Tuesday, 22 November 2011

We have begun a new initiative to upgrade and enhanced the design capabilities of the site builder system. From the ground up, we are looking to provide the most modern and current design trends in a flexible easy to use environment. We have been hard at work in the design area and have many exciting new updates currently in development. You should start seeing many of these updates in the coming months. With these updates, we hope to highlight all of the flexibility of the service and make it much easier for customers to get a customized/professional look for their website.

We are reviewing all the latest design trends and working to incorporate them into our design offerings.

Fresh new designs

Our designers are working on a large set of new designs and upgrading the design selection process to showcase the very best we have to offer. These new designs will include updated layouts and images. We are also working on several design presentation concepts to help customers see all of the available options.

Refreshing existing designs/layouts

We are currently refreshing all of our current designs and layouts. These updates will include menu updates, spacing adjustments as well as adding textures and new layout options. We are creating new larger preview images for all layouts.

New fonts

Fonts are an important part of giving a website a unique and customized feel. We are adding many more fonts into the system. These fonts can be used for default text styles or the logo builder.

Simplified design options

We are investigating many options for making the design customization process easier for customers. This will include better default designs and an upgraded trial site with sample text/image layouts.

Coordinated style settings

We will be offering coordinated style sets of text, links, titles, groupboxes. Instead of having to go through all the design settings and tweak each of the style option, customers can view available style sets, find one that they like, and apply it to their entire site.

Color schemes

Many new color schemes are being added to the system. Customers will not have to pick each individual color in their color scheme. They will be able to choose from many pre defined color schemes that are optimized for work with the site builder.

Logo builder

Updates to the logo builder will make it much easier for customers to create a great looking logo. In addition to new logo styles, the updated logo builder will give customers to option to choose from pre configured logo styles (font, sizes, effects).

Customers will be able to view pre-configured logo text styles and pick the one they like. The option to adjust all the settings will still be available. Providing pre-configured styles will make it much easier for customers to get a customized logo style without having to make a lot of settings adjustments.

Layout builder

The layout builder providers a very powerful set of tools for customizing just about every aspect of the site layout. This includes making adjustments to spacing, borders, background textures and more. New updates to the layout builder will make it even easier for any customer to construct an unique layout to meet their needs.

Preview design changes ( not live )

One of the challenges with the current design system is that all design changes are live. Many times customers want to try out different design ideas. With the addition of design preview mode, customers will be able to try different designs, make adjustments and then apply them to their site when they are ready.

Reference layouts

With every one of the templates that we offer, the designs can be setup to look really good or not so great depending on how the pages are formatted. If you take a template, add your logo, setup a banner and create good looking text/image layouts for your pages, you can setup a great website. Many of the sites that do not look professional suffer from badly formatted pages.

To help lead customers in the right direction, we will be setting up reference page layouts. These layouts will help customers see what looks good, give them ideas for their own page layouts and provide them with a great starting point for new pages.

Instead of adding each component to the page individually, moving them around and changing options, customers can preview the reference layouts live to see how they look on their site. They can then create a page from a reference layout and then add their own text/images for a clean, well formatted page.

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 12:14 pm | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

Affiliate Setup and Tracking included in release 4.19

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Included in the latest release is the option for ecommerce account holders to setup an affiliate program. Using this feature the merchant can setup a commission rate to be earned by the affiliates and banners for the affiliates to display on their websites. Orders created by visitors who reach the site via these banners will be tracked and an affiliate payment will be computed. The merchant can keep track of their affiliate payments via their website admin.

How it works:

The merchant creates an affiliate program with a percentage based commission via the affiliates area in the Store section. They setup an affiliate commission rate and write up how the affiliate program works in the program description area. Then they add banners that the affiliates will have to choose from to display on their website.

Affiliates are created via the User accounts system. This can be done via the normal user account to a group methods: manually enter the affiliate user, create a form that sets up the submission as a user in the group, the standard create account option

Once the affiliate user is created, the affiliate logs in via the My account area and clicks the affiliate tab. They can see details of the affiliate program and grab HTML to display the merchant's banner on the affiliate website. Sales completed by customers who reach the site by clicking the banner will be tracked and commissions will be applied to the affiliate.

The merchant can view the amount owed to the affiliate and register a payment by finding the user in the user accounts area (affiliate group) and clicking the affiliate tab. The merchant would still need to actually send the payment to the affiliate.

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 08:11 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

eCommerce - Auto Order Archiving

Sunday, 28 August 2011

In our latest release, orders will now be automatically archived. Order states of Completed, Shipped, and Cancelled will automatically be moved to the history area after 3 months. All other order states will automatically be moved to history after 6 months. Merchants can still access these orders by clicking the history link in their order manager area or by entering the order id in the search field. Ecommerce reports will still reflect information for all completed and shipped orders even if the order has been archived. This adjustment increases the performance of the order management area. Merchants with a large number of orders that they did not archive themselves, will see a significant increase in the loading time of their order manager.

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 09:42 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

System Update: 4.19 Released

Thursday, 25 August 2011

User accounts
The user accounts pages have been updated to make accounts easier to navigate and manage.

Tabs have been added at the top of the user accounts page that let you easily switch between the user groups and user accounts view. Navigation has been enhanced to make it easier to switch between user groups.

The user accounts details page now opens in a popup window for quick access. The selected user group checkboxes have been updated to make them easier to work with. A new link has been added to the user account detail page that lets you send a quick email to the user.

Mailing list
The site mailing list pages have been reworked to make the mailing list easier to use.

Updated mailing list user interface.
New email templates added (30+ new templates).
New email templates automatically include social networking links in the template.
Updated mailing list template user interface. You can now preview a template before selecting it.

New option to set the email "from" display name as well as a tracking code for the email. The tracking code is automatically added to links in your email. This allows you to track the effectiveness of your newsletters.

Form builder
New options at the top of the form builder make it easier to enable the contact DB and mailing list features on the form. The form builder user interface has been updated. There were a lot of options on the page which can make the form builder a bit confusing to configure. Some options have been moved into settings tabs.

Social networking
The social networking sharing icons now include the Google +1 button and LinkedIn buttons. You also now have the option to hide/display both the social widget buttons or the social icons. A new option to send a Tweet from with in the admin has been added to the marketing area. The blog manager has a direct link to send a tweet about a blog post.

Edit tabs [preview/experimental]
This updates includes an experimental new site builder header. We have added an option to try out a new set of tabs at the top of the site builder to get feedback. The new set of tabs provides quick access to the new marketing/reports area as well as direct access to core ecommerce functions for store accounts. It will be easy for customers to switch between the existing tabs and the new tabs.

Website edit header tabs

admin
view site
edit site
design
marketing/reports
help

Ecommerce edit header tabs

admin
website
store setup
products
orders
customers
marketing/reports
help

Marketing/Reports
The new marketing/reports sections provides easy access to the most important markting features that are integrated with the site builder as well as quick access to statistics, search engine submission and site guides. The core marketing features, blog, mailing list, social networking settings and twitter are all included.

Misc updates

The view/edit tab drop down menu now includes links to the settings pages.
Message board no longer requires capcha when you are logged in.
Displayable user name for message board when user accounts/login required to post messages.
Updated mobile/browser detection for stats and mobile pages.
The drop down tab menu for edit site now includes direct links to all of the settings pages.
Calendar uses timezone offset.
Site page search now includes blog posts and HTML pages.

Media library page
Use the new media library page to create a sortable media list with embedded media player. Upload your audio/video files. The media library automatically creates a RSS feed/pod cast for the uploaded media.

Text editor
The text editor 2.0 now allows you to easily setup H1, H2, H3 tags via the style drop down. Simple select your text and click the style drop down to apply one of the header styles.

Blog

The blog user interface has been updated.
New option to save a blog post as a draft.
Added support for integrating facebook comment system (enable from blog settings page).
Blog manager now has direct links to easily send a tweet with link for new blog posts.

Basic traffic stats

Basic traffic stats are now maintained for up to 3 years (this will only include stats collected after the update is installed)
New option to reset all your traffic stats
New option to reset your traffic stats referrers/search engines/keywords
Stats have been updated to be tracked in the site owners local time based on their time zone setting
NOTE: stats before this update will not reflect the correct timezone

Ecommerce

Ecommerce reports are now displayed in the users time zone (only applies to new orders completed after this update)
For products that ship in their own box, you can now set the package dimensions
New gateway (Moneris for US merchants)

Tell us what you think!
We are always looking to improve the quality of our services and your feedback is appreciated. If you have any ideas or suggestions let us know.

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 10:04 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

Get the most of your Facebook presence with the updated Social Media Component.

Tuesday, 07 June 2011

Facebook and twitter social media components are a great way to let your website visitors share the content on your site with their friends. We offer a Facebook Social component free with any of our website builder Packages. The updated application now includes the latest Facebook social component: Like button, as well as an overhaul of the interface, which makes setting up social sharing easier than ever.

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POSTED BY: Steve AT 03:18 pm | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

SSL Certificates - beta/preview

Saturday, 04 June 2011

Many ecommerce customers are interested in setting up their own SSL certificates for their domain names. SSL certificates are used during the secure checkout for ecommerce stores. Instead of checking out on a generic secure domain, customers can checkout at the secure domain for the website.

We are starting a very early access preview for SSL certificates. The certificates must be purchased and installed through the website store admin. We will be offering a variety of certificates from RapidSSL, Geotrust and Verisign.

If you currently have a Ecommerce shopping cart and are interested in purchasing a certificate, let us know and we can get you more information on getting started. We are looking for a few customers to try out the process.

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POSTED BY: Schmidt AT 07:38 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

Great Website For SEO

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Rand from SEOMOZ discusses the future of link building in the ever changing world of SEO. I have found seomoz to be one of the best places on the internet to find great website optimization tips. Watch the video to see what working now and what's not.

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/future-of-link-building

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 10:37 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

System Version 4.18 Being Released

Thursday, 31 March 2011

The next release includes the following new features and enhancements. It may take a couple of weeks to deploy the update to all customer accounts.

CONTENT SLIDER COMPONENT

Use the new content slider to setup animated content sections with your own background images and text. Visitors can use arrows or page icons to navigation between slider content sections.

GOOGLE FONT DIRECTORY

Most newer web browsers now support the ability to download fonts, giving you more control over how your site text looks. Google has setup a font directory allow you to add new fonts to be used for your website page text.

In the text & styles area, you can now choose from a selection of many different font styles from the Google font directory. To choose your additional fonts, click the font drop down and click the more fonts link.

You can choose up to 4 additional fonts to use on your site.

SIDEBAR CONFIGURATION

The new sidebar configuration window provides easier access to sidebar minimum width and other options. A new icon has been added to the top sidebar to open up the sidebar settings window. You can set the minimum sidebar width as well as enable/disable sidebars while editing the page. The settings page includes an option to hide sidebars on product detail pages.

DESIGN LIBRARY

More color layout options have been added to the design library. To view more options, go to the design library, find a design and click the color icon to preview the design in many different color schemes.

ECOMMERCE

- Sidebar links mode - expandable tree format
- Sidebar links mode - display categories as section titles
- Option for full path navigation (breadcrumb links on top of all product pages)
- Easier to move products/categories in and out of the hidden products area
- Customize all labels/text for shopping cart and checkout pages
- Configure gift certificate expiration
- Customize css/style for the product sub category and links display

MULTI FILE UPLOAD WITH DRAG/DROP FOR CHROME AND FIREFOX

When using Firefox or Google Chrome, you will now be able to multi-select and upload files. This is useful for setting up photo galleries or uploading files via the file manager. The upload form also includes a drop box. You can select files from your computer and drag them to the drop box to automatically upload them to your website.

SEO

You can now customize the page head on a per page basic which allows you to setup page specific meta tags.

MISC UPDATES

- content rotator - set the start and end times
- Page title styles - you can use the text based titles for your page titles

DESIGN BACKUPS

The system will now automatically save your current design when you change your layout. Up to 6 backup copies will be kept. This allows customers to reset their design if they accidentally change their layout.

DEFAULT BANNER WIDTH SETTINGS

A new default banner setting has been added to make it easier to setup and manage your default site banner. You no longer need to specify a banner width (the width option is still available if you need to use it). The system will automatically generate the banner to the appropriate size. This feature is not available when the flash banner option is enabled.

LAYOUT BUILDER (advanced feature)

Get more control over your design with the new layout builder designs. Customize the backgrounds, margins and padding for different areas of your layout (quickbar, logo, banner, menu bar, content areas, sidebars, footer). This is an advanced feature that requires good knowledge of web design/css.

BIZLIVE CHAT

The live chat system now works on Firefox and Chrome.

WEB DEVELOPER TOOLS (advanced feature)

Use the web developer tools to customize your website. This is an advanced feature that requires good knowledge of web design/css and web programming. To enable the developer tools, go to the design and click the more options link.

- Install custom template templates
- Create custom layouts for products
- Upload your own menu buttons
- Customize your menu styles, photo gallery styles and more.

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 08:47 am | Permalink | 2 Comments | E-mail this

Accessing Email From Multi Locations

Wednesday, 02 March 2011

Webmail

Webmail is the easiest way to access your email from multiple locations. To access your email via webmail browse to http://webmail.edirecthost.com. Enter your email account name and password. More information on webmail.

Email program

You can also use an email program such as Microsoft Outlook to access your email from multiple locations. Email programs by default will download email from our mails systems to your computer. When the emails are downloaded they are removed from the server. To access the email from multiple locations you need to configure your email program to leave emails on the mail server.

The option to leave emails on the mail server is located in the advanced settings area for email account configuration.

More information on email accounts.

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POSTED BY: Steve s. AT 02:18 pm | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this

USPS Shipping Option

Tuesday, 04 January 2011

USPS recently updated their Web Tools service which is used to calculate shipping rates. Merchants who use the USPS automated rate calculator may have reported issues with rates not calculating on order submitted recently. This was due the USPS changes. A update was released today to adjust for the changes made by USPS. Rates should currently be available and working again.

Please remember that when no rate is available whether it be due to this issue or when the shipper is unavailable to return a rate, the manual shipping/calculated at ship time option will be displayed to the shopper during checkout. This allows the shopper to place their order and for you to calculate the shipping fee after the order has been placed. Most merchants can use the Add Charge button on the order details screen to bill additional fees to the credit card on file for the shopper. The Add Charge button is only available though if this is compatible with your gateway.

To comment on this blog just click on "comments" below, A form will open up below where you can enter your comments. Commenting on this blog and then entering your website link will help promote your site and help it move up in the search engines.

Don't forget that eDirectHost Website Builder can help you build your own website.

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POSTED BY: Steve S. AT 09:19 am | Permalink | 0 Comments | E-mail this