In the View panel, you’ll see View Settings. At the very bottom of this panel, you’ll see a small section for Bot Filtering that has a box next to it that says: ‘Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders’.
Once you tick this box you’ll automatically filter all the known bots and search spiders from your metrics.
<h2>3. Use In-Browser Extensions to Display Information In New Ways</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/picture_5.png" />
Google Analytics can be augmented in many ways that don’t include tampering with your code or your site. There are hundreds of interesting and useful extensions that can be added via your browser.
<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tag-assistant-by-google/kejbdjndbnbjgmefkgdddjlbokphdefk">The Tag Assistant </a>: This chrome extension allow you to automatically check if you have installed your tracking tags in the correct places.
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/table-booster-for-google/mhedbgbipbdppajofkiklhlbbdlldidj">Table Booster </a>: This extension allows you to change the way that data is visualized on your Google Analytics dashboard. This allows you to spot errors and identify trends much quicker.
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gaidpiakchgkapdgbnoglpnbccdepnpk">Campaign URL Builder </a>: Using Google Tag Manager? If so, this extension can be a very powerful tool. It lets you insert your own GTM container snippet onto a page so you can create your own test environment test it on a site via your browser
</li>
</ul>
<h2>4. Track Your Downloads</h2>
Google Analytics allows you to track your downloads ‘out of the box’ but it requires a lot of specific code manipulation that can be a little daunting for most. Fear not, Google Analytics Certified Partner firm <a href="https://www.analyticspros.com">Analytics Pros </a>have developed a plugin that allows you automate the tagging for your download files in just a few clicks.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4.png" />
This can be especially useful if you have a large number of file links on your site or you feel the code aspect might be a little too time consuming.
<h2>5. Get Google Analytics On Your Apple Products</h2>
As recently as two years ago, it was impossible to get Google Analytics to display on your iPhone without using a third party app that people found a little iffy, especially with data protection being such a hot topic.
You might not have realized that Google has launched an <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/google-analytics/id881599038?mt=8">iPhone (and iPad) </a>specific app that gives you all of the power of Google Analytics, optimized for your smart phone.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/5.png" />
With Google's app, you can track users in real time, analyze behaviours, and check referalls.
<h2>6. Integrate Google Analytics With Google Docs</h2>
A plugin<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics/fefimfimnhjjkomigakinmjileehfopp"> available from Google </a>lets you automatically export your Google Analytics information into Google Docs to allow you to use their powerful word processing and visualization tools to present your site metrics in a clean, shareable manner.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/picture_3887x0-is.png" />
This free plugin allows you to query and display your data from multiple viewpoints, calculate and display custom reports, create pie charts or other visual aids and embed these on third-party websites, schedule your reports to process, and then update automatically.
<h2>7. Use Google Analytics In Your CMS</h2>
You don’t have to stick with Google’s dashboard – you can view your Google Analytics metrics directly on your CMS dashboard with a range of special widgets. Not only do these widgets allow you to easily insert your Analytics code onto your site (usually with a one click solution) but they also allow data visualization of real time traffic.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/7.png" />
There’s a range of third party extensions for <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-analytics-dashboard-for-wp/">WordPress</a>, <a href="http://extensions.joomla.org/extension/asynchronous-google-analytics">Joomla</a>, and many others.
It's worth noting that, although most major content management systems support Google Analytics in one way or another, not all of them allow you to view your stats within their dashboard.
<h2>Hack To Your Heart's Content</h2>
These hacks and plugins allow you to bring Google’s powerful Analytic platform to a new level and customize it to the exact way that you need. I hope you’ll find them as useful as I have.
Why not tell us about some of your hacks and plugin finds? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

7 Google Analytics Plugins & Hacks You Should Know About

grainne-logue

I have a soft spot for minimalism in web design and nothing makes me smile more than coming upon a well-designed, minimalist website with a strong focus on content. There is a growing number of excellent CMS themes that showcase minimalism very well while maintaining unique looks and styling. Today, I'm going to highlight some of my personal favorites for you.
<h2>Minimalist WordPress Themes</h2>
<h3>iA³ template</h3>
Designed by Information Architects and available for purchase on their website, this premium theme offers a very unique style and look that makes content the primary focus. With full mobile capabilities, this is a beautifully rendered theme at a very reasonable price. It incorporates standards-compliant HTML5 and CSS3 and jQuery and comes with a full Android and iPhone version.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine_woa88q.png" alt="ia3-1" />
You can purchase (or preview) the theme from <a href="http://store.informationarchitects.jp/product/ia%C2%B3-template" target="_blank">Information Architects</a>
<h3>Pimlico</h3>
Designed by Rodrigo Galindez, this theme provides a unique 3 column look with excellent typography and a unique style. Rodrigo has designed some of the most popular minimalist WordPress themes including Modern Clix and The Modernist. Pimlico is less than $25, which is a great deal for a WordPress theme.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pimlico-580x450.png" alt="pimlico" />
You can preview Pimlico, check out his other themes or buy it from his website: <a href="http://www.rodrigogalindez.com/" target="_blank">Rodrigo Galindez</a>
<h3>Suburbia</h3>
Designed by WPShower.com, this theme offers a really unique look as well as some awesome features for a free theme such as integrated automatic tinyurl generation, a logo that moves from left to right on posts and more. The folks at WPShower produce a number of exceptional minimalist themes for WordPress, most of which are free.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cmsexpo2013-620x355_miefz0.jpg" alt="suburbia1" />
Check out Suburbia or there other awesome themes on <a href="http://www.wpshower.com" target="_blank">the WPShower website</a>.
<h3>Typominima</h3>
Designed by Blogsessive, Typominima is an attractive (and free!) single column theme with a focus on Typography. It's unique really showcases content and images well. Perfect for a blog.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialmediamoderation-620x385_fp1ghc.jpg" alt="typominima" />
You can test and download from here: <a href="http://blogsessive.com" target="_blank">Typominima from Blogsessive</a>.
<h3>The Standard Theme</h3>
Designed by 8Bit, The Standard Theme is an advanced premium theme with extreme customization capabilities, an indepth options panel and lots of SEO functionality built right in. It's used by a good number of websites and is very easy to customize.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/standardtheme_com-screen-capture-2011-5-16-9-36-55-493x1024.png" alt="standardtheme" />
You can test or purchase The Standard theme from their website: <a href="https://poststatus.com/notes/woothemes-acquired-standard-theme-8bit/" target="_blank">Standard Theme</a>
 
Do you have favorites that we haven't covered here? Please share them in the comments below!

A Collection of our favorite Minimalist WordPress themes

PlushForums Review

Sulu is a content management system built on Symfony PHP.  Defining itself as a content management “platform”, Sulu focuses on facilitating highly customized content administration and publishing environments on the back end. Symfony and Sulu are both open-source, free, and backed by significant professional communities and expert support.
A single installation of Sulu can manage multiple complex websites with multiple language instances. Management occurs through one backend and an attractive UI with a live-updating preview of changes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sulu-cms-1_jv9dje.png" alt="sulu cms - 1" />
The Sulu content management platform offers users support throughout the complete content life cycle. Sulu manages users, which can be a team of developers and admins working on the site or end users or ecommerce customers.
Creating and managing content is at the heart of the platform. The UI is modern and sensible, allowing users to dive straight in and build or adjust content as needed. Once the webspaces and themes are defined, creating, maintaining, and publishing content can take center stage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sulu-cms-3_x3mc4j.png" alt="sulu cms - 3" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sulu-cms-2_rixh6n.jpg" alt="sulu cms - 2" />
A robust assets library allows access to images, documents, video, or any other type of media from anywhere in the installation. The system automatically resizes and reformats images to standards required for its templates while storing the original file, meaning one upload can provide infinite usability for visual assets.
Webspaces provide scaffolding for multiple separate websites, such as those used for different brands in the same company. In addition, global brands have multiple options for how they wish to present content in several languages that can be managed seamlessly from the same webspace. Fully customizable themes manage the content delivery to as many webspaces as needed.
Sulu’s final standard module, Settings, controls permissions, meta information, and all other internal adjustments of the platform.
The Sulu platform is designed with modern web standards at the core of its performance and runs without the use of plugins. Integrated SEO functions help sites deliver their best performance to users, search engines, and third-party applications.
Its API-first approach gives users the option to use it as a <a href="/headless-cms-buyers-guide/">headless CMS</a>, managing content behind the scenes for delivery to another front end such as a mobile app or ecommerce system.
<h2>Who is it for?</h2>
Sulu is geared for developers, content professionals, and digital marketers working in a business setting. The platform positions itself as a solution for enterprise-level websites and applications. A lack of pre-made templates makes the system unsuitable for users looking for a quick-setup, out-of-the-box website option.
However, custom modules open up possibilities for developing a well-organized, compliant backend for a wide variety of business applications. Extensive documentation and a live demo are available on the Sulu website for prospective users to explore.
Sulu includes a toolkit for digital marketers to take on high-end SEO and deep analytics integration while utilizing the platform’s ability to deliver targeted, personalized content.
The wide-ranging flexibility of the platform makes it an ideal space to integrate business logic and adapt to emerging markets.
<h2>What language is it built on?</h2>
Sulu runs on PHP using the <a href="https://symfony.com/" target="_blank">Symfony framework</a>. Symfony is an open-source PHP framework designed to organize and streamline a development workflow while optimizing performance. Compatibility with other database systems and a user-friendly interface help boost the framework’s flexibility.
Furthermore, Symfony is supported by SensioLabs, making for strong documentation and community. It’s highly expandible and designed with sustainability and ease of testing in mind.
<h2>Key features</h2>
<ul>
<li>Built for multilingual, multi-channel, and multi-portal infrastructure</li>
<li>User-friendly interface with clear navigation</li>
<li>Mobile and desktop editing support</li>
<li>Live WYSIWYG content preview when editing</li>
<li>Customizable modules</li>
<li>Made for flexibility, extensibility, and ease of maintenance</li>
</ul>
<h2>Why Sulu CMS?</h2>
While Sulu comprises many tools to streamline development tasks, a developer familiar with PHP and the Symfony framework is essential for getting the system up and running.
Knowledgeable users will find a system built to reduce time to market. Sulu’s extensibility safeguards organizations from outgrowing the platform and starting over as their business scales, branches, and moves into new markets.
Sulu CMS is aimed at giving businesses a single solution for a variety of evolving needs. Sulu’s learning curve may be steeper than some systems with more off-the-rack publishing-ready options. However, the platform pays on the other end in shifting long-term focus to content, message, and innovation.
Check it out at <a href="https://sulu.io/" target="_blank">https://sulu.io/</a>

Sulu, the Symfony CMS

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

#ffffff

April brought Spring to many of us. While Covid-19 continues to cast a shadow of uncertainty over the world, it’s safe to say that the digital field is in full bloom.Last month was full of new announcements about upgrades and updates, primarily focused on content teams. Adobe, Contentful, Strapi, and Kentico Kontent all released new features that are designed to break down silos and deliver greater efficiency to users.Here are some of the highlights from the stories we’ve been tracking: <h2>Adobe Introduces Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials, Announces New Solutions to Improve E-commerce Experience for Adobe Commerce</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/05/36391-benefits-media-library-essentials2xpngimg_.png" alt="Adobe media library essentials" />Adobe introduced its new <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/assets/assets-essentials.html">Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials</a> – a lightweight edition of <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/assets/aem-assets.html">Adobe Experience Manager Assets</a>. It offers a simplified user experience for marketing and creative pros to store, discover, and distribute digital assets across their teams. Assets Essentials will serve as the default asset management experience across Experience Cloud apps, starting with the new Adobe Journey Optimizer and later this year with Adobe Workfront.The new Assets Essentials provides a centralized workspace for the asset repository to store, share, and manage images, videos, documents, and other assets. It allows teams to create, assign, track, review, and approve tasks in a collaborative workspace. And of course, being an Adobe product, it supports all file types including full-sized Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, XD, and more.On the same day, Adobe also announced new capabilities for <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/magento-commerce.html">Adobe Commerce powered by Magento</a> (formerly Magento Commerce) that extend the intelligence of features like Product Recommendations and Live Search. An upcoming integration with <a target="_blank" href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/sign.html">Adobe Sign</a> means a more seamless commerce experience for any transactions that require e-signatures as part of the checkout process. <h2>The Digital World Mourns the Passing of Chuck Geschke, Co-found of Adobe and Father of the PDF</h2>There are many icons in the computer and software world, and some of the earliest pioneers have made significant contributions that we take for granted every day. One such notable creation: the ubiquitous Portable Document Format, otherwise known as the PDF.Today, we pay homage to Charles “Chuck” Geschke, the co-founder of Adobe, who died on April 16th at the age of 81. Not only did he help develop the PDF, but he drove innovation across desktop publishing, turning Photoshop into a cultural Webster’s reference – and Adobe into a powerhouse. Chuck radically changed the way people create, view, and share documents and images, and his impact cannot be overstated.Farewell to the Father of the PDF, and one of the great digital innovators of all time. <h2>Contentful Unveils New Features and Partner Apps at Second Annual Blueprints Conference</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/05/contentful-logo-dark.png" alt="Contentful logo - dark" /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a leading enterprise headless CMS provider, <a target="_blank" href="https://press.contentful.com/197449-contentful-unveils-new-features-and-partner-apps-at-second-annual-blueprints-conference">announced</a> the release of new features and partner-built apps at its second annual <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blueprints-2021/">Blueprints</a> user conference.The new features include <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/04/08/governance-tagging-metadata/">tags and permissions</a> that provide content teams greater flexibility and control over how they organize, find, and edit content – and manage permissions across the organization.These platform enhancements build on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">the recent release of Compose + Launch</a> – two new Contentful apps that allow content authors, editors, and planners to adapt and publish content independently without having to rely on developer resources.Contentful also announced the release of several partner-built apps in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/marketplace/">Contentful Marketplace</a>, including an app built by digital services provider <a target="_blank" href="https://portaltech.reply.com/portaltech/en/">Portaltech Reply</a> that connects Contentful with SAP Commerce Cloud – enabling businesses to adapt quickly to changing market conditions to deliver direct-to-consumer and omnichannel experiences.Other recently released partner-built apps for Contentful extend the platform's capabilities across personalization, e-commerce, translations, and video, including Uniform Optimize, Saleor Commerce, GlobalLink Connect by Translations.com, and Qencode Video Transcoding.Contentful recently earned the highest score possible in the partner ecosystem criterion – along with five other criteria – in the recent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/resources/forrester-wave-agile-cms-2021-report/">Forrester Wave™ Report for Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes)</a>. <h2>Crownpeak and ilumino Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Digital Accessibility</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/crownpeak_ilumino.jpg" alt="Crownpeak and ilumino logos in lockup format." /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a digital experience platform (DXP), <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/crownpeak-and-ilumino-announce-strategic-partnership-to-advance-digital-accessibility/">has announced</a> a strategic partnership with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ilumino.co/">ilumino</a>, a digital accessibility services and consulting firm. The two companies will offer an integrated solution that helps improve digital experiences for users with disabilities while evolving accessibility strategies for organizations.Together, Crownpeak and ilumino offer a single, integrated approach that evolves the accessibility model. The solution combines Crownpeak’s DQM technology, providing automated and ongoing scanning and auditing against WCAG guidelines, with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ilumino.co/solutions/">ilumino’s expert services</a> – which focuses on nurturing a company’s “culture of accessibility.”Some noteworthy highlights of the Crownpeak + ilumino solution include:<ul><li>Accessibility and compliance dashboard – providing a “single source of truth” for automated and manual accessibility monitoring</li><li>Automated site scanning (enriched by manual testing) – enterprise-grade, multi-site scanning technology</li><li>Manual testing and consulting – performed by certified accessibility experts</li><li>In-house or guided remediation – tailored to each organization’s unique design and development workflows</li><li>Ongoing support – ensuring sustained compliance through a proactive approach</li><li>Accessibility pattern library – simplifying remediation and establishing long-term organizational assets</li><li>Litigation support – with expert review and consulting on any accessibility-related legal actions received</li><li>Accessibility statement – drafted to demonstrate an organization’s commitment to digital inclusion</li><li>Enterprise strategy – assisting with a prioritized roadmap and risk management</li></ul> <h2>Strapi Headless CMS Announces v3.6 with Free Content Internationalization</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/i18n-2.png" alt="content internalization" />Strapi, a leading open-source headless CMS, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/strapi-headless-cms-announces-v3-6-with-free-content-internationalization/">has announced</a> the release of Strapi v3.6, which includes a highly anticipated content internationalization (i18n) feature as part of their Community Edition. Now, Strapi users will have the ability to create and manage content in multiple languages and locales for free and without limitations – and personalize messages delivered to target audiences based on language and geographic data.Leveraging integrations with Strapi’s draft and publish system and role-based access control, users will be able to manage their editing and publishing permissions based on specific locales. With Strapi’s internationalization, content is displayed for each locale based on content types. For example, if a company has an e-commerce website, they can select which product pages are displayed in French, Portuguese, or Mandarin. This level of localization is what enables a global digital strategy to work across borders and languages.In our exclusive discussion with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorcoisne/">Victor Coisne</a>, Strapi’s Vice President of Marketing, it’s clear that internationalization was a big part of the CMS vendor’s roadmap, and of significant importance to their growing base of global users. <h2>Kentico Kontent Gets a Fresh New User Interface, Adds Features to Streamline Enterprise Content Operations</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/kentico-new-ui-1.png" alt="The new Kentico content UI" />Kentico Kontent, a headless CMS, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kentico-kontents-new-user-interface-streamlines-enterprise-content-operations/">announced</a> the launch of their new user interface, designed to help enterprise content teams execute their content operations faster.The new UI has a fresh, modern design approach that fuses an array of vibrant colors with plenty of contrast to emphasize important elements.Kentico Kontent also unveiled new upgrades in their latest release, including the Collections feature – which lets enterprises manage all their content in a single repository, allowing the content to be shared across teams and channels without losing any control.With the Collections feature, teams can share content items across departments, websites, and experiences to ensure consistency and eliminate error-prone duplication. The goal is to improve efficiency and minimize the frustration that many enterprise content teams experience.

CMS Monthly Recap: Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials, Contentful Unveils New Features, Crownpeak Announces Partnership, and More

Lately, we've been seeing a shift towards simple, responsive, minimalist blogging platforms. More and more, people are looking for solutions that help them focus on their writing and offer distraction-free environments that enable them to do so quickly and effectively.
For years, WordPress has been the star of the show when it comes to blogging, but lately it seems to be developing into a more complex CMS than it was initially intended for when it was first released. Scores of plugins, themes and addons have, according to some, turned it into a more bloated solution than is necessary for the simple task of blogging.
Some of the differences you will find with these solutions in comparison to other blogging platforms are the editing interfaces and the reduction in features to focus on the primary goal of blogging; the writing. As opposed to more complicated editors, they tend to use Markdown for writing blog posts. Markdown is an easy to use text formatter that converts plain text into HTML and produces very readable content using plain text. You'll see what I mean when you try one of these blogging platforms. It's very easy to use.
For those who are finding it hard to find a blogging platform that suits their needs or are looking to start a new blog, this post will offer you some excellent alternatives to popular platforms like Blogger and WordPress. Here is our list of the best minimalist blogging platforms available.
<h2><a href="http://postach.io">Postach.io </a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_postachio960x0.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_postachio" />
I had to put Postach.io first simply because it's my personal favorite and one that, in my opinion, offers the most unique approach to blogging. Postach.io lets you store your content in either Dropbox or <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?uid=1238466&amp;sig=2de3b5d66a8d847e2d62e1425282eab5">Evernote</a> or both. This lets you choose whichever interface suits you the most (Dropbox files obviously needing to be edited in a text editor and uploaded whereas Evernote has a built in text editor) and work on your content within.
Publishing a post with Evernote is as simple as connecting your account to Postach.io, telling it which notebook in Evernote will contain your posts and then simply writing in that notebook and using the tag “published” when you are done. This tells Postach.io to put the post up on your blog and that's all there is to it. To add images, simply attach them to the note and it will be inserted in your blog post instantly.
The nice part to using the Evernote connection for Postach.io is you can take advantage of the many awesome Evernote apps for mobile devices and tablets that already exist which makes blogging with it a true pleasure.
Postach.io also has perhaps the most features of any of the other platforms I've mentioned so far including:
<ul>
<li>A number of pre-designed and attractive themes.</li>
<li>The ability to easily embed tweets, vine videos, youtube videos, instragram photos, flickr photos, slideshares, about me pages and tons more.</li>
<li>Disqus commenting</li>
<li>Google Analytics integration</li>
<li>You can even share your posts automatically on Facebook or Twitter simply by tagging them in Evernote or Dropbox (you can even customize the tag you use)</li>
<li>A full integrated source code editing interface</li>
</ul>
While Postach.io is free, you can upgrade for $5 / month or $50 / year and get the ability to have multiple sites, multiple authors and a secure website.
Postach.io is a must see and I strongly recommend taking a look to see how amazing it is.
Price: Free
<h2><a href="http://www.medium.com">Medium </a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_medium794x0.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_medium" />
Medium is a very interesting and unique alternative. What's nice about it is that it is designed to help you find an audience and to help you write better content. With a very simple and easy to use interface, Medium is a pleasure to use and gets rid of distractions such as sidebars, widgets and plugins while focusing on allowing you to share your stories and quips with the world.
Rather than overwhelm you with formatting, Medium offers you just enough to do what you need to do and nothing more. This makes the writing process painless and so distraction free that you'll likely want to write more just so you can use the editor. It truly is a beautiful setup. Furthermore, you don't need to worry about whether your website on Medium is responsive. Everything scales to all devices so you will never need to worry about how it's going to look on your phone or tablet again.
It's also a <a href="https://medium.com/about/8304190661d4"> collaborative tool </a> that lets you share your drafts with others and collaborate with them to produce better content. You can even thank those who helped you proof read or add ideas to your content.
My favorite thing about Medium, however, is the way your content is handled once you hit publish:
<blockquote>
We think great ideas can come from anywhere and should compete on their own merits. On Medium, you can contribute often or just once in a blue moon, without the commitment of a blog. And either way, you’re publishing into a thriving, pulsing network — not a standalone web site, which you alone are responsible for keeping alive.
Through a combination of algorithmic and editorial curation, posts on Medium get spread around based on interest and engagement. Some get hundreds of thousands of readers — and not because they were written by famous people. Medium is not about who you are or whom you know, but about what you have to say.
</blockquote>
I've seen this in action on some of my own writings on Medium where people who I do not know have added comments and shared their thoughts with me. If you write great content, you have a great opportunity to find an audience on Medium.
Price: Free
<h2><a href="https://svbtle.com/">Svblte </a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_svbtle910x0.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_svbtle" />
Svtle is similar in some aspects to Medium in that the platform uses Markdown for formatting content and is very distraction free. If you can't tell by the screenshot of the Svblte.com homepage above that this is a minimalist blogging platform, I'd be surprised.
Svblte has been designed in a way to let you dump your ideas into the dashboard and save them as inspiration for future work. It lets you write very distraction free content using an incredibly simple editor with minimal formatting required. It also offers some features such as custom domains and avatars for instance. You can also customize the accent colors of your blog but that's about it. The intention, like most of the others in this list, is to reduce the distractions caused by themes and plugins and to simply help you get your content out to the world.
Your content also has an opportunity to get picked up and spread throughout Svbtle in a similar manner as Medium although they don't give much for details on how this works so I'm not super familiar with the process for curation.
Price: $6 monthly
<h2><a href="https://ghost.org/">Ghost </a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_ghost835x0.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_ghost" />
Ghost is quickly becoming a strong up and comer in the world of blogging and is following in the footsteps of WordPress in that it offers both a downloadable version of the platform to install on your own server or you can use their online blogging platform (similar to Medium, WordPress.com and others) and get up and running with no software to configure. The latter is a paid service, however, and costs typically would range between $5 / month and $80 / month depending on how much traffic and how many blogs you want to have. Pricing is pretty reasonable and you always have the option of downloading Ghost and installing it on your own server if you feel more comfortable managing the software yourself.
The writing interface that Ghost offers is unique from some of the others we've shared so far in that it offers you a split pane look where you write on the left and the right shows a live preview of the text as it's being formatted for comparison. See the screenshot below for an example:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2013-11-11_07_05_55-ghost_blogging_platform_features835x0.png" alt="ghost - writing interface" />
Some other differences between Ghost and platforms such as Medium and Svble is that it supports themes. My personal opinion is that themes can end up being a distraction for some people but if you are interested in them, there are already plenty of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.comhttps://www.cmscritic.com/themeforestcategory/blogging/ghost-themes?ref=cmscritic"> themes for Ghost </a> available.
Price: Free (if downloaded) or $29-199 / month (if hosted)
<h2><a href="https://www.silvrback.com/" target="_blank">Silvrback </a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/silvrback_kvkndg.png" />Silvrback is interesting in that its creator, Damian Sowers, aimed to fix the problems he saw with Medium and Svbtle by simply creating what he ideally wanted from a blogging platform for himself. He has now made this available at a reasonable cost of $29.99 / year in the form of Silvrback.
Here's how Damian describes his reasoning for creating Silvrback:
<blockquote>
I built Silvrback because none of the existing blogging platforms satisfied me completely.
Medium is great for readers but it is bad for writers. Readers are steered away to other articles/authors after they are done reading your article. Moreover, the analytics of Medium are extremely basic and you have no idea how people found your article. You really shouldn't use Medium if you want to build any kind of brand with your writing.
Svbtle is closer to what I wanted out of my blogging platform. However, it is taking the elitism approach and heavily restricting its users. I actually just received an invite to Svbtle but I have grown tired of their UI and I'm wary of any blogging platform that doesn't charge for the service. As the saying goes, “If you aren't paying for something then you aren't the customer, you're the product being sold.”
</blockquote>
Due to his lack of satisfaction with the other tools on the market, Damian created Silvrback with the following features:
<ul>
<li>A clean and modern UI (front and back-end).</li>
<li>Markdown powered and as simple as possible.</li>
<li>Support for custom domains and external analytics.</li>
<li>Hosted. People shouldn't spend any time configuring a server for a blog. Also, you shouldn't have to worry about traffic spikes crashing your server.</li>
<li>The platform should have brand awareness in mind (e.g. provide a better way to show and consolidate a person's distributed accomplishments).</li>
<li>Trustworthy. I don't want my efforts and content to be sold to advertisers.</li>
<li>Hacker friendly. Nice syntax highlighting.</li>
<li>Precise control over the journey of a new reader (direction of article discovery).</li>
</ul>
Silvrback was sold to Verde Places LLC, who currently own and run it now and continues to be updated regularly.
Pricing:
<ul>
<li>Annual: US$34.99</li>
<li>Quarterly: US$9.99</li>
<li>Monthly: US$3.99</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://write.as/" target="_blank">Write.as</a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/writeas-review-1_f8stqn.png" alt="Write.as Review - 1" />
Write.as is a distraction-free publishing platform that is less about the social media aspect of writing (the likes and follows that we all inadvertently seek) and more about getting your thoughts down fast. The platform’s simplicity is refreshing, but not ideal for complex blogging, especially if you don’t know any code.
On the other hand, because Write.as is open source, technically-minded individuals can change it to suit their needs. Read our <a href="/write-as-review-no-frills-ad-free-publishing/">Write.as Review</a> to learn more.
Price: 
<ul>
<li>Free</li>
<li>$5 month</li>
<li>$200 month</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://authpad.com">Authpad </a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_authpad.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_authpad" />
Authpad appeals to my inner coder for some reason. Perhaps it's because you can edit the styles directly from within the interface but if there's one thing that Authpad is, it's minimal. I would call this the blogging platform for pure minimalists. It's so fast it's ridiculous and, while the interface is very text heavy, it does the job its intended to do incredibly well.
Still in beta but with plenty of features including, as I mentioned earlier, the ability to directly edit forked styles from within the interface, this is sure to appeal to bloggers with a bit of a technical background as well as those looking for a very minimal experience.
There's not much else to say, Authpad is as basic as you can get and I strongly encourage you to check it out and see how simple blogging can truly be.
Price: Free
<h2><a href="http://pen.io/">Pen.io</a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_penio960x0.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_penio" />
Pen.io is a bit different. You don't get your own website per say but rather, you create a page for your article. You sign up with a URL and a password with no other information, click to edit your title, click to edit your content and that's it. If you need to add images, simply drag and drop them into the page. If you need a multi-page post, simply insert the “:page” tag to do so. There's nothing complicated about it, there's no real blogging aspect to it and there's no way to get back to it other than to find it on Google or remember the page url.
This is unique for those who want to quickly pound something out or feel the need to write but don't want the complication of setting up a blog so if you need an outlet for your creativity, Pen.io is there. Don't expect to find any help or assistance, however as the website is as stark as the article creation process and there's no help system at all.
Price: Free
<h2><a href="https://posthaven.com/">Posthaven</a></h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_posthaven883x0.png" alt="minimalist_blogging_platforms_-_posthaven" />
Posthaven was created by two of the founding members of Posterous, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012. After being “bummed” that it was shut down, they decided to start Posthaven and make it available forever to anyone who wants an easy to use blog platform. While the platform does charge a monthly fee, it offers a good set of features including:
<ul>
<li>Post by email</li>
<li>Post by web, with photos, music, video and documents</li>
<li>Private sites with passwords</li>
<li>Pages and links</li>
<li>Autopost to Facebook and Twitter</li>
<li>Image gallery upload and editing</li>
<li>Commenting with automatic antispam</li>
<li>Blog following with email notifications</li>
<li>Multiple contributors per blog</li>
</ul>
Currently, the fee to use Posthaven is only $5 / month and the founders promise to only adjust to cover server costs and nothing more. The goal is to maintain the service for as long as possible so users can avoid having their services shutdown constantly thanks to acquisitions and the like. One thing I do like is that if you decide to stop paying, the content will not be lost, it will stay online but you won't be able to edit or add to it until you restart your subscription.
Price: $5 month
There you have it.  Our list of Minimalist Blogging Platforms that let you focus on writing your content and getting it online in the easiest possible way with the least distracting interfaces.
Are you aware of one we missed? Please share it in the comments below and we'll expand this list accordingly. What are your experiences with these (or other) tools? Let us know in the comments below.

Blogging Platforms That Encourage You To Write

Low-cost web-builders and template sites have seen a huge push in the last five years. With heavy advertising, big promises and low-costs, many businesses are getting a taste of what a web-platform can do for them.
The upside is that more businesses than ever before are able to get an online presence. The downside, is that the perceived value of operating a business website has dropped substantially.
The true cost of an effective business site, is drowned out by the persistent messaging the industry puts out – that operating a website is not only easy but it is practically free.
With <a href="http://www.shoutcms.com/" target="_blank">ShoutCMS</a>, we are targeting customers who are seeking a platform that delivers more business functionality as a standard.
<a href="http://www.shoutcms.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shoutcms.jpg" /></a>
<h2>An Opportunity, Not a Problem.</h2>
We can look at the current trends in CMS platforms as two primary directions. You have low-cost web-builders who serve up a slice of the latest in design and cultural trends. These platforms are great at manipulating text, images and social networking. Then you have platforms with enterprise level features, who excel at data management, inventory, transactions, and customer relationships – all for a price.
The middle ground is being served primarily by WordPress. It is by-and-far the most widely used platform, and the shear amount of plug-ins, flexibility, and familiarity will keep it this way for years to come.
For our company, we saw the opportunity to develop a platform that kept the ease-of-use, had a lower total-cost of ownership, and started businesses out of the gate with a feature set to last them the lifecycle of their website. They won’t have to worry about upgrading, about maintaining plug-ins, and they will have suite of features that were designed from the ground up to work together.
<h2>Core Business Features in a Unified UX</h2>
With ShoutCMS, we didn’t just want to build great tools, we wanted to have tools that worked great – together.
The advantages of building ShoutCMS as a software-as-a-service platform, is that not only is the level of integration between internal features higher, ongoing development of the platform is made substantially easier as all users are on a persistent architecture. Customers are kept up-to-date as patches and security issues can be addressed across the board.
The core features that we built-in to ShoutCMS:
<ul>
<li>Invoicing</li>
<li>Ecommerce</li>
<li>Contact management</li>
<li>Group level communication</li>
<li>Group level and individual level security</li>
<li>Group level and individual level content access</li>
<li>Group level pricing</li>
<li>Page publishing</li>
<li>Mobile device compatibility</li>
<li>Design customization</li>
<li>Integrated email management</li>
</ul>
Aside from architectural advantages, the user gains the most in that the user-experience is similar across the platform. They gain the confidence of building a page for their website, and then find that managing products, articles, and contacts is largely the same.
<h2>Usability Impacts the Economy at Large</h2>
When customers gain the confidence in their tool, they achieve what the CMS industry set out to achieve in the first place – getting customers to maintain their own websites instead of neglecting them.
With more businesses using their websites, and having tools at hand that make their day-to-day easier, the net benefit is that they have a greater chance at success. Each of those successes add to economic growth.
This is where inspiration begins.
To find out more about ShoutCMS, <a href="http://www.shoutcms.com/" target="_blank">check out their website</a>.
Also, stay tuned for more featured coverage during this <a href="/tag/shoutcms-featured-week/" target="_blank">ShoutCMS featured week</a>.

The Biggest Industry Lie: Building a Website is Easy

When it comes to website creation tools, there are a few criteria that all online businesses compete on; price, an intuitive layout, and ease of use.
In recent years, <a href="http://www.jimdo.com/">Jimdo</a> has become one of the more popular website builders on the market for this very reason. This popularity has been based on its plethora of features, easy navigation, and powerful online store features.
According to the Jimdo site, almost 200,000 online stores have been created since Jimdo launched in 2010, with small business owners, creatives, and bloggers as its primary customers.
One thing that causes a lot of CMS to go downhill is the addition of new features. It can be easy to bloat a CMS with unnecessary tools or widgets but it looks like Jimdo has managed to avoid this pitfall.
<h2>Getting Set Up</h2>
Getting your Jimdo account up and running is a pretty simple process.
You just pick a basic template, insert your email, set a password, and you’re on your way.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sign_in_2663x0-is.png" />
From there, you’re taken to a menu where you can select your domain name. Jimdo has a few options here – a free subdomain, your own .com domain for €5 a month, or transferring your own domain over via their nameservers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/domain512x0-is.png" />
<h2>Features</h2>
As I mentioned earlier, Jimdo places a premium on ease of use. The opening page takes you straight down to business – which is refreshing. Navigation is quite simple and, if anything, maybe a little too simple in places. I would have liked a few more layers of complexity for certain aspects, but this doesn’t hamper the overall experience.
It’s also somewhat ‘inflexible’ when it comes to editing some things. You can’t move some of the text windows, for example.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing_page672x0-is.png" />
Jimdo has a well designed and intuitive layout. It also has the kind of drag-and-drop functionality that has become the standard in sites like these. This is an editor with no lag and it ran incredibly fast on all of the browsers I tested it on. You should be aware that all your changes are made live to the site as you save each element.
A ‘preview’ button combined with a feature that only publishes your changes on full completion, might be better suited to the rookie site builder. As it is, every change you make goes live straight away.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Intuition in Design</h2>
If you click on a picture, you can edit it. If you click on text, you can edit it with the rich text editor right there on the screen. Everything is very simple and works as you’d expect it to.
You can create your own template from scratch but the available templates are of a great standard and contemporarily designed.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/templates816x0-is.png" />
The design styles are clean and nicely put together but they might be a little basic for some people’s tastes and seemed a little ‘samey’ to me.
I also found that some templates were a little rigid in their layout but they are well designed overall.
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Options</h2>
Jimdo has quite a comprehensive settings page but all the premium features are listed on the free page’s settings, which means that you only find out you don’t have them after you click. A little frustrating.
All of Jimdo packages have a shop function with scaling features. The free package has 5 items, the professional package has 15, and the business package allows you unlimited items.
This online store function is one of Jimdo’s main selling points and it is quite well put together. However, <a href="https://www.paypal.com/">Paypal</a> is the only payment processing option available. This can be a big problem if you don’t want to use that site.
Domains and Email accounts: Jimdo offers an email service with its premium packages which is something none of its competitors offer. This makes the premium packages extremely good value as they don’t charge extra for this service.
App: Jimdo’s app is one of the best available when it comes to creating a website on a tablet or smart device. It’s available on both Android and iOS.
Widgets: All of the plans offer a wide range of Widgets (e.g. YouTube embed, image galleries etc)
<h2>Price Points</h2>
Jimdo is quite reasonably priced. To be honest, the Free option isn’t really worth the effort of setting it up. It’s fine for testing something out, but no business or blogger will realistically use this subdomain as it hosts advertisements and offers only a basic package of features.
You can easily upgrade from your Free package to the Premium or Business package and the added features make it well worth it.
Premium packages start at €5 a month for the Professional package (charged yearly). This allows you to have one domain name of your choosing, numerous SEO options, and a lot of space.
The Business package is a really good option at €15 a month. It seems pricey but you get a ton of features including two domains, unlimited email addresses, unlimited shop items, unlimited storage, discount codes, full SEO customization, and more.
The extensive features available in the Business package make it an extremely good option for the medium sized eCommerce company. For more on pricing, <a href="http://www.jimdo.com/pricing/" target="_blank">click here.</a>
<h2>Pros:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
Very quick and easy setup.
</li>
<li>
Fair pricing scale and lot of good features on their mid-range price option.
</li>
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Offers email hosting with their premium packages.
</li>
<li>
Well designed app.
</li>
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Wide range of widgets and features
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Cons:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
The platform is only compatible with Paypal, which limits your options drastically.
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Lack of a preview button on page means changes are published live to the site.
</li>
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Slightly inflexible page editor.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>To Sum It Up</h2>
Jimdo is a good website builder that’s just a shade away from being a great website builder. It falls down slightly with its Free package and the depth of editing available on the various templates.
Jimdo’s Business package really seems to be the best deal and it gives you everything that a potential online store could want – at quite a reasonable price for the various features on offer. So if you’re thinking about signing up to Jimdo, I definitely recommend trying going for this option. If you do, you’ll have an intuitive, powerful, easy to use website builder that is well worth the money you’ve paid for it. To sign up for Jimdo, just click <a href="http://www.jimdo.com" target="_blank">here</a>.
Have you tried Jimdo for your business? Why not share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

Jimdo Review

Adobe has announced that their new Omniture based SocialAnalytics application has entered beta testing worldwide. This new application, built within the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, which was unveiled earlier this year. Adobe SocialAnalytics works by monitoring and aggregating all relevant activity from social networks and online communities and identifying key business metrics and brand perception. Using the suite, you can monitor and measure all of your social networks (including blogs, forums and the like) in multiple languages easily.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobe_socialanalytics_dashboard-580x745.jpg" alt="adobe_socialanalytics_dashboard" />Here's some of the comments being made by current beta testers:
<blockquote>
“Through social engagement we can offer responsive customer service, enhance customer engagement and drive contextual messaging. With the ability to tie our efforts to key performance indicators such as onsite behavior patterns and customer satisfaction we can further optimize the social experiences we provide.” – Chris Jenkins, Vodafone
“We have thousands of conversations every day about our brands across multiple social channels. Adobe SocialAnalytics will help us get valuable insights from these conversations that we can use to better meet the needs of our customers and drive ROI.” – Liz Boone, General Motors
</blockquote>
Learn more about the <a href="http://www.omniture.com/en/products/online_marketing_suite" target="_blank">Adobe Online Marketing Suite</a>

Adobe SocialAnalytics now in beta Globally

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