• Content rotator based on the day of the week (use Design/Layout Components > Content Rotator; see example)
• Updated admin pages
• Updated file upload user interface
• New layouts/design options
• Date formatting for blog comments
• Image resize - the source image is saved for a period of time after upload so the size can be adjusted more easily
• Content slider - easier navigation between slides when editing  (see Design/Layout Components > Content Slider; see example)
• Mobile settings for redirecting directly to mobile site (see Site Editor > Settings > Mobile Website)

• New shopping cart buttons (see Design > Text & Styles > Shopping Cart)
• Pinterest support (see Site Editor > Settings > Social Networking)
• Australian tax display updates (see Store Manager > Advanced Settings > Shipping)
• Reward editing add/modify/delete (see Store Manager > Advanced Settings > Shopping Rewards)
• FedEx Web Service Freight (see Store Manager > Advanced Settings > Shipping)
• Shipping add on pricing options - a flat charge added to the shipping, most useful if you are using an automated shipping calculator such as built-in UPS calculator (see Store Manager > Setup Store > Shipping > Handling Fees (under Additional Settings) > Additional Handling Charges) 
• PayFuse Gateway, NAB Transact (see Store Manager > Setup Store > Payment/Gateway)

Creating an online presence with useful content is key to a successful presence on the Internet. The following summarizes an article about how to improve your company's overall Internet marketing strategy (The Costco Connection, May 2012, page 22-23). 

1. Offer information to consumers

Many people prefer to search online to learn more about a product or service seen in ads elsewhere. Your company's website should focus on helping visitors make smart buying decisions, educating consumers even before they call you or speak to a salesperson.

2. Make it easy to find

Use good keywords in your website's home page, title tag, and page content so that search engines will find your website. Be sure to interview your current customers to find out what keywords they would use to find your company. And, if you provide local services, be sure to include keywords that mention your geographic zone, such as "website design in Tigard and Portland, Oregon."

3. Focus on content

Good content is essential to Internet success! In addition to providing frequently-updated, fresh content on your website, you should seek quality links from other relevant websites as well as blogs of your own, links from other related blogs, and educational online videos that you create to help customers get the most from your products and services. 

4. Incorporate social media

Combining a quality website with a YouTube channel, Facebook fan page, online press releases, blog entries, Twitter, and other social media will round out your Internet marketing strategy and tie everything together to increase awareness of your company among consumers.

Other resources

• Google Adwords Keyword Tool (free tool for researching keywords and phrases tailored to your website)
• Wordtracker (free trial of subscription-based tools for finding good keywords and phrases and identifying websites that would be good candidates for a linking campaign)
• Ezine articles (free tool for posting informational articles that are offered free to websites and email newsletter publishers)
• SES (conferences about Internet marketing and search engine strategies)

Blogger platforms

• Blogger.com
• WordPress
• Technorati
• Cool Tools blogs (like this one)

» Read entire article in The Costco Connection 

Google recently has introduced SEO and spam penalties that can hurt SEO focused sites in Google's rankings. The best way to keep your site performing well in search engines is to add more content rather than over-adjusting the content you have.

Key do's and don'ts include:

• Avoid repeating the keyword phrase more than 10-15 times in your article or putting too many keywords on a single page
• Avoid titles that are stilted and repetitive
• Avoid multiple headlines using the keyword phrase
• Avoid including the keyword phrase in additional, less visible locations such as image "alt" text
• Write and expand content regularly to ensure:
  • Relevance and focus on delivering content to customers
  • Website provides expanded information on a topic
  • More of your pages found in search results
  • More linking opportunities within your website
  • More frequent visits by search engine spiders (they remember if your site is updated regularly)

» Read complete article by Jennifer Kyrnin

System Update: 4.20- [01/31/2012]  [02/15/2012 update]
System Update 4.20 is available to all Precision Computing Arts/Fastwebdev web hosting clients, and it's chock full of useful and fun features, which are summarized below. If you have any questions or would like us to help you implement these features, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Design Explorer (preview)

The design explorer preview is now available.  The design explorer preview is built to allow customers to easily try out different design options.   Customers can make design changes and then apply the changes once they are ready to make their changes live.

Access the design explorer through the design manager. 

Edit current design: Click the Design Explorer link on the design manager page.

Edit a saved design: click the "Edit" link next to a design in the design manager.

IMPORTANT: Design changes must be saved.  When customers want to save their current progress, they can click the "Save" button located in the top right of the design explorer window.  Customers can save their current progress, or save changes and apply them to their live website.

Please give the design explorer a try and give us your feedback.  This is an early access feature so we planning on making updates and enhancement based on your feedback.

Design system speedup

We have made several modifications to the design system that should speed up the process of generating design changes for many of the system layouts.

Ecommerce order processing

Several enhancements have been made to ecommerce order processing.  These enhancements are designed to make the order processing features easier to access.

Quick access menu.  Each order in the order manager now has a small drop down arrow that provides quick access to common order processing functions.  Store owners no longer need to view the order to access functions like email notifications and order printing.

 - View order
 - Send email to customer
 - Order notes/status
 - Print invoice
 - Print packing slip

Order status icon
From the order notes page, store owners can now set an order status color.  The status color is displayed on each line of the order manager.  The order status color can be used for any purpose.   Ex. a store owner may set an order to "blue" to indicate that they need to follow up with the customer.   

When the order status icon is clicked the order notes are displayed.  This allows store owners to see order notes directly from the main order list.

Customer email quick messages
Using quick messages, pre defined (stock) emails/messages can be sent to customers.   These stock messages make it easy for store owners to send order status updates or other information to customers.

Instead of typing a new message for each email, store owners simply select a message from the list and click send.

To create a new message, go to the email page for an order.  Select a message from the drop down list or select the option to create a new one.  Each message can be customized with the customer name, address, order number and order date.

Design

• 20 new layouts added
• New background textures
• More color options for new designs
• Larger design selection window
• Adjust quicklinks bar font size
• Enhanced design drop down menu for quicker access to design features
• Default styles for blog and image galleries
• CSS submenus now default to use menu slide animation
• Default groupbox spacing/padding
• New google fonts added

Header/banner

The header/banner settings area has been updated to let you use a content slider or custom HTML in the banner area. The system will now auto adjust to automatically use the width/height of upload banner images.

Design menu

The design options popup menu has been enhanced to provide direct links to more design areas (design library, design settings, design manager, web developer tools...). The menu is also available by clicking the right most design tab ("..."). This menu allows you to easily navigate between design areas.

Design manager - Design Explorer (coming soon)

The design manager explorer allows you to edit and customize your design before making the changes live on your site.

Content slider

The content slider has been updated with direct links to edit the slider text.

Photo gallery

The photo gallery has been adjusted to allow you to upload photos directly from the page editor. Edit a page with a photo gallery on it and click the upload button above the gallery display.

Google maps

The system has been updated to use the new Google maps API/service. You are no longer requied to user a developer key when setting up your map.

QuickEdit bar

A new QuickEdit bar option is available. The QuickEdit bar is positioned at the top right of your website. It allows to you easily scroll up and down the page as well as toggle between edit/view modes.

Ecommerce group coupon support

Automatically generate sets of coupons for group based coupon promotions such as GroupOn.

Ecommerce administration

You can now set up admin user accounts and give the account access to manage your store products. To configure admin access, go to the user accounts - administration users area.

Misc updates

• Page properties : advanced settings - set the page url (page name)
• Design manager enhancements
• Ecommerce - Canada post shipping

System Update: 4.19 - [08/25/2011]
Orders are now archived automatically in order to improve the performance of the order management area.

• 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 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 still will reflect information for all completed and shipped orders even if the order has been archived. 

Microsoft is aware of active attacks using at least one fraudulent digital certificate issued by DigiNotar. A fraudulent certificate could be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks against all Web browser users including users of Internet Explorer. This issue affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.

Typically no action is required of customers to install this update for supported releases of Microsoft Windows, because most customers have automatic updating enabled and this update will be downloaded and installed automatically.

For more information, including how to manually install this update, see Microsoft Security Advisory (2607712) at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2607712.mspx.

System Update: 4.19 - [8/20/2011]
System Update 4.19 is available to all Precision Computing Arts/Fastwebdev web hosting clients, and it's chock full of useful and fun features, which are summarized below. If you have any questions or would like us to help you implement these features, please don't hesitate to contact us!

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 update 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. To try this feature, select Admin > Editor Settings > Edit Tabs Style [Optmized]

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. Simply 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 owner's 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 user's 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.

System Update: 4.18b - [5/18/2011]
System Update 4.18 is available to all Precision Computing Arts/Fastwebdev web hosting clients, and it's chock full of useful and fun features, which are summarized below. If you have any questions or would like us to help you implement these features, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Animated image transition effects
Go to the design area to set up animated transition effects for your image galleries, rotators, rotating banners and content slider components.

Austrailian e-commerce updates
This feature displays the shopping cart prices/total including tax. To enable the feature, go to the "customize fields/international" settings page and check the "Use Australian VAT tax display" box.

Product ID on product catalog page
Go to the general settings page to enable the product ID display. When this option is enabled, the product ID will be displayed to the right of the product name on your product display page. There are 2 settings, one for the product category and another to display the product ID on the detail pages.

Social networking link
When the Facebook link is enabled, the Facebook like button is now displayed along with your social networking links. To configure social networking links, view your website, click the settings button and then click the social networking link on the left side of the page.

System Update: 4.18a - [4/28/2011]
System Update 4.18 is available to all Precision Computing Arts/Fastwebdev web hosting clients, and it's chock full of useful and fun features, which are summarized below. If you have any questions or would like us to help you implement these features, please don't hesitate to contact us!
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ECOMMERCE IMAGES UPDATE

Product zoom images
Use the new product image upload user interface to upload zoom images of your products. When a zoom images is loaded the system will display a zoomed version of the image when a visitor hovers over the main product detail image.

Bulk image import
Easily import your main product images as well as more product images. To learn more, go to the store import/export page and click the bulk image upload option.

Additional product images
It is now easier to load more product images using the new product image upload user interface.

What We Do to Improve Customers' Search Engine Results

We design all websites with good search engine performance in mind, and my customers' websites appear to be doing well. I've had customers get VERY expensive estimates from SEO experts who proposed to do what 23 already had done (or could do) myself. We did the necessary work, and their search engine results improved.  

With the client's input regarding desired search keywords, we make sure keyword content is complete, and keywords and meta tags are present for each page. Then we use the built-in search engine submission features available on your Cool Tools system, which hits all the major engines.

What You Can Do to Improve Your Standings in Search Engines

1. Brainstorm which keywords you want people to use to find your site, and and be sure those keywords are already in the pages of your site. The most important keywords should be on your home page. (If you decide to hire us to help, be sure to write down and send us all the keywords that are most important to you.)
2. Type your keywords into the major search engines (mainly Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Bing.com, in that order of importance). If your site is on the first page, you've got it made! Check out your competitors, too, and see what keywords find their sites high up in the results. Note that some businesses have so much competition that it's virtually impossible to always land on the first page of the search engine results, so no one can guarantee top-page performance. Also be aware that search engines change their methods for finding sites relatively frequently, so your site may be at the top of the heap one day and appear to move down the next; there's no way to really prevent that. Regardless of what the search engines do, your best bet is always to have high quality keywords in your content and meta tags.
3. Look at which directories pop up with your keywords and get into those directories (each directory will explain how to get listed).
   For example, we plugged "real estate appraisal wisconsin" into Google and found several real estate appraiser directories at the top of the search results, including http://appraiserusa.com/wisconsin/, http://www.alamode.com/DirectoryGenerator/Appraiser_Wisconsin.htm, and http://www.appraisercentral.com/st/wi.htm.
   
   We generally recommend customers submit to the directories themselves, because it requires knowledge of their business and sometimes payment; it's tedious data entry work, but generally easy to do. Having us do something you can easily do yourself would not be cost-effective for you.
4. Consider some paid advertising (e.g., Google Adwords and various directories). I think this can be a last resort, except for industry "musts."