Articles - Page 87

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

matt-garrepy

If you are in the market for an easy to use, yet powerful E-commerce solution with which to build your online presence, you may come across a product called Zoey Commerce. Built on the popular Magento platform, Zoey Commerce is a very slick solution that makes the whole experience of building an online store painless.In this Zoey Commerce review, I’ll take you on a tour of the product to give you an idea as to what you can expect should you choose to give it a much recommended try.Signing up for Zoey Commerce is simple, just navigate to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.zoey.com/">their website</a> and sign up for a a free 14-day trial. You don’t need a credit card or any commitment to try it out so please make sure to do so if you are searching for an E-commerce solution (in fact, even if you aren’t, I recommend trying it anyway).Your store will be created virtually instantly and you’ll be prompted to fill in some basic information such as your address, company name as well as given the opportunity to select a theme for your site.Zoey comes with quite a few options as far as themes are concerned, so you shouldn’t have any issues finding something you can customize to your liking:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-13-1024x902.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-13" />Once you’ve completed the initial welcome wizard and selected a theme, you will be taken to this screen:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-1-1-1024x681.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-1" />From here, you can see a list of steps you need to take to prepare your new store for launch.Editing your design is likely going to be the first step you will want to take so let’s click on that. Once you’ve done so, you’ll see that the theme for your site is loaded and everything that can be edited (which is pretty much anything) has edit controls around it so you can simply click and edit anything you wish quickly and easily:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-2-1-1024x726.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-2" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-3-1-1024x720.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-3" />As you can see, making changes is extremely simple, granted, it’s tough for me to show you how easy it is in a written post so, as mentioned earlier, be sure to try it out for yourself by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.zoey.com/">signing up for a free trial</a>.Once you’ve made the necessary changes to your theme to make it yours, it’s time to add your first product. Zoey let’s you use the interface built into the get started wizard or, you can use the left pane and navigate to the more extensive product management page. Whichever you choose to use, the process is simple and elegant.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-4-1-1024x825.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-4" />The last few requirements are to set shipping, taxes, payment providers and an email for your store.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-5-1-1024x843.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-5" />Setting up taxes sometimes can be daunting but not to worry, Zoey will redirect you to a more extensive page and give you a tour of the process to help simplify things.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-14-1024x696.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-14" />That takes care of the Getting started piece of the setup process. Let’s now take a deeper look at the product.How you manage your products is incredibly important and Zoey Commerce makes the process easy. Navigating to the Products tab, you’ll be able to not only add products but edit existing ones through a simple and clean interface.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-9-1-1024x756.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-9" />As you can see, you have a significant number of options you can modify for each product but the interface doesn’t overwhelm with too much info too soon, which I like.Managing customers is equally simple.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-10-1-1024x505.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-10" />You can view and create groups for customers, modify existing ones and even add new customers manually if you wish.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-15-1024x840.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-15" />Additional configuration options can be found on the Setup tab and within the various categories on the sidebar. Zoey also comes with the ability to extend your store using additional functionality in the form of Apps. To browse and add any of these, simply click on the Apps tab and you’ll be presented with a selection of options.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-11-1-1024x976.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-11" />Once you’ve completed the setup process and have finalized your configuration, you’ll want to run a couple of tests by submitting test orders, etc. You can view all orders that come in through the Orders tab. Below is an example of a test one I submitted.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-8-1-1024x900.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-8" />Zoey comes with an impressive analytics package built in as well, including real-time reporting any many others.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-16-1024x581.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-16" /><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zoey-commerce-review-7-1-1024x714.png" alt="zoey-commerce-review-7" />There are plenty of other options to explore with Zoey Commerce but in essence, this gives you a very good idea as to what you can expect should you choose it for your online store.In my time using the product, I was impressed with how quickly it responded and how easy it was to use. The best part is that if you get stuck at any time, you can click on the small “?” icon in the bottom right (seen in the last screenshot above) and it will open a help guide with tips and links to resources as well as the support forum.While I can’t personally speak to how solid their support is or how responsive the product is once it’s loaded up with a significant amount of products, they do have some pretty big brands running their platform without issue so I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I am sure it’s equally as good.My final thoughts? Zoey does a great job of presenting the user with a powerful E-Commerce solution without overwhelming them. It’s easy to use, it’s not daunting and the interface feels well architected.<h3>Pros</h3><ul><li>Easy to use</li><li>Simplified but powerful</li><li>Well priced</li></ul><h3>Cons</h3><ul><li>Not as well known as some larger brands, yet.</li></ul><h2>Final Remarks</h2>Zoey does a great job of presenting the user with a powerful E-Commerce solution without overwhelming them. It's easy to use, it's not daunting and the interface feels well architected. The only thing I think that I could consider a bad point would be that they are not as well known as some of the larger brands. I do however, expect this to change quickly.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.zoey.com/">Learn more about Zoey Commerce</a>

Zoey Commerce Review

mike-johnston

<a href="https://lemonstand.com">LemonStand</a>, the cloud-hosted ecommerce solution, has just announced the arrival of $1.25M worth of seed funding from; BDC Capital, Hank Massey, Paul Rochester, Silicon Valley based angel investors Barry X Lynn, and others.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/lemonstand.png" alt="lemonstand" />
The platform is aimed primarily at businesses, from small all the way up to enterprise level, rather than to first-time online merchants.
LemonStand intends to use the proceeds to invest in continued product development and to accelerate its recruitment of new web design and agency partners.
<h2>“Breaking The Mold”</h2>
According to Matt Roberts, the Associate Director of the IT Venture Fund at BDC Capital, LemonStand are going places:
<blockquote>
“LemonStand has broken the mold for cloud based eCommerce platforms.
They give web designers and agencies full control over the online shopping experience. Through a highly customizable solution they provide the tools and support needed to drive better results for the retailers they work with.” 
</blockquote>
The target in LemonStand's crosshairs is the trillion dollar online retail market that is growing more rapidly than ever.
As I mentioned, LemonStand's focus is on small and medium-sized online retailers who often work with web design agencies on their brand and marketing strategy.  
Built on a secure and scalable cloud-based architecture, LemonStand endeavours to combine the ease of use and operational benefits of the cloud, along with the power and flexibility web designers usually only find with open source and enterprise platforms.
<h2>Built for Web Designers</h2>
LemonStand's Founder and CEO Danny Halarewich also chimed in with his views on the product's position in the ecommerce industry:
<blockquote>
“We built LemonStand for web designers and their fast growing clients. They no longer want to work with outdated, complex, and high maintenance server based platforms, but have been frustrated with the limited flexibility of the many cloud based ‘do-it-yourself’ solutions out there.
Anyone who’s had success growing an eCommerce business knows that slapping up an online store in 15 minutes that looks just like hundreds of others out there isn’t good enough.”
</blockquote>
With a growing base of hundreds of web design and agency partners in over 15 countries, LemonStand’s investment plans center around continuing to build the best solution, tools and community for web designers, agencies and fast growing retail brands.
For more information or a free trial, visit LemonStand at <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lemonstand.com&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1462355557888000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGJE4DY7NoIWOVQyPpw7thyTvH8Eg">lemonstand.com</a>
And as usual, you can explore more through the <a href="/lemonstand/">LemonStand Hub on our CMS Directory</a>.

LemonStand Secures Additional $1.25M in Funding

<a href="http://virtuemart.net/" target="_blank">VirtueMart</a>, one of the most successful eCommerce solutions for <a href="http://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a>, has just released its newest version, VirtueMart 3.
Compatible with Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3, the open-source eCommerce solution has undergone “thousands of man hours” in order to make it compatible with Joomla 3, clean up the architecture, increase stability and performance.
VirtueMart concede that, “looking superficially at VirtueMart 3 it looks and works almost as VM2”. However, they say that the feeling and handling of the platform is different. Let's take a look at what they mean.
<h2>Smoother Shopping</h2>
This new update brings about enhanced speed, add to cart buttons in the category browse view, and a simpler checkout system. VirtueMart merchants will notice the enhanced backend speed and simplified custom fields, along with many more tools to fulfill the wishes and needs of customers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/virtuemart3.png" alt="VirtueMart 3" />
Here's an overview of the back end improvements:
<ul>
<li>The most advanced VM available to date</li>
<li>Increased backend performance</li>
<li>Simplified process for adding and implementing product customfields</li>
<li>Enhanced parameters for displaying related products and categories</li>
<li>Additional parameters for the views in the joomla menu configuration</li>
<li>Easily add and configure your own shopperfields directly useable in the shopping cart</li>
<li>Increased ability to Restrict/Manage employee access to key functions using ACL</li>
</ul>
Meanwhile, the front end will provide a smoother shopping experience, thanks to:
<ul>
<li>Improved page load speeds</li>
<li>The ability to add products and their variants to the cart directly from the category browse view</li>
<li>Simpler checkout process helping to reduce cart abandonment</li>
<li>Predicted shipping costs prior to full address entry</li>
<li>Cart contents for logged in users are stored to allow checkout at a later time</li>
<li>For multilingual stores, we now have a language fallback to the default language for non-translated text</li>
</ul>
To find out more about VirtueMart 3, and to download it for yourself, <a href="http://virtuemart.net/news/latest-news/465-virtuemart-3-is-here" target="_blank">check out the official announcement</a>.
For more information about Joomla, visit <a href="/products/joomla/" target="_blank">Joomla via our CMS Directory</a>.

VirtueMart 3 Released

<h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ar_vr_visual_search.jpg" /></h2>
<h2>What is Adaptive Design?</h2>
Adaptive web design adapts to the browser environment, and may or may not take into account the browser’s size. I bet customers <a href="http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/" target="_blank">think</a> that the mobile web is the new black as they find themselves spending at least a few hours a day surfing the web on a mobile device.
Users joyfully browse sites that are created to ensure a comfortable web journey no matter what device is used, and ignore sites that are not optimized for their smartphones or tablets.
The core of customer satisfaction or disappointment is a website's design. If it is chosen properly according to customers' needs, then users are likely to be pleased. So how do you make the right choice?
In this article, I’m going to reveal what a mobile strategy is, why it is crucial for a company's online presence, and what web design to implement when building your website so that your visitors fall in love with it.
First, let’s learn about mobile strategy.
<h2>What is a Mobile-First Strategy?</h2>
Smart phones and tablets are quickly becoming people's personal pocket computers. As a result, customers are using these devices everywhere, and that greatly influences how they evaluate companies' websites, how they interact with the companies, and how they make decisions.
Unfortunately, many executives still underestimate mobile trends, although in reality, these trends can be huge, game-changing opportunities for most businesses.
But what exactly is a Mobile-First strategy? A Mobile-First strategy is when a website is intentionally built so that customers and employees will interact with it from any device they have.
Implementing a mobile strategy may also be advantageous for search engine optimization (SEO) of the site. Not long ago Google finally made an official <a href="https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html" target="_blank">announcement</a> that it is going to slap websites silly if they are not optimized for mobile.
The second reason to make a site mobile-optimized is statistics. Currently, 61% of users are <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/why-marketers-should-keep-sending-you-emails" target="_blank">unlikely</a> to return to a mobile site they have trouble accessing it, and 40% will visit a competitor’s site instead.
Few people doubt the necessity of using a mobile-strategy. Most companies are wondering HOW to implement the strategy and what web design to use in order to make their website attractive for both desktop and mobile users.
Two of the most common types of web design that work for Mobile-First websites are Adaptive Design and Responsive Design.
​
<img title="Click and drag to move" />
It consists of multiple interpretations of the same design – one for each size. Each version is assigned to specific ‘anchor points’ that tell a browser when to jump to the next layout.
A designer will usually create a different layout for each of the six most common viewport widths (320px, 480px, 760px, 960px, 1200px, and 1600px).
When to choose Adaptive Design?
<ol>
<li>Adaptive Design is more advantageous for retrofitting existing websites than for building new ones, because it needs to be designed with layouts with a minimum of six widths.</li>
<li>Adaptive websites work well when user intent with mobile differs from that of user intent on desktops. For example, on some websites, a user on a mobile device is likely more interested in booking a service appointment than looking at a catalog.</li>
</ol>
Why to choose it?
Adaptive web design allows you to take control of the design and focus development on specific, multiple viewports.
With an adaptive site, a company can measure which options are performing best and alter the design to maximize online traffic.
For example, if a site gets the majority of traffic via desktop use, then the company needs to make sure that it has removed constraints such as site speed, usability, load time, etc., that a user of the site on a desktop may experience.
It is important to note that a designer can add views for different types of mobile devices, but with Adaptive Design, the efforts can be focused on any specific priority.
Adaptive websites also excel in load time performance and overall user experience, because they work by transferring only the necessary assets for the specific device.
According to research, adaptive sites are often two to three times <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/adaptive-vs-responsive-design" target="_blank">faster</a> than responsive ones.
<h2>What is Responsive Design?</h2>
Responsive web design works without regard to the type of browser in use, because it responds to the size of a browser and then reflows the layout accordingly.
​
<img title="Click and drag to move" />
Jeffrey Veen <a href="https://go-seo.com/responsive-web-design-must/" target="_blank">said</a>, “Day by day, the number of devices, platforms, and browsers that need to work with your site grows. Responsive web design represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll build websites for the decade to come.”
When to choose it Responsive Design?
<ol>
<li>Most new sites use Responsive Design.</li>
<li>Designers and developers who do not have a lot of experience consider Responsive Design easier to work with thanks to the availability of themes accessible through CMS systems such as Drupal and WordPress.</li>
<li>Responsive websites generally work well for websites that have minor differences between mobile and desktop in user intent. Users want to see the same website options from both desktops and smartphones.</li>
</ol>
Why to choose it?
Responsive doesn’t offer as much control as adaptive, but takes much less time to build, implement, and maintain. Also, it is cheaper than adaptive, which requires dedicated mobile websites.
​
The website is able to adapt to the type of device that the user is using.
When United Way Bay Area (UWBA) and Morweb CMS teamed up to turn a simple website into an immersive user experience, the results were surprising.
By adopting Responsive Design, United Way of the Bay Area was <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2014/08/03/responsive-design-leads-to-34-mobile-traffic-boost-for-united-way/" target="_blank">able</a> to increase their mobile sessions by over 34 percent, increase tablet sessions by 21.5 percent, and generate 28 percent growth in year-by-year online donations.
Responsive web design is also <a href="https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/get-started" target="_blank">recommended</a> and rewarded by Google. The search engine algorithms work so that sites with a growing number of mobile users rank higher than those that are not responsive.
Responsive design can help the Google ranking algorithm understand that your website provides an acceptable user experience whether it is viewed on a phone, tablet, or desktop.
<h2>What Design Should You Choose for Your Website So That Customers Сannot Take Their Eyes Off It?</h2>
Before deciding on which design to implement, it is essential to spend plenty of time researching your company's audience and their needs.
In particular, who is viewing the site? What kind of information do they want to see on it? Do they get it? What kind of device do visitors use most often when viewing the site?
Answers to these questions will help you to analyze and subsequently build a strategy for developing a new site or altering a current one.
This information can be found through Google Analytics or basic focus group testing. The most common problems with a website might be slow load time, not resizing to the customer's screen size, and the lack of top-quality content.
This information will allow you to understand why a potential customer might leave your site.
The second thing to consider is whether to build a new site or work with the current one. Most new sites are built with the help of Responsive Design, which may <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/mtv-increased-mobile-traffic-92-responsive-redesign-report/123601/" target="_blank">increase</a> mobile traffic.
As a rule, existing sites choose Adaptive Design.
​
<img title="Click and drag to move" />
If a company has a limited budget, then Responsive Design might be a better choice, according to <a href="http://blog.catchpoint.com/2014/06/02/adaptive-vs-responsive-web-design-right-site/" target="_blank">Catchpoint</a>. “If the goal of the site is to deliver a lot of content to users and doesn’t have much in the way of advanced functionality, then responsive is probably the best way to go.”
Catchpoint also notes that if most of website's visitors “will be accessing your site from a desktop browser and won’t lose anything by using it on a mobile device, it is the simplest – and cheapest – option.“
<h2>Conclusions</h2>
The website of a company is usually the first contact that a customer has with a brand. If the user experience of a website's visitors is poor, it will be hard to persuade them to interact with it in the future.
That is why it is crucial to consider a proper web design strategy as quickly as possible.
Knowing exactly who makes up a company's audience is critical. Once it is understood who a company's customers are and what devices they use to access the site, it will be possibly to develop a design that will satisfy customers and enhance their user experience.
Executives also need to decide if their company needs a new site or if they should continue working with the site already in use.
Responsive websites generally work well for websites that have minor differences in user intent between mobile users and desktop users. Adaptive websites work well when user intent on mobile differs greatly from that of desktop use.
In the end, Responsive Design is cheaper, because it allows a company to have a single website that fits the various screen sizes of the devices on which the site might be viewed. It's a simple math — one website is obviously cheaper than two.

Mobile-First, Adaptive, or Responsive Design: Which to Choose for the Website so Customers Want to Buy Your Product or Service?

Sitefinity 5 is the latest release from web content management vendor, Telerik. This new release introduces a <a href="/sitefinity-cms-5-hits-the-web-brings-cutting-edge-mobile-tools/">number of new features</a> and we've decided to do a Sitefinity Review and take a look at the system and how it functions.
On the first visit to the site, we were greeted with an attractive demo site for the fictitious Telerik International University. In order to enable our editing tools so that we can use the on page editing capabilities of Sitefinity, we need to first authenticate with the system, we can do this by appending our URL with /sitefinity to get to the dashboard login.
Once we log in and see the dashboard (shown below) we can visit the main website and begin making changes. We’ll come back to the dashboard about later in this article.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phpfox-emblem_akin2i.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" /> 
Sitefinity’s Dashboard
Visiting the main website, we see that there is a new icon floating on the right side that says “Tools”:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phpfox-emblem-1_jbpjiz.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking on this icon, followed by “Show editing tools” turns on a number of editable regions within the site. To edit any of them, we just click the edit link and the applicable module or WYSIWYG editor loads with the relevant content.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity3-450x276.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
The editor is easy to use, loads fairly quickly and has the majority of options I’d need by default. There is also a “More formatting options” link which enables more functionality but I did not find a need to use it. All changes once saved are applied to the site. For multi-language sites, there is an option to save to all translations as well.
Of the various regions within the site, I didn’t find any instances where the editor failed to load or the functionality was not up to par. Front end editing is generally more for quick changes and for those who like to see the results instantly. The more in-depth work is done through the dashboard so lets take a look at how things work from within.
One thing I really enjoy about Sitefinity’s dashboard is the amount of help it provides to newcomers with the many links to video tutorials, the documentation portal and getting started links. Visually, the user interface is clean and has pretty much everything someone would need to feel confident about using the product. I like the touch of adding the phone numbers at the top as well for when frustration or confusion sets in. Sometimes digging for these can become difficult and this all adds to the overall customer experience nicely.
Managing Pages within the CMS is very easy and straight forward. There are many ways you can work with them from simply dragging and dropping them to change the order or hierarchy to viewing each page with the handy “view” link which launches in a new window. Under the actions menu, there is the ability to further manage with version history and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity4-450x251.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Once again, the Sitefinity team have shown their focus on the customer experience by ensuring that enough help is always available with easy relevant links to help on the bottom right of each area within the dashboard. This is a thoughtful and appreciated addition. The ability exists to edit each of the translations directly from the one site as well with easy edit links under each.
Modifying pages within Sitefinity is a treat with easy drag and drop widgets in a WYSIWYG view of the structure of the page. Adding content is extremely easy and there are more than enough widgets available to work with.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shortcode-template-editor_vaa3yu.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
I can see users having fun creating their pages and having a feeling of control which is a great thing to be able to say.
Further to adding content, you can also switch to layout view which allows you to quickly drag and change layout elements or, as shown, change the entire template.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/features_fbifmb.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Outside of the Pages area of the CMS is the Content section where one can add News, Blog entries and much more. This is all done from a handy drop down and, depending on the type of content you try to add, each content template differs accordingly.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/woocommerce_ppmv81.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
I won’t go to far into the News, Blogs of Events contents section as we’ve covered this in earlier reviews but I will say that all three are similarly intuitive and easy to use.
Sitefinity has some nice image management functionality which lets you upload bulk or individually, sort your images within libraries and do basic image editing tasks such as cropping, resizing and rotating.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/monstroid-featured-img_bvuwa5.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Again, you can have multiple images depending on your translations as well. Video, document and file management works in a similar way (minus the editing capabilities, obviously).
Moving on to Forms, I can safely say I’m a big fan of how easy they are to build and they work similarly to Pages within Sitefinity. You are able to drag and drop widgets (textbox, multiple choice, etc) onto the page and modify layouts as well. Form functionality is an important aspect and this system handles them nicely.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sitefinity9-450x301_fawkny.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Where I can see some improvements are within the settings for the forms. Currently, they are very basic with the following options:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/monstroid-support_gsdf2r.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
It is not clear by watching the forms video tutorial how to change to whom the form goes, what email it’s coming from or whether a copy should be sent to the user, to name a few. It would also be nice to see a widget in the dashboard showing responses that have not been attended to as it’s rather tedious to go to the Content Menu-&gt;;; Forms to see submitted content.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sitefinity11-450x38_ggbjpq.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Hopefully, Telerik can take these suggestions into consideration for a future release.
Email campaigns can be managed within the CMS as well which eliminates the need for third-party integrations.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/monstroid-featured-img-1_fjenzh.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Adding mailing lists is very simple with an easy interface that also allows you to pull in data from either the users within the system or those who have submitted forms.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailing-lists-google-chrome_2012-03-27_10-52-26-450x747.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
To add people to the list, you can choose to connect the list to form responses by clicking on Add Connection.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sabrina2_250x0_sovswo.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
This is a great start but would be much more useful if you could bring in subscribers from an excel spreadsheet or CSV file as now, it seems there is no way to do so or at the very least, it’s not readily apparent. There may well be a module that enables this ability as well, but that remains to be seen.
For basic use, it does the job well enough, but could use some improvements. Message templates can be created in rich text, plain text or web page format and there is basic campaign management as well as A/B testing.
** Update **
I’m told that Telerik has plans to introduce a number of module enhancements for email campaigns in their next release, due around June, 2012.
The Ecommerce module within Sitefinity 5 is a nice inclusion and gives users the ability to add products, types of products, attributes and departments using simple content templates.
This similar to the news &amp; blog entry modules, it’s simply done with different fields and is easy to use.
Shipping methods, payment methods, taxes and discounts are managed from within the module through easy to use interfaces, such as the one below.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shipping-methods-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-04-41-450x501.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Adding products can only be done on a one by one basis from what I can see and similarly to the mailing lists module, it would be nice to be able to bulk add products and map the fields accordingly from an excel sheet or CSV file as it’s easy to imagine customers of a larger size being hesitant to manually enter each individual product one at a time into the system. While I’m sure this can be done (or automated somehow) by the team at Telerik, it would be nicer to see the ability within the CMS itself.
Users are given the ability to choose how prices are displayed on the site via the following screen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/configuration-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-09-14.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
If you need to work with multiple currencies, you’ll be happy to know that the system lets you add and manage them by geography easily. The same goes for length and mass units.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/unnamed_olppla.gif" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
To see orders by customer, simply click on Customers under the Order management section and you’ll be greeted with the following screen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/strikingly-1_pbo02j.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking in a customer name presents you with a list of all orders by that customer with totals and payment status.
The orders screen is similar:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/strikingly_l2eyhf.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking on an order shows you a list of all items purchased, by whom and their amounts as well as details on the customer.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/orders-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-24-10-450x631.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
There is also the ability to view a number of reports regarding sales and orders. Here is an example of one such report:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/orders-reports-by-region-google-chrome_2012-04-02_11-13-08-450x150_bv2loh.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Under the Design menu, users have the ability to modify and add Page templates, Widget templates and responsive and mobile design. Let’s explore the latter.
Within the responsive and mobile design section, you can add sets of rules that determine how content is transformed based on screen size and other settings. This can be done for a variety of devices such as tablets, large screens and smart phones. The interface is simple and easy to understand, much like the rest of the modules within Sitefinity.
<img style="max-width:450px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/spider-monkey-637062_1280-1_n0vazp.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Moving to the administration area within the CMS, amongst the basic settings, Sitefinity allows you to specify which networks you’d like to include within your social sharing options. The number of available choices is pretty decent and even includes the new Google +.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity12-450x165.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Twitter integration with URL Shortening is also available and multiple accounts can be used.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/speedw_acmsau.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
In addition to the basic workflow scenarios that are available out of the box, there is the option to upload a custom workflow that you have previously created in Visual Studio. Custom workflow is a really powerful option and allows you to:
Set conditional approval steps;
<ul>
<li>Apply safeguards to ensure that certain words or phrases will not be published;</li>
<li>Receive notifications if someone is away or if there is content pending approval;</li>
<li>Many additional features built on top of Windows Workflow Foundation 4.</li>
</ul>
More information is available here:
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/pavelskvirski/posts/11-01-21/sitefinity_4_0_automate_translations_with_custom_workflows_and_google_translate.aspx">http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/pavelskvirski/posts/11-01-21/sitefinity_4_0_automate_translations_with_custom_workflows_and_google_translate.aspx</a>
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/ivan/posts/10-11-19/sitefinity_4_0_rc_deep_dive_workflow.aspx">http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/ivan/posts/10-11-19/sitefinity_4_0_rc_deep_dive_workflow.aspx</a>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/speedw-1_drlquk.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
A nice feature that exists is the Interface labels and messages module which allows users to bring in language packs (import or export) and modify each individual label within the CMS to their needs. While the interface can be initially overwhelming, we can’t fault them for making it expansive.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/localization-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-45-29-450x486.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
For advanced users, Sitefinity even has the ability to completely modify backend pages within the CMS right down to deleting them as desired. There is a good large warning before you are able to click through to that section of the CMS, however, and rightfully so. It’s good to see that they aren’t afraid to add the ability for those who desire it.
Lastly, we come to the Analytics module in Sitefinity, which is tied heavily to Google Analytics and on your first visit, kicks off a first time visitor configuration wizard. Once configured using this easy to use wizard, the system brings in and repurposes your analytics data in an easy to view set of charts and graphs.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity15-450x228.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
With that said, that is a look at Sitefinity 5, the latest release from Telerik. Overall, my impressions from the CMS are that they have done a good job of packing in the features in this version. The overall experience for the customer should be a positive one given the consistency of functionality throughout the product. The system is easy to navigate and use; even for the average user; and should require minimal training to get started.
I like the expansive help system but noticed in a few of the more advanced modules, it’s not as prolific so it still needs some work. They are definitely on the right track and I’m comfortable recommending this version of Sitefinity as an option to consider if you are in the market.

Sitefinity Review - A Look at Sitefinity 5

<a href="https://getgrav.org/">Grav</a> is a relatively new open source flat-file CMS. And it looks exciting.
Although <a href="https://getgrav.org/blog/grav-1.0-released">Grav 1.0</a> was released late into 2015, it was voted in as the winner of <a href="/announcing-the-2015-winner-for-best-free-cms/">Best Free CMS in our 2015 CMS Awards</a>, which is commendable in and of itself.
<a href="https://getgrav.org"><img style="max-width:685px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/gravcms1.png" alt="gravcms1" /></a>
But there's another good reason for my excitement over Grav.
Despite its youth, Grav is the <a href="https://github.com/search?l=PHP&amp;o=desc&amp;q=cms&amp;s=stars&amp;type=Repositories&amp;utf8=✓">second most starred PHP-based CMS platform on GitHub</a>, and it looks like it's just a matter of time before it's the first.
So what has fuelled this meteoric rise? Let's take a look.
<h2>Grav CMS: Free, Flexible &amp; Feature-filled</h2>
Grav has an ethos of simplicity.
It runs on PHP 5.5.9 and greater, and requires no configuration during installation; it's just about unzipping it and uploading it to your server.
The flat-file architecture makes Grav a very quick and lightweight platform, while performance and security boosting features like; smart caching, SEO-friendly URLs and configurable user roles, all come bundled.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/grav-10.jpg" alt="grav-10" />
And yet, Grav's ingrained simplicity doesn't limit it. It runs on modern technology like Twig, Markdown, YAML, Symfony, and one install of Grav can run multiple websites.
At the time of writing, Grav boasts 58 themes are 102 plugins, all of which are free.
Plus, Grav offers up Skeletons, which are pre-packaged foundations for different website types. Each Skeleton comes with a theme and a selection of plugins that are suited to different industries. Think of it as a way of getting a head start on a project.
But to be honest, I'm only sampling a tip of the iceberg here, so I encourage you to <a href="https://getgrav.org/features">find out more about Grav's feature set through their website</a>.
<h2>Grav in 2016</h2>
The second version of Grav (<a href="https://getgrav.org/blog/grav-beta-1.1-available">Grav 1.1</a>) is slated for release some time before July 2016. But there's more on the way this year, too.
Their Admin Plugin for example, which gives users a sleek admin panel to manage their Grav website(s), already exists. But an expansion of the plugin is coming soon.
That expansion is set to include things like; color scheme and logo customization, WYSIWYG editing, media management, enhanced statistics, and even a built-in backup manager.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/001-dashboard.png" alt="001-dashboard" />
Furthermore, 2016 should also see the introduction of a form building plugin, a Grav marketplace for third-party themes and plugins, and an API.
Those last two in particular are essential to the growth of any open source project, in my opinion.
<h2>“Grav is Getting a lot of Converts”</h2>
I recently had the chance to speak with Grav's Co-founder Andy Miller, and he was full of enthusiasm about the growing platform.
Here's what he said to me:
<blockquote>“Grav itself has quickly established itself as a go-to open source CMS platform in the past year.
It's getting a lot of converts from WordPress, Drupal and Joomla users who are looking for a faster platform with more flexibility and adaptability compared to traditional content management systems.”</blockquote>
Andy Miller is also the CEO of <a href="https://rockettheme.com/">RocketTheme</a>, and it's no coincidence that the <a href="http://gantry.org">Gantry 5 Theme Framework</a>, which is the brainchild of RocketTheme, is on its way to Grav. That'll be piquing the interest of a few theme developers, I'm sure.
All in all, there seems to be lots of bubbling pots and pans over at the Grav headquarters, and I know that I'll be keeping tabs on it throughout the rest of 2016 and beyond.
To find out more about Grav, and to download it, <a href="https://getgrav.org">check out their website</a>.
And as always, you can check out the <a href="/products/grav">Grav Hub on our CMS Directory</a>.

Getting to Grips with Grav

CMS Summit 26

Find out at CMS Connect 26, August 4-5 in Montreal, Canada

What's ahead for CMS in the agentic era?

#ffffff

WebStarts Shopping Cart Review

Today we've brought you our Pegboard CMS Review. This system's primary claim to fame is that it's a “tag-based” architecture which makes it easy and efficient to design very dynamic sites. For more info on how the “tag-based” system works, check out the video on <a href="http://www.pegboard.com.au/producttour/buildingwithpegboard.aspx">this page</a>.
Let's take a look at what makes Pegboard tick and enter the administration interface to see what options we have.
Once logged in, we are greeted with an attractive admin interface that provides quick and easy access to Pegboards various settings.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/aviary-coredemo1-pegboardcms-com-picture-1-575x337.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
Let's take a look through the menus to see what options we have:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pegboard2.gif" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pegboard3.gif" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pegboard4.gif" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
Now that we have a bit of an idea as to what options we have to play with, let's take a look at the Default site we've been given and see what we can do with it.
Clicking on “DefaultSite” in the Site Map in the above screenshot gives us a number of options and settings we can tweak on the site. There are a lot of options here, so be prepared for a series of long screenshots so we can show you them all:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/aviary-coredemo1-pegboardcms-com-picture-2.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/aviary-coredemo1-pegboardcms-com-picture-3.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/aviary-coredemo1-pegboardcms-com-picture-4.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
As you can see, there is a pretty amazing amount of flexibility as to what can be changed on the site. You will see these same options on each individual page which gives you a lot of control over the site. Being able to set hover images and offsets on a per page level is pretty solid flexibility, but it doesn't stop there. Right clicking on the individual pages gives you access to a whole new set of commands and actions that can be performed:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pegboard5.gif" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
Editing the individual content itself is straight forward and involves accessing the content menu and selecting the applicable page. You will then be greeted with a standard Wysiwyg editor reminiscent of TinyMCE or FCK:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2010-10-07-at-5_32_26-am-580x258_yqvfq2.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
Let's take a look through some of the installed modules.
Pegboard has an integrated email marketing module that provides a fair amount of functionality:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/aviary-coredemo1-pegboardcms-com-picture-6-575x309.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
From a security standpoint, Pegboard allows you to set per-module security which means you can provide fairly intricate levels of security for individual access groups or users.
The preferences menu allows for various settings such as the basic info on the site, corporate information, caching details and your database configuration.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/petrp_vquamr.gif" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
Examining the front end, we are greeted with a pretty basic theme that provides a starting point with which the site can be built.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/aviary-coredemo1-pegboardcms-com-picture-8-501x575.png" alt="Pegboard CMS Review" />
Summary
This review only shows the basic information and initial configuration of Pegboard. There are a large number of additional modules available such as ecommerce, seo, news, blogs and more which you can see a <a href="http://pegboardcms.com/Products1/PegboardCMSModules.aspx">list of here</a>.
From a usability standpoint, the Pegboard team has done a great job of making the backend easy to navigate, user friendly and quick. We found the options to be well laid out and easy to locate.
It's very nice to be able to access per page settings and configure them from a quick menu and we found that quite intuitive and easy to use. You can get more information on how the backend of the system works by watching some of the videos on their site. <a href="http://www.pegboard.com.au/producttour/managingtheconsole.aspx">This one in particular</a> gives a good explanation.
The folks at Pegboard have done a great job of putting together a quick and well thought out content management system with a nice amount of functionality. With the number of modules available (50 at last count) we can see this system being used for a large variety of projects.
Pegboard is indeed a system that makes content management feel less painful and more usable than previously perceived.
You can learn more about Pegboard at the <a href="http://pegboardcms.com">Pegboard CMS website.</a>

Pegboard CMS Review

<a href="/products/squarespace" target="_blank">Squarespace</a> and Brace.io have both announced their plan to merge, with the Brace.io team being absorbed into the Squarespace ranks.
Brace.io is a relatively new static website CMS with DropBox integration acting as an FTP, fast deployment, sleek templates, and some interesting tools and features including forms, charts, and tags.
Squarespace is of course one of the world's most widely used and respected website builders. Much like its competitors, it has a focus on simplicity, yet is still manages to pack a functional punch – maybe now even more so, thanks to the boost of acquiring Brace.io. Let's take a look at how this merge came about.
<h2>Squarespace &amp; Brace</h2>
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/imagescauzpt5i-1.jpg" alt="Squarespace" /><img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/brace1_1x200x0.png" alt="Brace.io" />
We don't know exactly what this move means yet, but here's what we do know so far.
Existing Brace.io users can continue to use our service until Jan 19, 2015, after which, all Brace sites, including redirects will be disabled. If you're a Brace free user, you will receive a coupon worth three months of free service on <a href="http://www.site44.com/">Site44</a>.
Paying customers, will receive a full refund for their last subscription period, the same Site44 coupon, and a full year of <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/pricing" target="_blank">Squarespace Unlimited</a> for free.
Squarespace had to say <a href="http://blog.squarespace.com/blog/welcome-the-braceio-team-to-squarespace" target="_blank">via their blog</a>:
<blockquote>“Over the last few months, we’ve been watching Brace.io, a company that shares our passion for simplicity and delightful developer experiences. Today, we’re happy to announce that Brace.io is joining us here at Squarespace. We’ll be working together to enhance our own developer workflow, and to create other beautifully simple experiences within the Squarespace platform.”</blockquote>
Brace, had this to say via their blog announcement:
<blockquote>“In the end we feel that our vision aligns closely with that of Squarespace. They care about developer experience, as evidenced by the <a href="http://www.squarespace.com/developer">developer platform</a> they launched with Squarespace 6. Together, we hope to create the best experience possible for developers on an online publishing platform.”</blockquote>
So, this move seems to be focused on improving the Squarespace developer platform. But I have a feeling that Squarespace wants to benefit from this move in other ways.
<h2>A Hint of Things to Come?</h2>
As you can see from the quotes above, neither Squarespace or Brace.io has given away too much of the details of the deal.
But Squarespace hasn't made this move in vain, and so it will be interesting to see how the acquisition of Brace.io impacts future updates to existing features, as well as if we see any brand new features which Brace.io previously had on offer.
It would be logical to assume that Squarespace plans on poaching some of Brace.io's existing features, particularly their forms, charts, and tags tools. I go into more detail about what this Squarespace move means over on <a href="https://www.websitebuilderscritic.com/squarespace-brace-team-up-heres-what-it-means/" target="_blank">Website Builders Critic</a>.
To sign up to Squarespace with a 14-day free trial, <a href="https://www.squarespace.com" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or check <a href="/products/squarespace/" target="_blank">Squarespace out via our CMS Directory</a>.

Brace Joins Squarespace as a Booster in the Website Builder Race

<a href="https://ghost.org">Ghost</a>, the open source blogging platform, has just released a desktop app.
<a href="https://ghost.org/"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ghost_logo_big_400x0.png" alt="ghost_logo_big_400x0" /></a>
Since its launch in late 2013, Ghost has attracted well over 500,000 registered users, many of whom see it as a worthy alternative to WordPress, if blogging is your main aim.
Ghost is available for download and can be self-hosted. But they also offer Ghost Pro, a hosted solution that charges from $29 a month.
<h2>Ghost From Your Desktop</h2>
The <a href="https://blog.ghost.org/desktop/">Ghost desktop app is available for download</a> on Windows, Mac and Linux. And it's totally open source, too.
<a href="https://ghost.org/"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screenshot-2016-04-27-15-05-09.png" alt="Screenshot-2016-04-27-15-05-09" /></a>
I suppose this is a way for Ghost to further hone the experience of their users beyond just sleek interfaces. Their desktop app makes it so that users can focus on their Ghost-powered blogs and websites without distraction of other browser tabs.
There's no indication that the app works offline, though. Which is a shame, because I think being able to add to your blog directly when on a plane journey, for example, would be a great additional feature.
On a side note, Ghost also recently appealed to its broad user base to help <a href="https://blog.ghost.org/translate-ghost-org/">translate the platform</a>.
It's needed, since 10% of Ghost's most active users are spread across 7,505 cities and 176 countries.
Despite that evident popularity, Ghost is still a relatively young platform with plenty of potential, and I for one am quite enjoying their growth. So, if you know a language or two, lend them a hand.
To find out more about Ghost, <a href="https://ghost.org">check out their website</a>.
And as always you can explore more on the <a href="/ghost/">Ghost Hub on our CMS Directory</a>.

Ghost Desktop Lets You Blog Outside Your Web Browser

This is just a quick update for those waiting on the results from the Critics' Choice CMS Awards.
Myself and the other judges this year, Kaya Ismail and Barb Mosher Zinck have finished coming up with our results and are getting ready to announce the winners.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/awards-logo300x0.png" />
We'll begin doing so on November 19th (two days from today) so please stay tuned to find out who we've selected as this year's winners.
For those of you curious as to who the winners are from this year's People's Choice portion of the awards, you can find them all listed on the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-critic-awards/">Winners Page</a>.

The Critics' Choice CMS Awards Update

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/internal-communications-1679x0-is.png" />
Improved internal communications is the holy grail for many businesses. And although much effort is spent searching for solutions, somehow it seems to remain elusive. And it’s an issue that affects all organisations regardless of their size. In fact, small to medium businesses often have more flexible working and tend to employ freelance and remote workers which means that internal communications is often a bigger issue for these companies. So what’s an organization to do? Is there a holy grail or magic formula that will fix your <a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/internal-communications-trends-2016/">internal communications</a> issues? Well, the truth is improving internal communications is a continual journey, involving a number of small steps that together amount to significant leaps forward. It doesn’t, however, have to be a difficult and torturous journey. In fact, it is possible to quickly and easily make improvements to your organization’s internal communications by using your CMS intranet. And guess what? While you’re at it, you’ll also be realizing some other very important business benefits as well.
<h2>CMS Intranets</h2>
CMS intranets have been around now since the 1990s and the technology has evolved to become super easy to install and manage. No great technical expertise is required as the CMS intranet comes with a number of pre-built intranet page templates along with a range of powerful business modules and tools out of the box. You simply and easily drag and drop functionality and content onto your secure, customizable intranet pages. The end result is an intranet that is totally unique to your company, which contains all the information, data and tools staff need to get the job done more efficiently and effectively.
<h2>How A CMS Intranet Improves Communication</h2>
Every individual step forward with your <a href="/simple-intranet/">CMS intranet</a> can make a big difference overall and so let’s look at some very practical ways an intranet will help to improve internal communications.
<h3>News Blogs And Newsletters</h3>
A common grumble when it comes to internal communications is staff feeling as though they are out of the loop and don’t know what’s going on in the company. Well, that’s easily remedied with the CMS intranet’s news features.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hosted-intranet623x0-is.jpg" />
Using the CMS intranet’s flexible page layout and design options, it’s possible to set up an online newsletter or blog that highlights key company news and updates. It’s a simple process to add and edit text, images, videos and files so that your news feed looks very professional and utilizes a range of media for maximum impact. What’s more, you can set up a series of pages and subpages to cover team or local news as well as the corporate stuff. Just use the simple set of permissions and rules to restrict access to only the relevant staff.
The great advantage of using the CMS intranet in this way is that you remain in control. With a traditional system of cascading team briefings, the message can get diluted along the way. Using a CMS intranet, however, means staff receive the same consistent message and at the same time.
<h3>Company Calendar</h3>
This feature follows on from keeping everyone in the loop and is the perfect tool for highlighting key company or industry events as well as important dates or milestones. It’s intuitive to set up and super easy to keep updated. It often quickly becomes an essential tool for staff members as it represents the single source of truth for the organization. Need to check the date of the next sales seminar? No problem – simply search for it on the company calendar. What about the deadline for submitting your quarterly budget returns? Easy. Rather than searching through an overloaded email in-box, simply go directly to the company calendar. And so a process that might have involved several steps as well as many minutes now takes just a click of the mouse and a fraction of the time.
<h3>Staff Directory</h3>

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/intranet-staff-directory-example638x0-is.jpg" />
Another frequent complaint when it comes to internal communications is a sense of isolation and the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. A great way to counteract this and to empower staff at the same time is the simple-to-setup staff directory. With detailed biographies, areas of expertise and photos, the staff directory is a comprehensive resource that allows employees to connect with each other. Need a staff member with marketing expertise to join your working party examining the customer experience? No problem. The staff directory enables you to quickly and easily identify internal candidates. Or perhaps you’re looking for a subject matter expert who can resolve a technical query about a particular product? Again, that’s easy with the staff directory.
In addition, the self-service nature of the staff directory makes it a powerful enabler of connections and collaborations. It also helps staff to have a sense of the bigger picture and where they fit into the whole scheme of things. And on a very basic level putting a face to a name is fundamental to promoting good working relationships. The staff directory may be a simple tool, but its impact is not to be under-estimated.
<h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/business-communications714x0-is.jpg" /></h3>
<h3>Two-way Conversations</h3>
All these initiatives in themselves are great, but the real issue at play and a fundamental employee gripe is that they are meaningless if they don’t involve an element of listening and feeding back. The distinguished architect Jeff Daly summed it up nicely as follows:
<blockquote>
Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
</blockquote>
And that’s where a CMS intranet can make a huge difference because it enables you to have two-way conversations and a genuine dialogue with staff. How? Well, there are a number of ways and below are just a few ideas to get you started:
<ul>
<li>Enable comments on the news feed and newsletter so staff can put forward their ideas and insights.</li>
<li>Develop surveys and quizzes to canvas employees’ views with the CMS intranet’s easy-to-use forms builder or else use the embedded Google app. Be sure though to feedback to staff on the outcomes of the survey and action taken as a result.</li>
<li>Create team or joint working project spaces on the CMS intranet to encourage collaboration across the organization.</li>
<li>And why not try deploying social intranet features such as follow me functionality, site activity walls and direct messaging.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Improve Communications And Much More</h2>
The bottom line is that there’s no magic wand you can wave to fix internal communications in your organization. But what you can do is take some significant steps forward with the help of your CMS intranet. What’s more, the CMS intranet is easy to setup and manage on an ongoing basis which means that you’ll be improving internal communications with the minimum of effort and in a short space of time.
And if that isn’t enough in itself then how about simultaneously improving employee engagement, streamlining business processes and enhancing information and data sharing? You see, these are also important business benefits that are on offer with your CMS intranet, making it an incredibly powerful tool in any organization’s management arsenal.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how a CMS intranet could <a href="https://www.allthingsic.com/intranetforums/">improve internal communications</a> in your business, then get in touch with the expert team at <a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/book-demo/">MyHub</a>.

How To Improve Internal Communications Using CMS Intranets

If you think that once your website is created you are done forever, you are dead wrong. With customers, services and web technology changing so fast, building an up-to-date website with relevant content is a never-ending story.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/how-to-cut-website-maintenance-costs-with-cmss-reusable-blocks.png" alt="How to cut website maintenance costs with CMSs reusable blocks" />
To help visitors consume information easier, and thus convert into leads, you will oftentimes need to change the way your pages looks, be it a different layout of a new product/service page or simply a CTA button moved to another place. 
<h2>Calling for Developers vs. DIY Maintenance </h2>
Are you going to call in tech guys every time you want to make even a slight change to your website design? You can, but think about the time and money you’ll spend. 
Let’s do the math. 
Hiring dedicated developers and paying for their idle time in between mostly minor layout tweaks can be costly. Then, if you set out to commission your website maintenance to a vendor, how much will it take you to find the right guys? Days, weeks? And even when you come to terms with supposedly a reliable vendor, how this company manages processes and communication might be at odds with your often time-sensitive needs. 
For example, you came up with a special offer and need to create a promo page no later than today. However, even an 8-hour task can stretch for as much as 3 weeks until they process the request, discuss the requirements with you, do the development and finally rework when you realize you missed some important details. 
Besides, as developers are going to touch code, probably testing will be needed, which means another dime added to the overall cost (or maybe even more if you risk to skip testing). In other words, why living this nightmare for the sake of minor changes on your website? 
We’ve got a solution for you.
<h2>Predeveloped Building Blocks for More Flexibility </h2>
To ensure the needed level of flexibility, think of your website as a set of editable building blocks that are maintained in one place and reused across multiple pages:
<ul>
<li>Page templates with basic, predefined layouts – for example, a template with the side menu for product/service pages and a template without the side menu for case study pages.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Widgets – your main building blocks including formatted text fields, pictures, videos, responsive tables and forms, and other content that you drag onto a page and place in a way that works best.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Implementing Building Blocks on your New Website</h2>
What CMS you choose determines whether you can stick to this concept and how heavy it will be on your <a href="https://www.scnsoft.com/website-development">website development</a> budget. 
For example, Pimcore has widgets grounded on the architectural level, whereas in WordPress they are fixed only in some themes, meaning that once you change your theme all widgets may be gone. Drupal is also in the widget game, yet with few out-of-the-box elements so far. 
The commercial Episerver CMS offers campaign teasers and banners, news feeds, videos, contact forms and other blocks that can be personalized for selected visitor groups. 
<h2>Summing Up</h2>
The concept of building blocks helps you depend less on developers when you need to tweak your webpage design in the way how pages are laid out on your website. Involving massive work on the architectural level, its implementation on the existing website will probably be too expensive. 
However, choosing the right CMS for your new website will make it a far more feasible idea.
* * *
This post is sponsored by ScienceSoft. Find out more at <a href="https://www.scnsoft.com/" target="_blank">ScnSoft.com</a>.

How to Cut Website Maintenance Costs with CMS' Reusable Blocks

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