Articles - Page 72

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

matt-garrepy

How would you feel about increasing the number of productive hours you spend working every day, without working harder, or for longer? What about eliminating errors, enhancing your business processes, and reducing all the dreaded admin you have to do? Good news, you can — It’s all about automation.
One thing every small business owner, entrepreneur, middle-manager or startup can agree on is that there’s never enough time to get everything done. Whether it’s managing finances, dealing with customer service, boosting sales, or creating content, demands on your attention are seemingly endless.
Perhaps the most subtle, and the biggest drain on your time is that dreaded area, Administration. It’s all the small things — Replying to email, updating customer details, sending out invoices, tracking project tasks, producing reports. It might not add much value to your business, but it’s essential to running a successful operation. Unfortunately, you and your employees could be spending <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240076">as much as half of your time</a> on administrative tasks
<h2>Benefits of automation</h2>
It’s time to put a stop to that by automating as much of your business operations and processes as you can. The revolution in “Software as a Service (SaaS)” apps (software that runs in your web browser) has created a vast ecosystem of automation that you can take advantage of. Here’s how automation can help your business:
<ul>
<li>Significantly reduce the time you spend on admin — Automation can increase your productivity by around 20%, simply through processing information and data without you needing to get involved.</li>
<li>Remove errors when transferring data and information — Mis-keying, lack of oversight, and being rushed can all lead to normal human errors when handling information. Automation removes that problem by transferring data automatically.</li>
<li>Enhance business processes and how you support employees and customers — With information that’s there when you need it, you and your employees can provide more efficient and effective customer service. That helps to build trust with your customers, which is good for the bottom line.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Examples of automation</h2>
There are hundreds of ways automation can help your business, here are just a few examples:
<ul>
<li>Automatically billing time you record against client projects back to their invoices — If you run projects in Basecamp, Trello, Asana, or many of the other project management apps, you can record time spent on client tasks and automatically bill it back to your invoice and accounting software.</li>
<li>Integrating your Client Relationship Management (CRM) and customer support information together — If you track customers in CRM software, you can automatically add their details to your customer support solution. That makes providing excellent customer service a little easier.</li>
<li>Tracking your return on investment from Adwords in Google Analytics — If you use Google’s Pay Per Click advertising product, AdWords, you can automatically link it to your Google Analytics account. That lets you easily track visits, sales, conversions, and revenue so you can see your marketing ROI and invest more wisely.</li>
<li>Linking your bank feed to your accounting software — No one enjoys account reconciliation, but you can make it a little easier by importing your bank account data into your accounting app to make reconciliation easier.</li>
</ul>
Other ways to automate your business include:
<ul>
<li>Sending emails to Slack channels.</li>
<li>Adding mailing list signups to CRM.</li>
<li>Generating business reports from data.</li>
<li>Sending data to Google Sheets for analysis.</li>
<li>Publishing to your <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/dir/cms">content management system</a> automatically.</li>
<li>And many, many more.</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to automate your business processes</h2>
Automating your business is very simple.
<ol>
<li>Decide what information you want to transfer between apps.</li>
<li>Identify the apps you want to transfer information between.</li>
<li>Find out if you can transfer information natively, or if you need to use a third-party service.</li>
<li>Setup the automation.</li>
<li>Test it and go!</li>
</ol>
There are two main ways to add automation to your business — Via “Native Integrations,” and via “Third Party Apps.”
<h3>Native integrations</h3>
Most decent SaaS apps have inbuilt integrations. To find out what your particular software supports, search for the “Integrations” page on their website and find out what it links to. They should also have clear instructions on setting up your integration.
<h3>Third Party Apps</h3>
There are two main services that allow you to automate apps and transfer information between them. They are “<a href="http://www.ifttt.com">If This Then That (IFTTT)</a>” and “<a href="http://www.zapier.com">Zapier.</a>” Both work with most of the major SaaS apps. They allow you to link two or more apps together, poll those apps periodically for data, and if they find any, transfer it to the new app. Both are very easy to set up and use.
Once you’ve set up your automation, test how your data is transferring and make tweaks. Over time you’ll be able to significantly enhance your workflow.
It really is worth taking the time to understand automation and how it can work for your business. You’ll enhance your productivity, reduce frustration, avoid errors, and create happier customers.

Your Most Valuable Resource is Time — Get More of it through Automation

mike-johnston

Marketing isn’t the easiest thing in the world.
Go around and survey a bunch of business owners, and they’ll undoubtedly tell you how critical marketing is to building consumer-brand trust and building a solid relationship with their customers. This is because marketing and sales go together like mac and cheese, and is the foundation that keeps companies strong and able to continue growing.
While business evolves, it becomes nearly impossible to keep up with daily operations and still maintain value-driven, personalized relationships with each and every customer. This is when marketing directors get called in to build performance-driven programs that create the conversions business owners need for their company.
However, having an efficient marketing director means that company’s marketing program is once again too large to comfortably manage. Budget meetings get held. Expenses get cut. Valuable time and money are wasted on menial, repetitive tasks like email blasts and social media updates.
Fortunately, there’s such a thing as marketing automation software, which plays a huge role in helping professionals grow their business.
<h2>About Marketing Automation</h2>
When you pare it down to the basics, marketing automation is an offshoot of customer relationship management that uses software and web-based services as means of implementing, managing, automating, and even optimizing various tasks and processes that would have otherwise taken up valuable time. This includes things like email marketing, website integration, lead generation, customer profiling, form and page building, and A/B testing.
Basically, it does all of the repetitive tasks that take time and money away from the budget for your marketing department, like email and social media marketing. All of those tasks are replaced by marketing automation software and its applications, which are both designed to optimize the performance of your business.
<h2>How Marketing Automation Works</h2>
Marketing automation creates a web of connections between multiple marketing channels, such as content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing. This makes sure your leads are generated, scored, and nurtured to better allow your team to focus their attention on other aspects of running your business.
With the help of marketing automation software, it becomes a million times easier to send targeted emails and other messages with personalization so you can build consumer-brand trust by ensuring your brand and the services and/or products offered are directly relevant to the needs and interests of your target consumers.
This automation means your marketing department is then better able to focus on the quality of the campaigns being run, rather than the quantity of the campaigns. Additionally, the software collects data on your prospects’ interests, demographics, purchasing behavior, and needs, to better nurture those leads and personalize any future offers being sent.
<h2>The Benefits of Marketing Automation</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/marketing_automation_img_1703x0-is.jpg" />
The list of benefits that come from using marketing automation to optimize your business is a long one, but there are some benefits that really stand out and are the key to growing your business and getting new leads.
<h3>Saves Time and Money</h3>
Through the use of marketing automation software, a single individual can send out a massive email blast of hundreds of messages and do the work of a large sales and/or marketing department – all on their own.
Implement the software and your business will have automated marketing campaigns in a short amount of time. Your business will be able to send out hundreds – or even thousands – of personalized emails every single day, in addition to generating and nurturing leads while spending less time and money on doing so.
<h3>Increases Revenue</h3>
Increased revenue comes with decreased time and expenses, and makes up the biggest benefit marketing automation has to offer. In fact, last year’s <a href="http://www.hatchbuck.com/blog/the-pulse-of-marketing-automation-platforms-in-2016/">report by Adestra</a> revealed a staggering 74% of all survey respondents claimed their marketing automation software’s ability to save them time was the biggest benefit, with customer engagement being a close second for 68% of all respondents.
With all of this time being freed up, 80% of businesses <a href="http://www.hatchbuck.com/blog/the-pulse-of-marketing-automation-platforms-in-2016/">surveyed by VB last year</a> found that using marketing automation has resulted in significant increase in leads. Considering the fact these are the very lifeblood of a business’ sales, this is one benefit that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Even better, the same study found that these leads aren’t just any type of leads either – they are generally quality leads that brought about an increase in conversions for 77% of businesses.
<h3>Consistent Branding is Easier</h3>
There’s no question about it: Consistent branding is essential.
With marketing automation software, it’s a million times easier to create a consistent brand that spans across your multiple marketing channels.
Considering how much money and time you save with this, your marketing is better able to focus their efforts on expanding your audience to better reach your target demographic across emails, social media channels, mobile applications, direct mailers, and more. You can spend more money on <a href="https://99designs.com/web-design">perfecting your web design</a>, landing pages, content marketing, and other aspects of building your brand and growing your business.
By making your business more available to your customers, your visibility is gets the boost it needs to turn those website visitors and prospects into customers.
<h3>Versatile and User-Friendly</h3>
Even with all of its uses and benefits, marketing automation is actually surprisingly easy to use. After all, the software is all about optimization and making it easier to grow your business. Because of that, even the employees that aren’t so technically-gifted will be able to use it with little training.
Most marketing automation software packages come with templates, editors, and helpful guides that walk you through the while process all the way from initial creation and design to final distribution.
It doesn’t require your employees to know any coding, graphic design, or other technical skillsets. They can jump right in and get to work once it’s implemented.
<h2>Lead Generation and Nurturing</h2>
Having to spend time reaching out to each individual lead and nurturing that lead through an entire sales funnel takes time. It takes money.
With marketing automation, you can reach out to a potential lead right away from the very first interaction, even if it’s just a simple list subscription.
Let’s say a website visitor spends time reading through your content and offered products/services, and decides to sign up for your mailing list. Once you’ve got that email added to your list, you can send out one of several types of automated solutions.
They’ll receive a welcome message and that confirmation notice (always a good idea), and then the prospect will be immediately guided through the sales funnel. You can use the automation to offer discounts and other offers that are directly relevant to your customer’s needs, interests, and past purchase behavior. As the customer is guided through the sales funnel, the software collects even more data to fill out their customer profile, enabling you to better target your emails and other marketing campaigns.
<h2>Choosing Marketing Automation Software</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/marketing_automation_img_2.jpg" />
Just like with any other type of major software implementation, it’s essential to go through a full assessment of your business before purchasing and implementing marketing automation software. Even with its numerous benefits, you may decide your business hasn’t yet reached the point for it to need all those extra components for your marketing.
You need to go over the needs of your business, such as your staffing capabilities and revenue goals, how much you can invest in new marketing software, and what your current employee skills and abilities are.
Some things to consider are:
<ul>
<li>The type of marketing automation software that would best fit your needs</li>
<li>Your sales and marketing goals</li>
<li>The size of your staff – Do you have enough staff available to implement a marketing automation solution?</li>
<li>How you will measure the marketing automation software’s success – What benchmarks do you have in place?</li>
<li>Your income and expenses – Do you have the financial resources required for this?</li>
</ul>
After taking these things into consideration, it’s best to take some time to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-prepare-your-business-marketing-automation-alexia-p-bullard">prepare your business for marketing automation</a> before implementing the solution. Just like with anything else in the world, whether it’s business-related or not, marketing automation software isn’t perfect. This is why business owners need to take the time to understand both its benefits and limitations.
While it automates most things, it doesn’t automate everything. You will still need staff available to do hands-on marketing, including sending out messages and interacting with customers. While it optimizes and streamlines a good portion of you business’ workflow, it doesn’t replace a human employee.
A big part of the confusion people have when they purchase marketing automation solutions from a vendor stems from the implementation and utilization being driven by someone who doesn’t think about the fact they need involve the CRM, content, email, and/or SEO teams.
At one point or another, all of these different teams within your marketing department should be expected to handle this technology, so they should be informed of how it works. If they never get to learn about it, explore its different uses, or discuss it with the CMO or the vendors, conflict is bound to come up.
There should also be a discuss of who should be the one in charge of running the marketing platform once it’s introduced and set in place. This person, as well as the rest of the team, should be able to test out the platform and speak to the vendors.
To do this, find a vendor and schedule a demo for your team. Things to consider are:
<ul>
<li>How easy the marketing automation solution is to use. Does it take a lot of time to learn, or is it basic and straightforward?</li>
<li>Your marketing needs, and whether or not the vendor is offering a solution that aligns with these needs and goals</li>
<li>The key features – Will they make a significant difference, or do they simply amount to expensive upsells you could do without?</li>
<li>How difficult or easy it would be to implement the new software within your company. Will it integrate well, or will it be too hard to get everyone on the same page?</li>
<li>The amount of time it will take to implement</li>
<li>Whether or not the vendor offers free trials – You should always test a new business tech before investing in it</li>
</ul>
<h2>Picking a Vendor</h2>
As you can see, marketing automation software can certainly yield a whole host of benefits that grow your business and streamline your marketing efforts.
Unfortunately, the software isn’t exactly “one size fits all.”
There are tons of marketing automation platforms available, and they vary widely depending on price, features, and complexity. This can make it a bit difficult to find one that will best meet your needs.
Once you’ve taken an assessment of your business and prioritized your revenue and marketing goals, it’s time to take the next step in selecting the right marketing automation platform.
<h3>Key Features</h3>
Most of them offer the same basic features across the board, but it’s the key components that set them apart.
<ul>
<li>Are you looking for comprehensive inbound marketing? You’re going to need something that integrates your blogging, social media, and email tools.</li>
<li>Do you want your sales reps to have access to your team’s marketing data? You’re going to want a platform that has its own CRM or at least CRM integration capabilities.</li>
<li>Do you want to be able to create landing pages that convert? Then you’re going to want one that has pre-made landing page templates that make it easy to design a page in the shortest amount of time possible. Those platforms that offer drag-and-drop processes, much like <a href="http://www.sendlane.com">Sendlane</a> offers, are the type you want to look for.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Price Point</h3>
Key features aren’t the only thing marketing automation vendors vary in – price is also a huge factor. Some platforms are bundled packages that are all-inclusive, but others come with a basic package with extra add-ons available for purchase. Pricing also tends to be affected by the number of contacts you have, so you may want to get one that reflects your next benchmark goal rather than your current numbers. This way, you have more time between upgrades.
It all depends on what your industry, budget, and marketing goals are. <a href="https://www.hubspot.com/">HubSpot</a> is more expensive than <a href="https://www.act-on.com/">Act-On</a>, for example, but Act-On doesn’t have a content management platform and essential sophisticated analytics. If you’re focusing on content strategy, HubSpot would be the better choice.
The most reliable marketing automation companies make the purchasing, testing, implementation, and utilization process as easy and efficient as they possibly can. This solution should grow your business, not bring it down with complicated tech components and expensive add-ons that won’t directly benefit you. You want to pick software that is best for your business, rather than one you were talked into buying.
The following is a list of additional vendors that have proven to offer the solutions that best fit their customers, and make everything as easy as possible.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://snaptactix.com/products/">Snaptactix</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sendlane.com/#features">Sendlane</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.marketo.com/">Marketo</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html">SAS</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud/products/marketing-automation/index.html">Oracle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.infusionsoft.com/">InfusionSoft</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ibm.com/us-en/">IBM</a></li>
</ul>
That about sums up all the basics about marketing automation and picking a platform – well, at least for this article. As you can see, marketing automation truly is the key to giving your business a boost, regardless of industry or size. This should give you a fairly good idea as to what marketing automation software is and what you should be considering when selecting the best marketing automation platform for your needs.
Do you have any comments or additional vendors you would add to this list? Let me know in the comments below, or get in touch with me over at <a href="http://www.alexiapbullard.com">www.alexiapbullard.com</a>

Don't Panic! The Ultimate Guide to Picking a Marketing Automation Tool.

alexia-bullard

Are you tired of having a CMS that just doesn’t do what you want it to? Do you feel like you are just babysitting your CMS, taking care of the web servers, upgrades, hotfixes, backups, and constantly dealing with a growing list of plugins? Isn’t it frustrating when you have to rewrite your awesome code because your CMS just refuses to play nice? Are you tired of creating different versions of the same content to optimize it for various channels? Wish there was another way? Now, there is.
Kentico Cloud is the cloud-first headless CMS for digital agencies and their clients.
It’s Not Just a CMS Dropped into the Cloud
Many CMS vendors have caught onto the Cloud movement that is currently occurring. But what most do is simply to pick up their CMS and drop it into the Cloud. Sure, it works, but it lacks the elegance and agility of a truly cloud-first CMS. In fact, in 2013, we created Kentico+, which was just that—a CMS deployed in the Cloud—but we could not make it work efficiently for all users. We realized that if we wanted to provide agencies and their clients with all the benefits of the cloud, we needed to go back to the drawing board and rethink the entire CMS architecture.
Kentico Cloud is a completely new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product. By taking care of the service, it allows agencies and their clients to focus on what matters most—driving their business goals by creating truly wonderful digital experiences.
Manage All Your Content in the Cloud
Kentico Cloud works as a centralized content hub where you can produce all your structured content in one place. It provides customizable content types, taxonomy, site map, workflow, versioning, and comments—everything you need to work and collaborate on when creating your content.
Once the content is ready, you can either export it to your existing CMS (if you do not want to redesign the site) or use our content delivery API to publish the content directly on your website or in your mobile application.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kentico_draft1063x0-is.png" />
Deliver Content to Any Website or Mobile Application
Kentico Cloud provides a super-fast API for developers to display the content on websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, and any other channel. It uses the headless approach, which means you have full control over your presentation layer.
As a developer, you can use our API on any platform, using any programming language, and with your favorite development tools—just the way you like it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kentico_deliver869x0-is.png" />
Provide a Personalized Experience
Kentico Cloud goes beyond content management. It allows you to personalize the content displayed to customers based on their profiles. It allows you to track customers on your website and personalize their experiences based on the data it collects. It can tell you which pages the customer visited, which forms they submitted, and what they bought.
Unlike with traditional web analytics tools, Kentico Cloud also creates profiles of individual users with a complete history of their activities. You can then use it to personalize the content on your website or export the data to other systems.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kentico_engage_profile869x0-is.png" />
Kentico Cloud—the Solution to Digital Agency Problems
Kentico Cloud is a set of fully integrated cloud services built from the ground up in the headless CMS architecture. As a hassle-free cloud platform that eliminates complex technology, Kentico Cloud helps agencies and their clients to be more productive while also increasing the scope of content delivery to any device or platform. Instead of wasting time looking after your CMS, put that time to greater effect and focus on delivering successful, profitable projects for your customers.
The Future Is Now
Stop babysitting your CMS and get started with Kentico Cloud now. It allows you to tackle the future of the digital landscape head on and gain a competitive advantage. From websites to virtual reality, bots to digital assistants, and augmented reality to Internet of Things devices, the possibilities are endless. Let Kentico Cloud make it easy for you—go to <a href="http://www.kenticocloud.com">www.kenticocloud.com</a> and sign up for a free trial.

Kentico Cloud - What’s It All About?

Cloud-first headless CMS in the SaaS model is clearly going to revolutionize content production and delivery to a multi-channel, multi-device generation. But, how exactly is it going to impact business, and should digital agencies be getting on the bandwagon now?
For any digital agency looking to increase the ROI of their digital initiatives, become more agile, and gain a competitive advantage through a true cloud platform, the answer is “yes, you should be getting involved now!”
1) Stop Babysitting the Technology
We all know how much effort it takes to run a traditional CMS, whether on-premise or in the cloud. You need to configure the hosting environment, install the CMS, apply hotfixes and upgrades, take care of security, and ensure proper backup protocols are in place. Just think of the countless hours you are spending only babysitting the CMS and the amount of your client's budget that is not going to the actual project. All that time could be used to deliver higher value, complete more successful projects, and increase your business’s effectiveness.
With a cloud-first headless CMS, you focus on delivering business results instead of “CMS projects” and increase the value for your clients.
2) Decrease Time to Market with Greater Agility
Digital transformation is having a huge impact on many industries, and agility is no longer a business advantage—it’s a business necessity. To make an impact in the market, businesses must launch new digital initiatives and test new ideas much faster. They need an agency that is much more flexible and will enable them to launch in a matter of weeks. With traditional CMSs, it is very common to take your static HTML prototype and convert it into the template format used by the CMS. With a headless CMS, it is much easier and faster. You can launch the static website and then start making the website dynamic step by step—begin with your content-rich blog or news section, continue with an in-depth product catalog, and top it all off by making your invaluable Contact Us page content editable.
And, to make it all even better, the cloud-first headless CMS approach provides better separation of the CMS and custom code. This enables continuous deployment and other agile development techniques that greatly help to decrease the time to implement changes to your website and even to roll them back again, if necessary.
Go live much faster with a cloud-first headless CMS.
3) Get Creative and Become Innovative
Don’t feel restricted to just a website. A cloud-first headless CMS lets you explore all kinds of new possibilities, including mobile applications, bots, virtual reality, interactive in-store displays, digital assistants, wearables, or Internet of Things. Easily combine its API with any development technology, including modern JavaScript frameworks, such as AngularJS, React, or Ember, and let your creative side shine through.
With a cloud-first headless CMS, your agency will gain so many opportunities to design innovative digital experiences that start standing out from the crowd.
4) Unrestricted Content for Unlimited Design
How often have you had to reconsider website layouts because the content didn’t fit right? Or had to consider the content layout before you even wrote it? Or worse still, had to rewrite content to fit uncompromising templates? Well, with modular content and a cloud-first headless CMS, those headaches are a thing of the past. By creating content items and assets in modular form, you can take the same content items and reuse them in any layout you want.
With a cloud-first headless CMS, modular content will save you countless hours in content creation and provide you with many layout options, ensuring your projects always meet the needs with the minimum of effort.
5) Happy Employees Are Loyal Employees
Traditional CMSs are built on one specific development platform. That means that, as an agency, you need to have developers that know a specific programming language and how to develop in your CMS of choice. Trying to find such a person could be as difficult as finding a unicorn, and if you can’t find them, you’re stuck trying to train them to become productive.
Here is the real beauty of a cloud-first headless CMS—your developers can use any development platform. By utilizing their favorite tools and development and deployment processes to develop standard applications rather than CMS-specific templates, your developers will be productive and efficient from the very beginning. And not having to rely on a particular technology or having to train your developers from scratch means you can easily move developers across projects. Stop thinking “I only have .NET projects for the next month, what do I do with all my PHP developers?” Instead, let them use their PHP skills for the project and utilize a cloud-first headless CMS.
Additionally, your more experienced developers will probably tell you that they hate CMS projects. They want to write the code their way. Cloud-first headless CMS lets them do that.
With a cloud-first headless CMS, your team is happier, it is much easier to hire new developers, and you can build your business around dedicated professionals because of the increased employee retention. 
6) Increased Profits and Productivity—the Real Advantage
Every digital agency wants to increase their productivity and ultimately their profit margin. With a cloud-first headless CMS, you can achieve exactly that with:
<ul>
<li>Quicker implementation and deployment—using a cloud-first headless CMS is easy and results in shorter implementation times. Additionally, deployment and configuration of the CMS are much quicker because it's provided as a cloud service.</li>
<li>Consistently successful projects—with a cloud-first headless CMS, you have more control over the whole solution. Your developers won't waste time trying to figure out something that is impossible, making sure the precious project budget is not thrown away.</li>
<li>Low-margin upgrade projects are a thing of the past—you’ve probably experienced many times clients not being interested in investing into upgrade projects. They are time consuming and are barely profitable for the agency. With a cloud-first headless CMS, the upgrades are performed by the service provider, meaning you concentrate on implementing new, profitable projects.</li>
</ul>
Enjoy working on profitable and more successful projects.
Don't Wait for Your Competitors to Try This First!
The cloud-first CMS wave is coming, and the ones that jump on it first will gain the competitive advantage! Try <a href="http://www.kenticocloud.com">Kentico Cloud</a> for yourself and see why you should be thinking about a cloud and headless approach for your next project!

Cloud-first Headless CMS—The Game Changer for Digital Agencies

Through the years, CMS products have generally been built as a coupled CMS. This architecture includes everything in a single application: the content repository, the back-end UI for editors, the templating system, and all your custom code. It’s a popular approach because it requires only a single environment, and is easy to set up and manage.
<h2>Coupled Architecture Has Its Issues</h2>
In the coupled architecture, the CMS code is tightly connected with your templates and custom code. Because of this, both your code and the CMS code need to be maintained at all times (during installation, with upgrades and hotfixes, during code versioning, with continuous deployment, and so on). And, you need to be aware that the CMS code is exposed on the public server. This increases security risks, while the load on your website impacts the performance of your content management back end, and vice versa.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/coupled-cms.png" />
<h2>Better Separation of Concerns with Decoupled CMS</h2>
A decoupled architecture has been introduced by some vendors to iron out the limitations experienced with a coupled CMS. This architecture is based around two environments—the content management environment, usually protected by a firewall, where you make your changes, and a content delivery environment, with which you synchronize the content. With the decoupled architecture, you get better security, much better separation of your custom code, and easier scalability.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/decoupled-cms960x0-is.png" />
<h2>But It’s Not the Ultimate Solution</h2>
Despite the advantages of the decoupled architecture, it still does not solve all the issues. It still consists of multiple environments that need to be managed, which increases the costs of infrastructure, maintenance, and software licenses. And, there are always potential issues with having to synchronize content, especially if your website allows members to contribute their own content.
<h2>Headless CMS—the Solution for the Multi-channel World</h2>
CMSs were originally built for websites and, therefore, provide content in the form of a page. But websites and pages are no longer the only digital medium that content is created for. In the last 10 years, we have started consuming ever-increasing amounts of content through mobile applications. And the new advancements in VR, bots, digital assistants, and Internet of Things have made it even more complex with the possibility of displaying content on multiple devices and via many different formats. How we manage and publish content requires an entirely new approach. An approach that requires us to think of content as a set of components that can be pulled together from a single content repository and displayed in the ways native to the channel and device they are consumed on. The traditional page content model will not suffice anymore.
The answer is headless CMS and component content modelling. By eliminating the front-end, the presentation layer is much more flexible, only needing its API to deliver the content. Also, a good headless CMS empowers users with the tools to model structured content effectively using modules or components that can be displayed as a web page on a traditional website or content elements on a mobile application, or presented in a completely different way when displayed on an in-store kiosk. A combination of delivery and content modelling is what makes headless CMS the ultimate solution for the multichannel world we live in.
<h2>Why Is Headless CMS Architecture Better?</h2>
It’s a new architecture and approach for some people. But here are some of the benefits that the headless CMS architecture brings:
<ul>
<li>Multi-channel and multi-device content use is easy with the API.</li>
<li>You are not restricted by programming language, tools, or development processes when creating your websites or mobile apps.</li>
<li>You are in control without any worries about the CMS code.</li>
<li>Security and scalability are vastly superior.</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/headless-cms944x0-is.png" />
When learning about headless CMS, it is also important to know that some people use the term API-first CMS. It is intended to indicate that the CMS was built with an API approach in mind, rather than a traditional CMS that just added an API layer and then claimed to support the headless approach.
<h2>Cloud-first Headless CMS: It Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This</h2>
The headless CMS approach does, of course, work with on-premise CMSs, but you will find the biggest advantages when you use it in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. In fact, it was the headless approach that enabled CMS vendors to provide content management as a true multi-tenant SaaS service.
The cloud-first approach means building the CMS from scratch with the cloud in mind from the very beginning and not just an afterthought like with many traditional CMSs. The cloud-first headless CMS merges the best of headless with the benefits of the cloud. The cloud-first headless CMS approach lets you focus on your website or mobile app while the CMS vendor takes care of everything else, such as the underlying infrastructure, databases, and content delivery network, the installation, upgrades, hotfixes, backup, availability, performance, and security. You still have some work to do, but you don’t need to worry about the CMS code in your environment. It is much easier to secure your code, and the main workload is taken by the cloud CMS, meaning you can handle high traffic levels, even with a modest web server configuration.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-first-headless-cms972x0-is.png" />
<h2>Headless CMS Fits Most Scenarios</h2>
Headless CMS offers many benefits, and there are very few reasons or situations in which not to use it:
<ul>
<li>A simple website based on a stock template with little custom design—website builders such as Wix or Squarespace may be a better option.</li>
<li>You need to get your website operational quickly with off-the-shelf functionality.</li>
<li>Content editors want to use the page-oriented approach, or want to customize page layouts by themselves.</li>
<li>Your website and content repositories are highly regulated and strict rules and laws dictate that cloud storage is not permitted.</li>
<li>You prefer a robust, all-in-one solution that provides content management, marketing automation, e-commerce, online marketing, and many other features rather than building your solution using multiple services.</li>
</ul>
For almost everything else, headless CMS is the clear option. That's why we created <a href="http://www.kenticocloud.com">Kentico Cloud</a>, the cloud-first headless CMS for digital agencies and their clients. Try it for yourself and see why you should be thinking about a cloud and headless approach for your next project!

Cloud-First Headless CMS: What It Is and Why You Should Use It

Content Management Systems have seen some huge changes recently to allow for advancements in technology. The development and continued improvements of various devices like smartphones, smartwatches, Internet of Things devices, virtual reality, augmented reality, and any other content displaying devices mean that the need for on-demand content is growing at a phenomenal rate. How do you do it?
<h2>Content Management Systems</h2>
A typical CMS allows you to create and store content, be it text, image, video, or more, and display that content on a website, even with limited web programming knowledge. These CMSs were built for on-premise deployment and work fantastically. But, the need for higher scalability and agility has led people to start looking at deploying their CMS to the cloud. It is not unusual for many CMS platform providers just to take their CMS and deploy it to cloud hosting services like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. In fact, back in 2011, Kentico was the first CMS certified for Microsoft Azure, while in 2013, we launched the first .NET-based digital experience platform provided as a cloud service. But we had to discontinue the service a year later. Why? Because our customers rightly expected that we would run and maintain everything, but we just couldn’t meet their needs.
Although Kentico CMS worked in the cloud, it wasn’t specifically designed to do so. It wasn’t a true cloud service. The problem was that we needed to manage each installation manually, which we just couldn’t do. We couldn’t facilitate thousands of customers because we just didn’t have enough people to do it. And even if we did, the customers expected a flexible and self-sufficient environment, which this was not. We aimed for Software as a Service (SaaS) but ended up just providing managed hosting.
<h2>Time to Rethink the Whole Service</h2>
It was clear that running Kentico CMS in the cloud just wasn’t going to work as we wanted. We had to figure out what the biggest obstacles were and how we could get past them. We realized that before you could ever start working on your website within a traditional CMS, whether on-premise or in the cloud, you had to…
<ul>
<li>Configure a web server.</li>
<li>Install the CMS.</li>
<li>Take care of hotfixes, upgrades, backup, security, and performance.</li>
</ul>
It is a headache that people just don’t want.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/artboard_1.png" />
<h2>Managed Hosting Is Not the Answer</h2>
In the search for answers to your CMS headaches, you might find many CMS vendors that will tell you they offer a CMS in the cloud and will take care of all the maintenance for you. Your first reaction is probably “Wow, they just take care of everything for us!” But is it going to give you the flexibility you need? More than likely, not. Whenever the code changes, you will normally have to ask the vendor to deploy the changes to your production environment. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/artboard_2.png" />
<h2>Platform as a Service: Closer, but Not Close Enough</h2>
The next concept is to provide a CMS as Platform as a Service (PaaS). PaaS offerings, unlike managed hosting, provide a much better self-service option for configuration and deployment through highly automated environments. But this model comes with many limitations as a result of standardized configurations:
<ul>
<li>Some plugins may not be available.</li>
<li>Certain customization options don’t work.</li>
<li>You have limited control over the hosting environment.</li>
<li>You need to continue to test your website after upgrades and hotfixes to ensure it is working correctly.</li>
</ul>
It means that PaaS still misses the elegance and efficiency you would expect from a true cloud service.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/artboard_3.png" />
<h2>What about the Software as a Service (SaaS) model?</h2>
So you have probably heard of “SaaS CMSs” such as Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress.com. The problem is that these website builders offer limited flexibility in design, and you won't be able to run any custom code. They really are a great choice for a template-based site for a simple mom-and-pop store, but will fall very short on delivering a custom-built website.
<h2>Cloud-first Headless CMS—the Answer You’ve All Been Searching For</h2>
Finally, a model combining the benefits of SaaS with the presentation-layer flexibility you’ve been dying for—a cloud-first CMS utilizing the headless architecture. 
A “cloud-first CMS” is built from scratch with the cloud in mind. Run as a true multi-tenant SaaS CMS, all customers use the same version of the CMS while the vendor only needs to manage one uniform environment. This small detail makes all the difference in efficiency for both the vendor and the clients.
Add to that the headless architecture, which separates the concerns of the vendor (running the CMS) from those of the client (the development of websites and mobile apps that consume content) and you get the possibility of simply using an API to display the content anywhere you want. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-first-headless-cms890x0-is.png" />In the fast-paced, multi-channel world of today, the cloud-first headless CMS is the best option for creating websites and managing content for a multitude of devices and platforms. That's why we created <a href="http://www.kenticocloud.com">Kentico Cloud</a>, the cloud-first headless CMS for digital agencies and their clients. Try it for yourself to see why you should be thinking about cloud and the headless approach for your next project!

Cloud-first CMS Is Not Just a CMS in the Cloud

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

#ffffff

Miami, Florida — dotCMS, a leading, enterprise Java content management platform, has released their latest version, dotCMS 3.7. The 3.7 release builds on dotCMS’s existing push publishing capabilities and provides users an intuitive and straightforward way to publish dotCMS managed files, pages, folders or entire sites to Amazon S3’s service. The 3.7 release also provides a slew of developer-focused improvements, such as new digital asset management (DAM) capabilities that can resize and thumbnail Photoshop and PDF files, shorter, friendly (id-based) URLs, and more.
The ability to statically publish files, content, and sites to Amazon’s S3 reveals a world of possibilities for dotCMS customers who can immediately take advantage of this capability. Setting up a dotCMS site or sites for static publishing is UI based and requires zero development skills or IT involvement. Once setup, the static S3 sites can be used as a CDN for website acceleration, disaster recovery, or as point in time archival purposes. Publishing content (e.g. files, pages) to S3 can be tied into dotCMS workflows and the static publishing or unpublishing of content can be scheduled for future dates.
“With static publishing, dotCMS 3.7 really opens up the door for businesses to use our content management platform in new ways,” said Will Ezell, dotCMS CTO. “Static publishing is ideal for improved performance, disaster recovery, utilizing dotCMS as just an authoring site, and more.”
dotCMS 3.7 also includes features to enhance ease of use for editors with new image management features and shorter, friendly, global URLs. The new image capabilities include handlers that allow for easy resizing and thumbnail functionality of multiple, frequently used formats, like PSDs, PDFs, and TIFF documents. Much like the popular URL shorteners used for social media, friendly URLs allow for shorter, easier-to-use URLs for dotCMS image, file, and other assets.
“Static publishing is a huge push forward for our customers,” commented Ezell. “For those customers who need sites that can easily handle traffic surges, want increased speed and security of their site, or version control, static will be key in their future development.”
The dotCMS 3.7 release also includes a number of other fixes and improvements including better support for SQL Server and WEB-DAV repository access. For a more complete list of fixes included in dotCMS 3.7 as well as more information on the newest features, please visit: <a href="http://dotcms.com/docs/latest/change-log">http://dotcms.com/docs/latest/change-log</a>
About dotCMS
dotCMS is a leading , open source content management platform for companies that want innovation and performance driving their websites and other content-driven applications. Extensible and massively scalable, both small and large organizations can rapidly deliver personalized and engaging content across browsers, mobile devices, channels, second screens and endpoints — all from a single system.
Founded in 2003, dotCMS is a privately owned US company with offices in Miami, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts and San Jose, Costa Rica. With a global network of certified development partners and an active open source community, dotCMS has generated more than a half-million downloads and thousands of implementations and integration projects worldwide. Notable dotCMS customers include: Telus, Standard &amp; Poors, Hospital Corporation of America, Royal Bank of Canada, DirecTV, Nomura Bank, Thomson Reuters, China Mobile, Aon, DriveTest Ontario and ICANN.

dotCMS Launches Static Publishing in Latest Release, dotCMS 3.7

<a href="https://www.jotform.com/">JotForm</a>, a popular web form building tool, announced the release of its new form builder today — JotForm 4.0. In the company’s first major update since 2010, JotForm 4.0 now offers the first fully functional online form builder that works on a mobile device. Every element you need to create any type of form — from basic address and name fields, to payment processing integrations — can be created using your phone or tablet. Plus, there are a number of other significant upgrades as well.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/jotform1.png" />
Advanced Features for Simplified Form Building
JotForm 4.0 features handy offline capability in case you lose internet connection while editing a form. When your device reconnects to the internet, all of the changes you made to your form are saved automatically — greatly reducing the headache of losing your work if there’s no wifi or cell signal available.
The new version also features the ability to simultaneously collaborate and edit a form with members of your team. As workplaces go global and remote, being able to work on complex forms with colleagues at the same time means getting great forms produced faster than ever.
But the most obvious change users will notice in JotForm 4.0 is the modern interface. It’s a significant upgrade in aesthetics from the previous version. Popular, but previously difficult-to-find features and widgets can now be found right at users’ fingertips.
JotForm has been a major player in the online form building space since they were founded in 2006, but 4.0 shows significant improvement. The tool, which requires zero technical skill, is commonly used for forms of all types, such as collecting applications, processing payments and donations, registering event guests, and for generating business leads.
Check it out at <a href="https://www.jotform.com/meet-jotform-4/" target="_blank">https://www.jotform.com/meet-jotform-4/</a>

JotForm 4.0 Takes Building Web Forms to Mobile Devices, Offline

It's official! The latest offering from the enormously popular WordPress developer, StudioPress is now live and you get to hear about it first here on CMS Critic. StudioPress has launched a brand new website builder called <a href="/studiopress-sites">StudioPress sites</a> that gives you the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress!
<h2>What do you get with StudioPress Sites?</h2>
<h3>The Incredibly Powerful Genesis Framework</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/genesis-sample1209x0-is.jpg" />
<a href="/studiopress-sites">StudioPress Sites</a> are built on the extremely popular Genesis Framework, of which the majority of the most popular WordPress websites on the internet are built. The Genesis framework powers over 1/2 million websites worldwide and offers search engine optimized code, airtight security, instant updates, customizable widget and layout options, and a huge developer community.
<h3>20 Supremely well designed and mobile optimized themes</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/infinity-pro1209x0-is.jpg" />
StudioPress sites comes with 20 of their best mobile optimized themes based on the Genesis framework. These HTML5 designs provide beautiful frames for your content and you can personalize any of the them by adjusting the CSS or you can choose to use your own custom Genesis child theme.
<h3>Fast Loading Websites and a Focus on Performance</h3>
StudioPress sites are hosted on an optimized for WordPress infrastructure that focuses on speed and page load times. You will never experience a crashing website just because you happen to get large amounts of traffic.
<h3>No Hosting Hassles</h3>
Choosing a hosting provider can be a nightmare. With StudioPress Sites, you no longer have to worry about setting up hosting or any of the hassles that come with trying to set up your WordPress website. There are no surprise charges for bandwidth, storage or memory. Even if you get a spike in traffic, you won't get charged extra for the short term success.
<h3>Rock-Solid Security and Exceptional, World Class Support</h3>
StudioPress Sites extend the already impressive security features built into Genesis and the included automatic plugin and theme maintenance. The architecture is built to offer maximum security and performance with intrusion prevention, scanning and monitoring for malware and denial of service protection.
<h3>SEO That Can't be Beat</h3>
Thanks to the Genesis framework, the SEO features of your new StudioPress Site are above industry standard but in addition, StudioPress Sites offer advanced schema control, XML sitemap generation, robots.txt generation, asynchronous JavaScript loading, enhanced Open Graph output, breadcrumb title control, AMP support, and more.
<h3>Plugin and Theme Updates? Yes Please!</h3>
The most common method hackers use to attack sites is via outdated plugins and themes. Worry no more! With StudioPress Sites, you get automatic plugin and Genesis updates at no extra charge. No more expensive third party required.
<h3>One Click Install of Included Plugins</h3>
<h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/partner-plugins.jpg" /></h3>
With StudioPress Sites, you no longer need to worry about whether a plugin is trustworthy. They've done the hard work for you and picked out an ever expanding repository of exceptional plugins that you can install with a single click. Choose from an ever-expanding selection including WooCommerce, Design Palette Pro, AMP, Beaver Builder Lite, OptinMonster, AffiliateWP, Soliloquy Lite, Easy Digital Downloads, Restrict Content Pro, Ninja Forms, WPForms Lite, and more to come.
Ready to get started? Be among the first to try this brand new solution which launched today and get a headstart on the competition.
<a href="/studiopress-sites" target="_blank">Create your site today.</a>

StudioPress launches StudioPress Sites - The ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress

In this article, I’m going to tell you how to improve your SEO without the usual gimmick, and in a way that actually works wonders for your business and its data security, too.
Let’s begin with a rhetorical question.
What’s the point in having technology to secure and optimize your business if you don’t have enough business to make it worthwhile?
It’s difficult to answer this question in a way that refutes it: On average, nobody will disagree with the statement that the question poses.
The term “SEO,” stands for search engine optimization, and its goal is to increase the amount of money businesses can make on the web through advertising their business, in either organic or paid means.
At one point, when SEO experts discussed technology that improved businesses’ SEO, they were talking strictly about things like hyperlinking, managing a CMS (content management system) or structuring analytics to measure their digital marketing efforts. Sometimes they would even use SEO plugins to optimize on page factors.
But this method of web optimization is dead. Little if any evidence exists to suggest that putative SEO strategies themselves are truly successful in demand generation.
The subject of this article will be entirely different as it’ll pertain to technology that doesn’t just help your SEO, but also your security, client satisfaction, and revenue, and in a very literal sense, regardless of what industry your business is in.
This cloud based technology is often referred to as a web portal, but <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/securedrawer/">eFileCabinet’s is called SecureDrawer</a>. Web portals are used to share sensitive information securely. Although SEO and security are the foremost benefits of these technologies, they concomitantly assist organizations in not only sharing a large number of files at once (and quickly), but also sharing files of any size.
Professionals in the financial services and accounting fields are learning to rely on web portals for assistance, as they’ve discovered sending email attachments with sensitive client data is no longer a safe practice, as this information can be breached.
This web portal improves a small business’s SEO (which is extremely important for small businesses, especially ones just getting started), by adding a custom branded URL to your business website’s domain.
For instance, if you were a SecureDrawer user, and your business was an online retailer for outdoors equipment (myoutdoorstore.com), the URL for the web portal page on your site would include SecureDrawer and some variant of your domain. There are two monetary benefits to this. One from an SEO perspective, and another from a client impression perspective.
The Benefit of the Web Portal from an SEO Perspective
For your clients to use the web portal service for sensitive file sharing, they’ll have to pay a visit to your website domain. The more people visit your domain (and the longer they stay on the domain), the greater your organic traffic will become from the search engines.
The Benefit of the Web Portal from a Client Impression Perspective
eFileCabinet customers who use SecureDrawer find that their clients are so impressed with the web portal concept (even prior to using it), that they’ll pay an additional fee to our customers to use it.
This has a more direct and tangible impact on revenue for our customers, but it’s only compounded by the SEO traffic they gain from a stronger organic presence on the web.
Credibility: An Indirect Way the Web Portal Benefits Users
Although less tangible than the previous two benefits, customers using a business’s web portal are likely to give credibility to the organization, and refer their friends to the same business. Using a web portal shows clients that you care about the safety of their information in an age of data breach, identify theft, and malicious cyber threats.
What’s more, the power in the web portal comes from the fact you can share information through it without even removing it or sending it anywhere, just like you would use a normal vault.
Rated best in the web portal business by <a href="http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/article/12165783/2016-readers-choice-awards">CPA Practice Advisor</a>, the SecureDrawer website is worth it, particularly if you work in healthcare, financial services, insurance, accounting, manufacturing, law, property management, or real estate.
However, it also is a great bet for any company working in a compliance-centric industry with strictures on how customer information is handled: the SSL and bank-grade encryption (256-bit) that SecureDrawer harnesses for information interchange makes it a paramount feature for client safety.

How Cloud-based File Sharing Technology Improves SEO for Small Businesses

Do you have an irresistible passion for photography? Do you want to show the whole world your incredible pictures and promote yourself as a professional? If so, you definitely need your personal website to achieve this goal!
Today we will talk about a website you can create even if you know nothing about coding or web development. Or more specifically, about the website template that is believed to save you lots of time and money. This website template is called <a href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/59595.html" target="_blank">Defrozo</a> from <a href="https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/" target="_blank">MotoCMS</a>. Its developers claim that Defrozo is a unique all-in-one solution for a photographer of any kind. Out task will be to analyze what benefits, if any, this photography portfolio theme has in store for us. 
DEFROZO is Easy to Use
This template contains Drag and Drop Block Editor with the help of which you may compile your online portfolio yourself. No special skills whatsoever. You do not need any coding experience. Neither the assistance of well-paid web designers or programmers is required. This Creator gives you an opportunity to design your portfolio just playing with the ready-to-use blocks. What I like most about Defrozo is that there are content blocks for every single layout element you can think of. Just move these blocks around till you find the layout you need.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1.jpg" />
One more irresistible feature of this wonderful photography portfolio theme is 100% responsive design. It does not matter what device your online visitors use. They may have access to your portfolio from any device and it does not influence the quality of your storytelling. The layout and design remain as attractive as they really are.
There is one more characteristic that makes your work of compiling the portfolio much more enjoyable. You can create an original photography website design with 4 made-up templates for every single page. They can help you make your portfolio more vivid and enlarge your clientele.
Being secured is not less important feature for any person. This is especially true for the professionals, like photographers, who promote their services by offering different content to their customers. That is why Defrozo can be proud of its Under Construction Mode (it allows to notify your visitors that you are editing your website) and its activation of Password Protected Pages (it is responsible for keeping your artworks safe using the system of password control). You can enable both options in the very approachable Settings – General tab. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2.jpg" />
DEFROZO is Fun to Design
Let's start with Color Picker in the Design tab. This is the tool that can help you choose the appropriate color palette for your portfolio design. It literally takes seconds to pick five dominant colors and see how they fit to your portfolio concept. Color Picker gets even more important if you want to redesign your portfolio. You change one color in the color palette and the whole portfolio looks fresh and inviting again. So, there is no need to click through pages and change every single one of them.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3.jpg" />
What Defrozo also offers is three fabulous galleries for your photos. All of them you can find in Design – Widgets tab (which, by the way, contains quite a number of useful tools to make your website even more attractive). Exquisite Slider, Grid and Carousel are all at your disposal to showcase your talent and professionalism. Choose the one that you like and your visitors are sure to appreciate it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4.jpg" />
Besides all the mentioned characteristics, there are some more features that are worth presenting. You will definitely appreciate Google Fonts which belongs to the most fascinating developments in web typography so far. Providing you with the rich collection of text styles, this plug-in enables you to add high quality fonts to your website, to make it more appealing.
DEFROZO is Multifunctional
To begin with, Defrozo contains integrated Aviary Photo Editor. You may crop, frame, and add different effects to make your photos more amazing – and you do not need to pay monthly fees for upgrades. What is more, there is no need to install this editor on your computer. Aviary Photo Editor is always at hand, right there in your online portfolio.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/5.jpg" />
It is also important that Defrozo offers you an excellent opportunity to start your personal professional blog. Your online guests would be glad not just to admire the amazing photos from your portfolio but also to read your informative articles on photography. You can use this blog as a means of promotion, publishing different content for your audience. And again you can do everything yourself, without anyone's help just using the tools that are offered to you.
With Defrozo, you may add interactivity to your portfolio thanks to the smart use of different widgets. For example, it is as easy as it can be to manage media files using Video Widget and Audio Player.
Defrozo can also function as your personalized SEO tool. Do you want to make your photography portfolio noticeable for search engines? Defrozo photography portfolio theme is characterized by SEO integration. Do not miss the chance to use this feature! Add keywords that describe basic information on a web page, the meta description for your website pages, ALT tags and titles for images. You can be sure that search engines will spot your portfolio on the web in no time.
Moreover, it is possible to let your visitors write comments if you are interested in their feedback. And do not forget that they may help you become more well-known just by sharing the articles via different social media. What is more, you can use such option as subscription form to get new subscribers and build your own online audience.
DEFROZO is Attractive Both for Web Developers and Beginners
Defrozo has an appealing offer for cooperation for web developers. Called White Label, it is all about providing developers with an opportunity to create best portfolio websites for photographers with Defrozo under their own brand. 
The last but in any case not the least significant feature of Defrozo is its 24/7 Tech Support that is provided by an experienced team of professionals. The newcomers to the web world will definitely appreciate this feature. If you have any problems you need to tackle, you are never left alone with your issues. You can send a message via contact form and your manager will help you fix everything you need.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/6.jpg" />
So Defrozo has proved to be a reliable and user-friendly website template from MotoCMS. No doubts, it can help the whole world know that you are the master of the photography craft. If you became interested with Defrozo, use an exclusive promo code cmscritic30 to get <a href="https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/59595.html" target="_blank">Defrozo online portfolio by MotoCMS with 30% OFF</a>.

Defrozo Photography Website Solution from MotoCMS

Whether you’ve already been running your virtual store for some time, or are just getting started, your business efficiency is likely to be a constant top priority for you. There are many details in operational and sales management that can make it or break it. In this article, we cover some free and out of the box features of <a href="http://www.nopcommerce.com?utm_source=online-store-increased&amp;utm_medium=mainpage-link1&amp;utm_campaign=cmscritic">nopCommerce</a>, an open source ecommerce platform, that support both of the functional areas, and help increase your store efficiency with no investment required.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-1.png" />
<h2>Inventory management functionality</h2>
Inventory management is one of the most important store efficiency factors. Too much stock locks your capital. Too little might cause missed opportunities for sales. Either way affects the customer experience.
nopCommerce inventory management tools helps in different ways: first, you can define whether or not to display stock availability and stock quantity on a product page, as well as to not show products at all if they are out of stock; this prevents customers from disappointment of buying items that are not available.
Second, you can set up notifications that will be sent to your customers when a product is back to stock; this ensures you don’t lose your potential shoppers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-2.png" />
Next, <a href="http://www.nopcommerce.com?utm_source=online-store-increased&amp;utm_medium=mainpage-link2&amp;utm_campaign=cmscritic">nopCommerce</a> allows merchants to track inventory in real time, which also prevents from oversells of sold out goods.
Some business owners prefer to use drop shipping, they don’t keep inventory on hand, instead, their suppliers hold and manage the inventory, pack and ship items. The nopCommerce platform supports such business model and provides opportunities for vendor management, including separate vendor admin panel where your partners can view and manage their orders, sales reports and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce3.png" />Besides the above mentioned features, the platform allows to track different product variants and stocks distributed across several locations.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-4.png" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-5.png" />
Inventory management helps to track and forecast sales, which means you avoid to keep too much or too little and can significantly enhance your store efficiency.
Various payment options
According to PAY.ON, the right mix of different payment methods can boost merchants’ sales by up to 40%, due to maximized conversions and reduced drop-outs. This is especially important for those who sell internationally, as payment options vary greatly country to country, and customers from all over the world have their own preferred payment systems.
nopCommerce supports several payment methods out of the box, such as, PayPal Standard and Direct, or Purchase Orders, as well as partners with the industry leading payment providers and supports leading payment gateways that can be found in nopCommerce <a href="http://www.nopcommerce.com/marketplace.aspx?utm_source=online-store-increased&amp;utm_medium=marketplace-link&amp;utm_campaign=cmscritic">marketplace</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-6.png" />
Note that for better customer experience, it is also recommended to display icons of the payment systems that you use on your page (for example, at the footer).
Shopping carts tracking and management
Current Shopping Carts list enables store owners to view all existing shopping carts of all customers and from all stores on one page. The list contains all products that were placed in carts, but not purchased. Information about these abandoned carts and their management can give additionally as much as 20% of a monthly revenue. There are can be different strategies to stimulate the customers that didn’t complete their purchases, such as gentle disincentivizing email reminders, or more pushy messages with time-limited special offers. nopCommerce platform allows to set up different message templates as well as discounts.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-7.png" />
Marketing and sales tools
Online merchants have a broad toolkit at their disposal to increase shop efficiency by increasing sales and order values.
One of the effective practices is publishing special deals, bestsellers and new arrivals on your home page. Many online surfers don’t know what exactly they want or are not aware of new product models. Your goal as an online seller is to reach out to that segment and show the customers what they are missing out on.
Another good tactic for growing sales is cross-selling: suggest your customers something that compliments the product they are already interested in. This practice is not only beneficial for store owners, but may also significantly increase shopping experience. When a primary product requires complementary items, such as batteries, getting them in one go makes a customer free from hassle of looking for them once the product lacking them is delivered.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-8.png" />Store owners can also boost customers loyalty and guarantee their repeated purchases by setting up a reward points program. A Reward points program allows customers to earn points for certain actions they take on a site. In nopCommerce, reward points can be used as one of the payment methods. This option is displayed in the Payment Method area of the checkout. Exchangeable reward points can be used together with other payment methods such as credit cards, gift cards and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-9.png" />Most of the shoppers prefer to read product reviews before they make a decision whether to put their money into it. Reviews can make your potential customers more confident, so the more reviews you have, the more convinced a shopper will be in taking the final step. Reviews built trust in your store and your products, as well as increase a store’s online presence. Product reviews functionality in nopCommerce allows customers to leave ratings and comments, while store administrators may approve and delete the entries.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-10945x0-is.png" />Conversion rates, hence a store efficiency, might also be improved by using different checkout page strategies. One of them is adding a gift wrap/message options. This might seem a “little thing”, however, it does not only add a personal touch and helps the shopper save time, but also adds to the order value. nopCommerce checkout attributes support a variety of checkout opportunities to complete purchase process in the best way.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-11912x0-is.png" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-12.png" />Don’t forget about SEO to drive more traffic to your site. Check that your URLs have actual product and/or category names that are easily understood by your target audience, try to avoid including item numbers or category IDs in the URLs. Optimize your product description properly, it is not recommended to optimize your products for secondary details such as SKUs, colors or sizes, rather include brand names and model numbers in your title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags and header tags.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nopcommerce-13.png" />
Last, but definitely not the least important way to increase the efficiency is optimization of your marketing efforts by segmentation of your customers. Segmentation helps to aim your marketing at each particular group, which means saving you time and money, moreover you can focus your efforts on the most profitable customers. You can segment your audience based on location, personal profiles (e.g. age, gender, income, occupation, etc.), lifestyles, buying behaviour. Create different customer segments using customer roles functionality and set up tailored messages and campaigns for your groups.
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<a href="http://www.nopcommerce.com?utm_source=online-store-increased&amp;utm_medium=mainpage-link3&amp;utm_campaign=cmscritic">nopCommerce</a> platform has many features to support a store operational and marketing efforts. When used properly, it can bring significant revenue hike and slashed operating costs. So if you’re looking to increase your online business efficiency, start by exploring all the possible ways to leverage the ecommerce platform’s in-built functionality.

Online store increased efficiency: nopCommerce features for smarter operations and marketing

This week we covered a <a href="/exploring-the-solodev-web-experience-platform/" target="_blank">high level overview of Solodev</a> as well as the <a href="/the-genesis-of-the-personalized-web-experience/" target="_blank">Solodev Web Experience Platform</a>, Solodev's state of the art <a href="/deploy-scalable-cost-effective-websites-in-minutes-using-solodev/" target="_blank">cloud infrastructure in Amazon Web Services</a> as well as <a href="/ensuring-customer-success-every-step-of-the-way/" target="_blank">Solodev's new enterprise support offerings</a>. Today we will showcase a few websites built using Solodev.
<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/oneblood-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">OneBlood</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/oneblood-mockup-bg2.jpg" />
The Solodev Platform empowered OneBlood to drive the customer journey from homepage visit to appointment scheduling and all the way to an actual blood donation. When OneBlood’s technological infrastructure was put to the test with a 2700% increase in traffic overnight, Solodev leveraged the power of Amazon Web Services to auto-scale resources accordingly until the traffic leveled out and resources were auto-scaled down to normally required levels.
<a href="https://www.oneblood.org/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/cnl-financial-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">CNL Financial</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cnl-mockup-bg.jpg" />
CNL Financial harnessed the power of Solodev and Amazon Web Services to better inform financial advisors and promote investments on a scalable and secure platform. Built in Solodev on the AWS Infrastructure, CNL’s websites, including its Solodev-powered Mobile App, feature robust and scalable document sharing platforms for portfolio offerings with granular permissions, features and functionality that allow for quick updates to time sensitive information, as well as the publication of new content after FINRA approval. CNL’s multiple websites and mobile app also enjoys the benefits of unparalleled security and structural integrity provided by Solodev’s partnership with Amazon Web Services.
<a href="http://www.cnlsecurities.com/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/springstone-inc.-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">Springstone Hospitals</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sycamore-website.jpg" />
With the power of Solodev and Amazon Web Services, Springstone, Inc. was able to rapidly deploy location-specific content to their user-facing hospital websites – all on a scalable, secure platform. Springstone’s multiple websites feature comprehensive functionality that allow each hospital to utilize the Solodev platform to rapidly deploy location-specific content to their user-facing websites. With granular permissions, features and functionality that allow for quick updates to their user-facing websites, Springstone also enjoys the benefits of unparalleled security and structural integrity provided by Solodev’s partnership with Amazon Web Services.
<a href="http://www.sycamorespringshealth.com/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/decide-dekalb-economic-development-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">Decide DeKalb</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dd-image-lg.jpg" />Decide DeKalb was empowered to attract companies and entrepreneurs to DeKalb County through its user-facing website using the power of the Solodev Web Experience Platform. The Solodev Platform provides the team at Decide DeKalb with the ability to quickly add new site content, making it possible for Decide DeKalb to quickly customize content that targets businesses and industries in the recruitment process. The Website is securely hosted within Amazon Web Services, which offers full disaster recovery, and easy scalability to 100,000 concurrent users by leveraging the Amazon Content Delivery Network (CDN).
<a href="http://www.decidedekalb.com/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/seminole-county-public-schools-case-study.stml" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/scps-mockup-1.jpg" />
Seminole County Public Schools (SCPS) is the 12th largest school district in Florida and is 60th nationally with more than 67,000 students and 10,000 employees. Beautifully designed and easy to manage, the SCPS Website is fully responsive and scalable on-demand. Empowered by Solodev’s comprehensive software training and 24×7 support, the SCPS staff can now leverage the power of the Solodev Web Experience Platform to manage their website and deliver engaging web experiences.
<a href="https://www.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/florida-dairy-farmers-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">Florida Dairy Farmers Association</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/fdf-header.jpg" />
Solodev empowered FDF to more effectively deliver its message and meets its online objectives. The ability of site administrators to easily keep it fresh with interactive content has resulted in big improvements in three key areas of engagement targeted by FDF leadership in the redesign. Site traffic compared to the identical period year over year shows the bounce rate down by almost 40 percent. At the same time, the pages per session more than doubled to 3.93 and the average time spent on the site doubled as well to 3:13. The highly customizable Solodev Web Experience Platform allows even the most non-technical of users to keep the site updated with new content. With a hosting infrastructure supported by Amazon Web Services, the site is secure, faster, and significantly less prone to experience downtime.
<a href="http://www.floridamilk.com/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/dr.-phillips-performing-arts-center-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/drphillips-website-1.jpg" />
The power of the Solodev platform made it possible for the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center (DPAC) to drive the customer experience from homepage visit to seat selection and all the way to opening night. DPAC benefits from their website being built in Solodev’s cloud infrastructure. This includes automation to scale the performing arts center’s applications based on time or load as well as dynamic configuration to orchestrate changes as traffic surges occur. This allows DPAC to schedule the allocation of their applications by adding servers prior to the sale of tickets for upcoming show releases.
<a href="https://www.drphillipscenter.org/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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<h3><a href="https://www.solodev.com/resources/case-studies/florida-department-of-education-website-case-study.stml" target="_blank">Florida Department of Education</a></h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/fldoe-header.jpg" />
Solodev empowered the staff at FLDOE to manage the user experience after building their award-winning website in the Solodev Platform. After the site was initially developed, FLDOE staff quickly learned how to use Solodev and took full ownership by adding new sections, pages and content in preparation for launch. Solodev configured and provides ongoing management of the site’s robust hosting environment. Currently averaging nearly 30,000 users per day, the site was developed to scale in response to peak demand periods and has more than enough capacity to accommodate 100,000 concurrent users when necessary.
<a href="http://www.fldoe.org/" target="_blank">Visit Website</a>
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*Solodev is currently offering a 14 Day Free Trial of the Solodev Web Experience Platform. This includes an instance of Solodev on an Amazon EC2 server as well as 50GB of storage, 2GB of memory, as well as email and chat support. You can also purchase <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=8e11c912-6253-41b8-b065-bf32bd27911b" target="_blank">Solodev on the AWS Marketplace</a> with plans starting at $99/month.

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