Articles - Page 67

Brightspot Illuminates the Future of CMS with Human-Controlled, AI-Powered Storytelling 

matt-garrepy

Are you looking to put together a quick and easy resume website but aren't sure how or where to get started? It's now easier than ever with <a href="/strikingly-websitebuilder">Strikingly</a>. <a href="/strikingly-websitebuilder">Strikingly</a> now has the ability to generate an instant resume website using your personal Linkedin profile. Here's how to get started.
First, you need a Strikingly account, which you can <a href="http://bit.ly/wbc-strikingly">sign up for here</a>. Once you have an account, visit <a href="https://www.strikingly.com/online-resume/linkedin" target="_blank">this link</a> to connect Linkedin and begin the process.
<img alt="instant resume website" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/instant-resume-website-lg574x0-is.png" /> Once you've authorized Linkedin, Strikingly will begin generating your new resume website.
<img alt="instant resume website" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2017-07-01-at-32024-pm-lg.png" /> Once complete, you'll be given the chance to customize your new website.
<img alt="instant resume website" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2017-07-01-at-32117-pm-lg883x0-is.png" /> Once you've selected your theme, you'll be able to access your new website. Here's mine:
<img alt="instant resume website" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2017-07-01-at-32239-pm-lg987x0-is.png" /> The website includes a handy “Let's Chat” section which includes the option to phone, email or contact you via a contact form. Everything, of course, is customizable using the Strikingly editor and that's all there is to it! If you are looking to create your own instant resume website, <a href="http://bit.ly/wbc-strikingly">head on over to Strikingly and get the process started</a>.

Create an instant resume website with Strikingly

mike-johnston

Siteimprove, a global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that empowers website editors to continuously test, fix and optimize their work through actionable content and analytics insights, has launched a new Content Management System (CMS) plug-in.
“Our efficient and convenient CMS plug-in helps bring a superior digital experience to life,” said Nicolai Munch Andersen, Product Owner, Siteimprove. “Web editors and content creators can now put Siteimprove to work where our service is most valuable to them: during the content creation and editing process in their CMS platforms.”
Although link checkers and other quality assurance plug-ins can be integrated into a CMS, each one runs separately, and activating them is a manual process. For the first time, Siteimprove is offering web teams the ability to manage their digital presence in one place and in real time.
Analytics insights can now also become part of the content creation process. With the Siteimprove CMS Plugin, editors can instantly hone the visitor experience to improve a page's performance. Once the detected issues have been addressed, CMS users can call on the plug-in to directly re-check the relevant page and see if further action is needed.
The new Siteimprove CMS Plugin is available on Drupal, EpiServer, eZ Publish, Magento, Sitecore, Umbraco, and WordPress (WooCommerce), and more systems on the way.
“Content is king, but consistency reigns supreme,” said Munch Andersen. “The Siteimprove CMS Plugin will ensure all web editors and content creators are able to protect their reputation and maintain credibility.”
About Siteimprove Siteimprove transforms the way organizations manage and deliver their digital presence. With the Siteimprove Intelligence Platform, you gain complete visibility and deep insights into what matters, empowering you and your team to outperform the status quo with certainty every day. With a worldwide customer base of more than 5,000 customers, Siteimprove serves dozens of markets from offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Minneapolis, Oslo, Sydney, Toronto, and Vienna. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.siteimprove.com/" target="_blank">www.siteimprove.com</a>.

Siteimprove Launches Content Management System Plug-in

Affiliate programs have changed the way marketing is functioning these days. Starting with Amazon back in the 1990s, affiliate programs have turned into effective tools to earn money online. If you have enough motivation to earn money, then you can also get your piece of the pie.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/motocms-affiliate-program-page-1.jpg" />
The trick part is, however, to choose the merchant site wisely. Today we will try to demonstrate why it makes sense to join <a href="https://www.motocms.com/affiliate-program/" target="_blank">MotoCMS Affiliate Program</a>. In this article, you will learn about who this program is for, what you actually need to do to join MotoCMS as an affiliate, how you get paid and much more.
<h2>No Knack for Web Development is Required</h2>
If you are considering joining an affiliate program, then the most important question for you is whether you fit in. With MotoCMS, the answer is always “Yes”. In practice, it means that any person can join the MotoCMS Affiliate Program. You are free to become a MotoCMS affiliate if:
<ol>
<li>You need an additional income source that is reliable and trustworthy. Having a status of a MotoCMS affiliate partner, you automatically get access to all the necessary resources to start earning decent money from day one.</li>
<li>Your level of expertise in the web development varies from 0 to 100%. You may know next to nothing about content management systems or website templates and still become a successful MotoCMS affiliate.</li>
</ol>
As you see, to become a MotoCMS affiliate, you do not need a solid startup capital. Nor are you required to possess any web-related skills or educational background in the IT industry. In fact, there is only one prerequisite that is necessary for joining the MotoCMS Affiliate Program. This is your wish to earn money. Quite simple.
<h2>Do Business with Pre-Built Online Shop</h2>
You are probably wondering how the whole process of joining the MotoCMS Affiliate Program looks like. The answer is that you simply register as a MotoCMS affiliate partner. To sign up as a MotoCMS affiliate, you will need to provide your name, email address, your website’s URL etc. Basically, signing up for the MotoCMS Affiliate Program means that you have already done your part of the job.
MotoCMS takes care of the rest. Our team will provide you with all necessary promotional materials, so you can spend minimum efforts on your campaign advertising. If you want to raise more money, our professional support team will optionally install the free Pre-Built Online Shop on your website.
Once it is there, we will fill the shop with the collection of the templates with a &lt;a href=”https://www.motocms.com/”&gt;webste builder&lt;/a&gt; from MotoCMS. The definite advantage of the Pre-Built Online Shop is that you can sell all the MotoCMS products under your own name. As you can see, the whole process is quite simple and does not require much time or effort on your part.
<h2>Increase Sales with Updating Promo Materials</h2>
Let’s assume that you have already decided to become a part of the MotoCMS affiliate community. What happens next? Getting started, you need to start your own advertising campaign to motivate your visitors’ interest in MotoCMS. This is where ready-to-use advertizing tools from MotoCMS come in handy. These tools include:
<h5>Text Links</h5>
The easiest way to start for promoting MotoCMS on your website is using a text link. All you need to activate the link as an affiliate partner is to add ?aff=username after the URL of a product. Once a prospective visitor buys a template from MotoCMS after clicking on the text link, you earn your money.
<h5>Banners</h5>
One more idea to stir your customers interest is to apply eye-catching banners, developed by MotoCMS web designers. For instance, banners can boost your sales considerably on the front page of your website.
<h5>Landing Pages</h5>
Another way to increase your sales as a MotoCMS partner is to launch a landing page. There are 12 ready-made landing page designs you can choose from. You can also create a multipurpose landing page to demonstrate the full scope of products from MotoCMS.
<h2>Increase Your Commission Rate</h2>
Of course, the whole point of joining the MotoCMS affiliate program is to get additional income. But how much can you get? As a MotoCMS affiliate, you can earn from 30 to 50% commissions from every successful bargain. The more you sell, the higher the commission level becomes. Earn even more with 365 cookies that MotoCMS offers. Get your commission even 364 days after a client uses your affiliate link!
Do not forget that you are always free to sell the website templates from MotoCMS as your own products under your own brand. So, basically, you can decide yourself what pricing policy is more appropriate for your services.
<h2>Use The Convenient Way to Get Paid Fast</h2>
MotoCMS offers its affiliate partners a few well-known payments methods. You are free to choose between Skrill, PayPal, Payoneer, WebMoney, and others. And most importantly – whatever payment method you opt for, you will get your commission right on time.
<h2>Get 24/7 Professional Assistance</h2>
The last but not the least advantage of the affiliate program from MotoCMS is the direct tech support we offer. The thing is that our consultants support the clients of each our affiliate program participant.
Another good piece of news is that a client can choose the way to contact our support team. Depending on the urgency of the situation, s/he is offered two communication channels. Any client is able to request a callback and leave a message in the live chat. With MotoCMS, you can be sure that all questions of your clients are answered promptly by the professionals.
Now when you know pretty much everything about the MotoCMS Affiliate Program, there is little room for doubts. So, spread the word about MotoCMS via your website and get an additional reliable income source!

Make Your First Dollar with MotoCMS Affiliate Program

Get your landing pages up and running without worrying about where to begin. Map your content in a single spreadsheet. RallyMind does the rest.
By syncing RallyMind <a href="https://rallymind.com/blog/automated-landing-pages-using-google-sheets-integration/">Landing Pages with Google Sheets</a>, you can easily modify content in your spreadsheet while RallyMind generates your campaigns in real-time.
Seamless modifications 
Make changes to your campaigns without touching a single landing page. RallyMind will maintain consistency across all your campaigns.
Optimize your creatives by making quick and easy changes to fields, such as:
<ul>
<li>Landing Page URLS</li>
<li>Vendor Names </li>
<li>Phone Number</li>
<li>Images &amp; links</li>
</ul>
Scalability with just a spreadsheet
After setting up your spreadsheet, RallyMind generates the campaigns that fits your needs. RallyMind looks out for changes to your spreadsheets and updates any existing or creates new landing pages in real-time.
While other landing page services only publish one or two campaigns at a time, RallyMind can publish 10s to 100s of landing pages quickly and effortlessly as it tracks your modifications. We believe that scalability is key to your brand’s campaign performance. 
One way companies are using RallyMind
Companies use the RallyMind platform to up their campaign performance in sectors such as channel marketing. 
In cases where agencies must produce countless campaigns for various vendors for their products, RallyMind eases this process by managing specific landing page URLs with their corresponding vendors. This allows agencies to easily keep track and make changes to any of their campaigns with each vendor.
Let us help you
The Google Sheets integration is one of many features that allows RallyMind to help you achieve your campaign goals. Let RallyMind streamline your landing page processes.

Combine RallyMind’s API with the familiarity of Google Sheets

Verst, the intelligent, all-in-one website platform that helps content creators build incredible brands and businesses, today announced new product enhancements, details on customer success, and a partnership with SendGrid. The rapid innovation and adoption of the publishing platform demonstrates significant interest in a new solution that levels the playing field for all publishers. 
One of the most powerful effects of ubiquitous internet access is the plethora of outlets for expression and communication. However, this abundance of channels has come at a cost, as managing and monetizing content, improving performance, and developing deeper audience relationships is now increasingly difficult, time-consuming and often requires technical expertise. Whether the goal is financial independence or to share a passion and make money doing it, content creators need a powerful hub for their digital presence. To meet the demands of their audience and their business, creators must look beyond cobbled-together toolsets and leverage the same first-class tools and insights that make major media brands successful. This is what Verst delivers, out of the box.
“I’m super excited about this release because of the emerging paradigm shift towards subscription revenue and other forms of direct monetization as a core component of all content creators' businesses,” said AJ Frank, CEO of Verst. “Our vision is to democratize these powerful monetization mechanisms by radically simplifying the setup and management involved. Ultimately, we want to empower creators to focus on what they do best: growing and differentiating their brands by creating compelling content.”
<h2>NEW FEATURES</h2>
● Paid Content Subscriptions. A turnkey way for any creator to activate a subscription offering and get paid for the value they create. By simply flipping a switch, Verst publishers can start delineating specific posts as premium content that sits behind a paywall. While advertising rewards quantity over quality, this type of monetization aligns the interests of publishers and consumers by minimizing reliance on third parties and creating a better user experience.
● Homepages. Verst makes it simple for creators to add a fully customized and professionally designed homepage to the front of their site. Creators pick the modules, content, and design they love. 
● New pricing tier. Newer creators who don’t yet have the audience size for monetization and optimization can now take advantage of an entry-level pricing tier. Users can leverage Verst’s unparalleled simplicity to get their media business started with all the personalized branding they require for just $12/month.
● Content migration. Creators seeking to evolve beyond an outdated WordPress site or expand beyond Medium can keep their existing domain and Verst will import all of the content, ensuring every link to the old site lands in the right place. Creators can establish a fresh redesign, own their audience, boost their SEO score, and cure their publishing pain points by making the switch. 
● SendGrid partnership. Email remains the number one communication method to keep people engaged. With this partnership Verst creators can integrate with SendGrid’s award-winning email delivery platform so they can master this fundamental touchpoint. And SendGrid customers can easily migrate their current website to Verst, gaining aesthetics and sophistication to rival the web’s top media brands. 
Verst levels the playing field for publishers of all sizes. In a cacophonous landscape of clickbait, filtered photos, and ad-covered pages, creators deserve a clean, beautiful, manageable platform to call home. With Verst, the creators of today and tomorrow get the same tech that powers BuzzFeed and the New York Times, right out of the box. 
CUSTOMERS TELL THE STORY
● Ian Capstick: Social entrepreneur, political analyst, builds his brand, drives community
Ian is one of Canada's best known political pundits, technologists and social activists. He is using Verst to actively generate speaking opportunities, aggregate his media appearances, and develop community with his fans/followers who can set up 1:1 conversations with him directly through his site. “Verst enables and empowers me to be one of the most connected and interactive political analysts in my field. A lot of political commentators hide behind the scenes. Love me or hate me, you’ll be able to access me,” said Ian. “Through optimization, A/B testing, CTAs, Verst gives me a better understanding of my audience. I need to know what they care about and why. In turn, Verst also gives my audience access to me, in a manageable way.”
● Shout!: Building a Gen Z global citizen media business
After visiting refugee camps in Iraq and Syria in 2015 and 2016, Flavius Mihaies created Shout! to share global stories that Americans should take note of that are often ignored by mainstream media outlets, from the perspective of those who are living the reality. The content is created by a combination of aspiring Gen Z and established (Al Jazeera, Reuters, Politico, et al.) reporters and commentators. “Our goal with Verst will be to engage with the audience in a more direct way than we’ve been able to do on Facebook,” said Flavius. “We want to develop interaction directly between our audience and our journalists and we’re very excited about the upcoming paid subscription feature to solidify our place as a legitimate, growing, global media brand.”
● Stigma: From #1 mental health app to community, content, and monetization online
In order to generate new users, Stigma needed a marketing channel that went beyond organic App Store growth. “The biggest testament is that we recently closed a partnership with one of the largest resources for health information, and I don’t think we could’ve done that without Verst,” said Dan Seider, founder, Stigma. “The site represents our brand, and the quality of it speaks to our high standards as a company. I love how Verst allows us to help inspire people and promote social good.”
ABOUT VERST
Verst is an intelligent, all-in-one website platform that helps content creators build incredible brands and businesses. With paid subscriptions, analytics, A/B testing, and more built right in, Verst allows modern creators, entrepreneurs, makers, and thought-leaders to deliver valuable content, engage their audience, and convert them into paying customers. Verst is headquartered in New York City. To learn more, please visit <a href="http://www.verst.co/" target="_blank">www.verst.co</a>.

Verst delivers simple monetization, homepage customization and easy content migration in vibrant new publishing platform

Created out of a need for a more intuitive, powerful sysadmin tool, we have created a portal through which site owners, developers and the admins who support them can monitor and adjust their site hosting, at the click of a button.
Are you ready to change the way you see high-speed website hosting?
Let’s not waste any more time, then!
<h2 style="margin-left:0cm;margin-right:0cm">About Us</h2>
First things first, we’d like to introduce ourselves.
Our company, Soft Dreams, began as a web agency in 2004. Motivated by the early successes of our clients, and the massive traffic called for by their sites, as a result, we branched our services out into the realm of high-speed website hosting, early on.
This was the defining moment in the creation of ClusterCS, our cloud-based control platform, in 2010. Created as a response to the increased need for comprehensive hosting tools in an ever expanding market, we released in 2016 after extensive internal testing.
Since then, it has undergone two feature releases since going public.
<h2 style="margin-left:0cm;margin-right:0cm">About ClusterCS</h2>
Cluster CS is a no-mess cloud-based control panel that automates and customises your entire VPS and dedicated server process.
Consolidated software packages are nothing new. Centralised management of important business or admin activities has become commonplace and, honestly, essential to the modern working environment.
ClusterCS takes that idea and runs with it, allowing you to:
<ul>
<li>Speed up your deployment 	In just a few clicks, you can create and deploy a stable, high availability cluster. Not only this, but you’ll be able to ensure the safety of the client’s setup through the use of automatic backups, and even test drive different architectures, easily and quickly.</li>
<li>Manage all the elements of your websites 	Bring together the management of your website’s emails, databases, backups, DNS, and cronjob services. What’s more, you’ll be able to do this for an unlimited number of websites. Finally, customizable setups with multiple PHP versions give you the kind of control you need for your unique website setup.</li>
</ul>
More so than these standard offerings, though, are two distinctive features we’ve introduced that set us apart.
<ul>
<li>Speed 	Our graphical user interface (GUI), known as Speed, helps you streamline the process of creating complex serving conditions. These can include inputs from URLS, assets, and cookies, in various combinations. This is also a useful GUI in that it improves security, intelligently blocking specific paths according to the IP of the user. With this, you’re bringing in an added layer of security to your website, with an interface that’s as intuitive as you need it to be.</li>
<li>Improved Clustering Setup 	This service allows designers to spread services across multiple servers, increasing speed for those all-important processes. Using this tool, we’ve been able to set up complex clusters, spread out over as many as thirty dedicated servers. Separate databases, central sites, and more, easily, and you’re well on your way to making slow processing times a thing of the past.</li>
</ul>
Version 1.3 is now live <a href="https://blog.clustercs.com/2017/07/03/clustercs-1-3-lets-encrypt-masses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://blog.clustercs.com/2017/07/03/clustercs-1-3-lets-encrypt-masses/</a>and we have automated SSL setup including Let’s Encrypt.
Interested in finding out more? <a href="https://www.clustercs.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Get in touch with us</a>, today, to find out more about our products and award-winning services.
This article was contributed by the ClusterCS team.

ClusterCS is a comprehensive, cloud-based VPS and server processing control panel

Static site generators have always been popular amongst developers and those who prefer to work via the command line. It's no surprise, therefore, that tons of them exist and are used regularly for blogs and websites. Here is a list of the most popular static site generators out there.
<h2>Jekyll</h2>
Jekyll is a simple, blog-aware, static site generator that can be used for personal, project, or organization sites. Jekyll takes your content, renders Markdown and Liquid templates, and provides you with a complete, static website. Jekyll is also the engine behind <a href="https://pages.github.com/">GitHub Pages</a>, which you can use to host sites for free right from your GitHub repositories.
Language: <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ruby</a>
Website: <a href="http://jekyllrb.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://jekyllrb.com/</a>
<h2>Hugo</h2>
Hugo is another static site generator programmed in Go. Hugo is optimized for speed, easy use and configurability. It works by taking a directory with content and templates and rendering them into a full, HTML website. Like Jekyll, Hugo uses Markdown as well. According to the developers, Hugo can render a typical website of moderate size in a fraction of a second.
Language: <a href="https://golang.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Go</a>
Website: <a href="http://gohugo.io/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://gohugo.io/</a>
<h2>Hexo</h2>
Hexo is programmed in Node.js, similar to the popular Ghost blogging platform. You write posts in Markdown (or other languages) and Hexo generates static files with a beautiful theme in seconds. Hexo has a powerful plugin system as well, allowing it to use Octopress plugins as well as others. It can also be deployed to Github Pages, Heroku and other sites in seconds.
Language: <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Node.js</a> (Javascript)
Website: <a href="https://hexo.io/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://hexo.io/</a>
<h2>GitBook</h2>
GitBook is a static site generator that was developed in order to provide an elegant way to build beautiful books using GitHub/Git and Markdown. There is a desktop editor as well for GitBook that is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. You can also easily host your created books on GitBook.com
Language: <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Node.js</a> (Javascript)
Website: <a href="https://www.gitbook.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.gitbook.com/</a>
<h2>Gatsby</h2>
Gatsby is a super fast React.js static site generator that supports pages written in Markdown, HTML, and React.js by default. It's also very simple to add additional file types. Gatsby loads an HTML file that’s a server rendered version of your React.js page then makes it live with JavaScript. Code and data for your other pages gets preloaded to ensure that everything loads instantly.
Language: <a href="https://facebook.github.io/react/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">React.js</a> (Javascript)
Website: <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.gatsbyjs.org/</a>
<h2>Pelican</h2>
Pelican is a static site generator powered by Python. It allows you to write your content in <a href="http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html">r</a>eStructuredText, Markdown, or AsciiDoc formats. Pelican uses <a href="http://jinja.pocoo.org/">Jinja</a> templates which means developing themes is quick and easy as well. Pelican also allows the importing of data from WordPress, Dotclear, RSS feeds, and other services. Pelican has a pretty impressive plugin library as well which you can check out here: <a href="https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-plugins" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pelican plugins</a>.
Language: <a href="https://www.python.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Python</a>
Website: <a href="https://blog.getpelican.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://blog.getpelican.com/</a>
There you have it, these are the most popular and most active static site generators that we are aware of, what do you use? Do you have a favourite? Let us know in the comments below.

The Most Popular Static Site Generators

When it comes to increasing your website sales, your focus is most likely on building a visually appealing and responsive site that will attract visitors and make it easy for them to make a purchase.
However, there is so much you can do internally to increase your conversions; after all, how you manage your business will have a direct impact on what you are able to deliver to your customers. By optimizing your internal business processes, you can significantly speed up your backend workflows and have a positive impact on your users’ experience by delivering sales faster.
In this article, we go through the main two elements involved in this process.
<h2>1. Think about your content architecture</h2>
The most important element when designing your website is your content architecture, which refers to the way all your site content is organized and structured. The best content architectures are set up according to an organization’s unique goals and objectives. This is a truly important and yet often overlooked step of building a website, and will have an immense impact on your future internal processes and user journeys, giving you much more flexibility and efficiency.
When designing your content architecture, think about what your key objectives are (in this case, selling more), and map out your top five or ten user workflows. Once you do this, you can plan your entire content architecture around them, to make it as easy and efficient as possible for those particular workflows to be delivered.
Also try and make your content architecture as intuitive as possible and avoid hard-coding content as much as you can, so that any non-technical users, such as content editors, can easily update the site whenever needed.
The same applies to integrations. With time, you will undoubtedly need to update and add new integrations to your site, so ensure that your content architecture allows for the flexibility and scalability needed to accommodate this.
A well-planned content architecture will not only deliver a better user flow for your customers, but it will also make it as easy as possible for your content editors to build, edit and populate the site. This will increase efficiency both internally and externally, ensuring that products are delivered as quickly as possible.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pablo206.png" alt="eCommerce business process" />
<h2>2. Leverage data insights</h2>
Paying attention to your metrics will also give you insight into how your site is performing and, most importantly, how your sales are performing. Despite this, <a href="http://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/marketing/data-driven-marketing-becomes-a-focal-point-for-executives-according-to-study/">87% of marketers consider data their organization’s most underutilized asset</a>. If you are among this 87%, you are missing out one of your most valuable resources.
Sales data will offer you a good understanding of what improvements are needed to make it as easy as possible for your customers to make a purchase. Data analysis is an incredibly important step when optimizing your strategy, and is most effective when done consistently, whether that is daily, weekly or monthly.
On the design side, tools such as Google Analytics can give you key insights into the sorts of user flows customers are taking through your site; do these align with the user flows you would like them to take? Are users able to easily find content? Do any of your landing pages have higher-than-normal bounce rates and, if so, why? Are users leaving your site without converting, and if so, where?
You should also be able to generate and analyze data relating to all sales, so if your Ecommerce solution doesn’t provide this you could be missing out on key insights. What products are performing best? How are your special promotions performing? What’s your average order size? Could you provide any special offers based on this insight to encourage higher-revenue sales?
There are many metrics you could track according to your specific workflows and strategies, but some key ones are:
<h3>Conversion rate by landing page</h3>
Looking at your conversions by landing page will show you what pages are performing best; is there a particular product or promotion page that is highly effective? Has any page’s performance increased or decreased over time, and why? Could the success of high-performing pages be replicated on low-performing pages?
<h3>Per-session value</h3>
Knowing your average session value is a great way of establishing which of your products are most saleable based on their price. It is also a good metric to keep in mind when running promotions; you could set up a promotion at a value higher than the average sales value, encouraging visitors to spend a little more and increasing your overall sales revenue.
<h3>Bounce rate</h3>
Your bounce rate will give you insight into how individual pages or products on your website are performing. If a particular page has a very high bounce rate, there is most likely something you can do to improve it. Does the page title accurately describe its content or product? Or could the page design be unattractive? Is page content clearly organized and is information easy to find? Do you need to encourage users to remain on the site through additional call-to-actions (CTAs) or internal linking?
<h3>Top 10 pages (by Pageviews)</h3>
By looking at the ten pages with the highest pageviews, you can determine which of your site pages and products are most popular and see if these meet your expectations. Is there a particular page or product that should have more pageviews? Check to see if there is anything you can do to improve it, such as optimizing the design or changing the copy. On the other hand, if there is a particular product page with a high volume of pageviews but very few conversions, check to see if you can make the page more attractive or better describe the product.
Do you have any tips for improving Ecommerce business processes? Let us know in the comments!
If you would like to find out more about how Agility CMS can help you, <a href="http://agilitycms.com/home#request-a-demo">request a free demo</a> now.

How To Optimize Your Business Processes To Increase Online Sales

CMS Kickoff 26

Find out at CMS Kickoff 26, January 13 - 14, St. Pete FL

What's the future of CMS in the AI era?

#ffffff

eZ Systems has released a new update to eZ Platform, their enterprise CMS. This release is heavily geared towards developers as most of the changes are aimed at them, however, there are a few small visible changes for content editors.
The first is the inclusion of tables within the content editor, meaning you can now insert and use them within content regions: <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/platformui-table_medium.gif" /> For developers, the changes include items such as:
<ul>
<li>The public API is now much simpler to use when trying to access and use translated content </li>
<li>For those who use Solr, you can now use the Solr bundle to create search facets on Content Types, Sections and Users</li>
<li>Developers now have the ability to configure index time boosting within Solr, which lets them tune search results to provide more relevant results to users</li>
<li>New Design System – The new design system allows developers to better manage the designs (meaning templates and design assets) they want to apply to their sites. It lets them define Themes and build Designs from those themes with the ability to share and override themes. It’s a great feature for those building multisite solutions with eZ Platform.
	<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2017-06-27-at-5_12_26-pm_customers_line.png" /></li>
</ul>
Additional changes can be found here: <a href="https://doc.ez.no/x/CwcIAg" target="_blank">https://doc.ez.no/x/CwcIAg</a> so be sure to take a read through.

eZ Systems releases eZ Platform 1.10

BardCanvas, an open source CMS based out of Mexico is seeking funds on Kickstarter to further advance development. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/600884956cb4114244bdb37ac0287f89_original855x0-is.jpg" /> The system isn't one I'd heard of before but it reminds me of the older portal style CMS projects like Geeklog, etc. Currently, there is only one developer for the project and it's common to see projects try out Kickstarter to help raise funds. If you think this is something you'd be interested in supporting, check it out.
According to the Kickstarter, the development team is seeking funds for the following:
<ul>
<li>Finishing the modules that are still in development.</li>
<li>Revisit other modules to make improvements.</li>
<li>Make end user documentation of the engine and all modules, free and premium.</li>
<li>Make developer documentation for the open source elements.</li>
<li>Make extra modules for the BardCanvas website so we can sell modules and bundle packs.</li>
<li>Adapt the BardCanvas website as a marketplace where any developer who wants to develop for BardCanvas can sell their modules/templates.</li>
<li>Build more modules and templates.</li>
</ul>
Their funding requirement was projected to be around $1,500 US Dollars. That'll help them to pay for:
<ul>
<li>Two hard disks that need to be replaced.</li>
<li>Extra RAM for a PC and a laptop.</li>
<li>Subscription fees for Apple and Google dev memberships.</li>
<li>Secure hosting bills for a year.</li>
</ul>
If you think it might be something you'd consider helping out with, either financially or in a development capacity, check out their Kickstarter or give the system a whirl over at <a href="http://bardcanvas.com/" target="_blank">http://bardcanvas.com/</a> where they have an online demo.
You can <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753552326/bardcanvas-an-alternative-cms-for-wordpress-based/description" target="_blank">check out their Kickstarter here</a>.

BardCanvas Seeks Funds via Kickstarter

There's no doubt that there are plenty of excellent email marketing platforms out there but one of the most common issues I've come across when using them is deliverability of emails. As such, I've been on the lookout for a solid platform that gave me a good drag and drop builder alongside the power of Amazon's email servers. I believe I've found that with MailGet so allow me to show you how it works in this MailGet Review.
For the longest time, I've used a standalone email marketing software called Sendy (see my <a href="/sendy-review-cheap-inexpensive-email-marketing-for-the-masses/" target="_blank">Sendy review</a>), that has worked reasonably well for me up until recently. Lately, I've been on the lookout for something with more automation (such as automatic unsubscribe, bounce handling, etc). However, I'm also very much committed to using Amazon SES for my email delivery as I feel it is more reliable than other architectures. I recently stumbled across MailGet and I believe I've found that solution.
<h2>Getting Things Configured</h2>
With Amazon SES services, my emails always get through properly and now, thanks to MailGet, I can use both an intuitive email marketing platform alongside Amazon for the best of both worlds.
Here's a quick video showing the basics of how MailGet works:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tybd0QNL4aU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Connecting Amazon is incredibly simple and the MailGet folks have full, detailed instructions with screenshots to help you get it done quickly and easily. I found it super simple to configure.
You aren't just stuck with Amazon though. If you prefer, you can use other third party providers such as Gmail, Mailgun, Postmark, SendGrid, Mailjet, Mandrill and others.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailget_review_-3855x0-is.png" alt="mailget review" />
Furthermore, MailGet also offers MailGet Bolt which is the same service but with their own built-in SMTP saving you from using a third party SMTP server entirely!
Need Bounce and Spam Handling? This one is a lifesaver. MailGet provides you with full instructions including the URL's to use to configure automatic bounce and spam handling for any of the supported SMTP providers. This one for me, is huge.
Add on Google Analytics integration, <a href="https://zapier.com/" target="_blank">Zapier</a> integration (super useful) and even Wufoo (although frankly I'd probably just use <a href="https://www.formget.com/">FormGet</a>, since it's made by the MailGet folks) and you have a very well put together email marketing platform.
<h2>List Cleaning Tools Too!</h2>
Ok, how many of you DON'T have subscriber lists that have spam subscribers or rogue emails in your list that are no longer valid. Raise your hands.
I don't see any hands. That's what I thought.
MailGet includes some super useful list cleaning tools that I absolutely love. MailGet uses several methods to clean your lists:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailget_review_-4.png" alt="mailget review" />It's as easy as clicking a button and letting MailGet go to work. Tell me you don't love this.
<h2>Designing your Emails</h2>
Aside from the configuration being easy to use, the next most important aspect is the email design end of things.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailget_review_-_11087x0-is.png" alt="mailget review" />
From your MailGet dashboard, click on Create Email. You now have several options.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailget_review_-51147x0-is.png" alt="mailget review" />
For those of you who like to do things the easy way, click on Drag and Drop Email Builder. For those who like to do things the geek way, click on Custom Code Editor and for those of you who just want to type something basic, click on Basic Text Editor. The Email Templates option shows numerous examples but frankly, I didn't find it super helpful as there's no easy way to apply it to your email other than through copy/paste. For me, the drag and drop builder was better.
The Drag and Drop Email Builder works like a charm and is super simple to use.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailget_review_-6859x0-is.png" alt="mailget review" />
Once you've finished your email, simply click next and you will be given the opportunity to select which list you want to send to, whether you want to schedule it or send it all in one shot and that's it!
Back on your dashboard, you'll see a handy little widget showing your email and giving you a quick view on how it's performing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailget_review_-7.png" alt="mailget review" />
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
That's all there is to it. It's a simple, easy-to-use email marketing platform that works like a charm. MailGet has excellent help and the tutorials will get you through any issues that might arise quickly and easily. Most importantly, however, is their support.
Should you ever come across any issues.. the MailGet folks are close by to help. Simply click on the live chat box in the bottom right and you'll get a rep almost instantly. I was actually surprised how quickly I was connected to someone and during my test, they solved the problem quickly. Well done guys!
Overall, I'm content with it and using MailGet now for all of our email handling for CMS Critic. It's that good. I recommend trying it yourself, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
<a href="https://www.formget.com/mailget-app/">Try MailGet Now.</a>

MailGet Review - Beautifully Easy Email Marketing with Amazon SES

The time is upon us! The nominations stage for the 2017 CMS Critic Web Awards is now open!
This year, I've made some changes to some of the categories including adding a couple of new ones and removing some of the redundant ones. The new categories this year are:
<ul>
<li>Best Free CMS</li>
<li>Best Open Source CMS</li>
<li>Best WordPress Alternative</li>
<li>Best Flat File CMS</li>
<li>Best Website Builder</li>
<li>Best CMS for SMB</li>
<li>Best Cloud CMS</li>
<li>Best Enterprise CMS</li>
<li>Best CRM</li>
<li>Best Marketing Suite</li>
<li>Best Email Marketing Platform</li>
<li>Best Forum Software</li>
<li>Best Social Network Software</li>
<li>Best eCommerce Solution</li>
<li>Best Hosting Provider</li>
<li>Best Theme Provider</li>
</ul>
Another change I've made this year is that when nominating, you may now only select one category. In past years, we've had people select everything which was a complete waste of time and made us discard those nominations. To avoid this and to ensure people think carefully before submitting, I've cut it down to one. If you feel it's necessary to submit into a second category, you may do so but remember to fill out the reason field with a pretty good reason why you think that was necessary.
Please spread the word and visit the <a href="/awards/">awards page</a> to learn more about this year's awards and submit your nomination.

The 2017 CMS Critic Web Awards are now open for nominations

WonderCMS, a database-free flat file CMS developed to be quick and efficient saw it's first non-beta release after 9 years of development back in March. I thought now would be a good time to take a look at it in now that it's had some time to iron out any potential bugs. That being said, here's my WonderCMS review.
Oh, side note for those who are currently running WonderCMS, they've also just put out a new bugfix release, <a href="https://www.wondercms.com/whatsnew" target="_blank">details here</a>.
<h2>The Preamble</h2>
For those of you who have never heard of or seen WonderCMS before, you can try out a free demo of it on their website here: <a href="https://www.wondercms.com/" target="_blank">https://www.wondercms.com/</a>
WonderCMS touts itself as a free website builder which I suppose in some instances is true. I'd consider it more of a flat file CMS than a website builder as I tend to attribute the term “website builder” to systems that include hosting and everything all in one package, such as <a href="https://www.weebly.com/">Weebly</a> or Wix for instance.
Having said that, it's definitely lean and mean. WonderCMS is secure, does not need a database, runs on 5 files (incredibly) and they don't even ask for a link back to their website.
There are plugins and themes for the system which you can find on github or linked to from the main website.<a href="https://github.com/robiso/wondercms-themes#themestemplates-for-wondercms-200-and-higher-versions" target="_blank">Here's a link to their themes</a> (all of these by the way can be previewed in the demo easily). <a href="https://github.com/robiso/wondercms-plugins#plugins-for-wondercms-200-and-higher-versions" target="_blank">Here is a link</a> to currently available plugins and info on how to create them.
<h2>The Review</h2>
WonderCMS is a fairly simple CMS that, once setup, provides you with a single basic drop down menu while activating inline editing controls on your pages. Here's how the menu looks when logged in as an administrator:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wondercms_review_-_1560x0-is.png" /> Logging in also activates the inline editing which is how you work with content within WonderCMS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wondercms_review_-_2643x0-is.png" />
Clicking within an editable content area enables a menu which you can use to upload images, documents, link to videos on YouTube and a whole lot more. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed with the features they managed to cram into their editor.
Clicking on the image icon enables a file manager allowing you to select existing images or upload / link to your own:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wondercms_review_-_3638x0-is.png" />
There are some obvious spacing issues (shown above) preventing users from properly reading the titles but overall functionality is still fine. 
Clicking the video icon brings up the following dialog box:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wondercms_review_-_4643x0-is.png" />
I have no idea why the word “gray” is prepopulated but functionally, it works. I plugged in a url for a Daily Motion video just as a test and it worked and embedded properly. It did not, however, accept short urls which are displayed by default so keep that in mind. 
One quirk I did notice is that in order to show the toolbar for the WYSIWYG editor within a content area, I had to either click on some text or a double click but it doesn't appear to always work. Numerous times I added a new line and gave it a shot and it worked some of the time but not all. This is likely to get pretty annoying for new users and is something the devs should take a look at. I'm on a Macbook Pro with the Chrome browser so it's a fairly common set-up.
Adding pages is done by opening the drop down admin menu and clicking the + sign in the pages area to add a new one. You can then click on the “eye” icon to publish or unpublish any areas that you want to work on.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
Overall, I found the system to be quick and responsive. For the average user, it works well (aside from the toolbar bug I mentioned above). It's a very simple system but I'm a fan of simplicity so it's nice to see a simple and easy solution for those who need to just get a website up quickly and easily with little bother.
If you've never used WonderCMS before, I'd recommend <a href="https://www.wondercms.com/" target="_blank">trying out the demo</a> before downloading to see if it suits your needs.

WonderCMS Review - An Easy Flat File CMS for those who value simplicity

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