blog.auctori.com

04
Apr

Getting Your Money’s Worth with Ecommerce
There’s a lot to contemplate when it comes to ecommerce websites and what you want to offer your customers. A variety in shopping carts, shipping options and payment options are just a few things to consider. The Auctori web CMS (Content Management System) provides a number of options with the Ecommerce Module that some business owners may overlook when preparing their site. Here are a few features we can help you with:

Configuration: Auctori can be configured based on what you want your buyers to see or accomplish at the time of purchase. This includes:
- displaying prices
- using 1 or more promotional codes
- checking out as a guest
- modification of cart products
- presenting taxing and shipping
Payment Options: Auctori provides a number of payment gateways that will integrate with the company bank account. These Payment Gateways can also be tested prior to the live site to ensure everything is in order. Payment options for consumers include:
- Bill Later (invoicing)
- Credit Cards
- Purchase Orders
Promotions: Promotions engage consumers and lead to higher conversion rates. Auctori allows more control by offering choices for promotion types, codes and usage. It also offers diversity in:
- Expiration dates
- Whether or not a promotion can be used more than once
- If it is implied for everyone that orders within a specific time range
- Free shipping
- Promotions that apply to certain products
- Promotions that go in effect after a certain amount of money is spent or number of items
Reports: All of the above is critical to ecommerce and user experience. Reports might top them all by giving you the feedback you need as to the effectiveness in your ecommerce strategy. Auctori can generate reports delivering the follow information:
- Past website searchers
- Most viewed products
- Reviews, which the administrator can approve for publishing
- Used promotions
- Abandoned carts
- Submitted orders
There are many content management systems available, however not all offer easy to configure options such as Auctori. With these as well as many other characteristics that can be added to your website, you are sure to bring in visitors and prospects. To learn more about what we can offer through ecommerce or other Auctori modules, contact us to schedule a demo.
Filed under - Auctori CMS, Auctori Modules and Features, Content Management System, E-Commerce No Comments so far. Add yours now
05
Mar

Speaking to the Population

Sixty to 70 percent of the population isn’t fluent in English. If you own a website, implementing multilingual pages is important, if not another full website. North America contributes to 11.4% of worldwide internet users, while the largest contributing country is Asia at 44.8%. Think about how much we limit ourselves by just creating English websites. In North America, we have 88.6% of internet users in the world we could potentially reach! The number of people participating on the web is only going to continue growing.

Some businesses may want to keep their customers local, but many people want their companies to continue to grow and reach out to potential clients, maybe even becoming internationally known. The first step in getting a multilingual website in place, is hiring a translator. Yes, this can be pricy at times, but this is where you weigh your pros and cons. If you end up with higher conversions, more traffic and international clients, would the cost be worth it?

In the process of building multilingual pages or websites, continuously ask yourself “will web users be able to find this?” If you go to extent of creating multilingual content, it’s of your benefit to make sure the search engines can find it. It can often help to have multiple languages on a web page if you decide against building a separate website. In this case, if users are searching for you in an English search engine in their own native language, they will still be directed to your website.

Not everyone has the budget to hire a translator and build web pages or websites. Sometimes looking at other options such as a web CMS (content management system) is the best way to get more bang for your buck. A web CMS allows you to be creative without understanding back-end development. Many different web CMS’ exist including open source and proprietary. Open source is free allowing you to access code and build the site yourself. If you would prefer a platform which is already built and ready for content, proprietary would be the way to go.

Filed under - Auctori CMS, Content Management System, Translations No Comments so far. Add yours now
22
Jan

Online Forms Form Relationships worth Forming

Websites bring together consumers and businesses through the World Wide Web using content, design and online forms. Online forms allow companies to connect to consumers and understand their needs, while gathering data for strategy and attracting leads (that was an accidental rhyme). As an important tool, forms should strategically collect information rather than seek illegitimate data that will lead you to fewer conversions. Here are a few tips to consider when creating online forms that will engage your audience.

First to consider when creating online forms is what you want to ask your prospect. You can ask as many questions as you want but you’ll also want to ask yourself if you need that information. No one wants to fill out a two page questionnaire when they visit websites. After about three or four fields, people tend to quit. Keeping your forms short and sweet is the best way to turn prospects into business.

Online forms often display ‘required’ fields. This isn’t necessary, however it does guarantee you information from customers. If you make the ‘First Name’ and ‘Email’ fields required, this allows you a way to contact visitors and personalize that attempt with a name. Many visitors may find it alarming if too much information is required of them. For example if you require their first and last name along with address and phone number, users may feel threatened that you could potentially sell their information to marketers.

DESIGN. If the emphasis on this word snatched your attention, then you know what I’m about to say. Design is also an important part of your form and should grab the attention of your audience. The website the form is built in should do the same, but visitors will find more interest in a form if it’s just as visually stimulating as the content around it.

For those of us that use and need websites to represent our business but don’t have the ability or team to develop them, a web CMS (Content Management System) is the answer. Not only can you build your website using a web CMS, but you can build forms using it. With just a few simple clicks, a form is created and then added to a web page. The code is automated and understanding it to build a successful website and form isn’t necessary. Contact Auctori to learn more about a web CMS that makes forms simple and successful!

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22
Dec

ASP.NET Benefits Broken Down

Web content management systems allow users to build websites and maintain them with little to no development knowledge. When researching web CMS platforms, however, sometimes it can be difficult to understand the differences between them unless you DO understand coding and the development process. One framework available to developers is the .NET (Dot NET) framework built by Microsoft. There are many web application frameworks built on .NET which can be used to build websites. ASP.NET is one of these web application frameworks and happens to be quite popular amongst web content management systems.

ASP.NET stands for Active Server Pages. In the past, there was a need for dynamic websites that could be quickly developed and ASP.NET was a solution created to address this problem. Many web CMS developers utilize the code for that fact. It simplifies updates and keeps platforms current to trends and customer needs. Here is a list of additional benefits when using the ASP.NET platform:

1)      Allows different development languages making coding simpler for a broader range of developers to implement and reducing the work and time going into it.

2)      ASP.NET is based on a powerful server side scripting technology, which means custom HTML is processed on a web server before being delivered to a user over the Internet.

3)      Pages are compiled and cached allowing frequently accessed web pages to pull quickly from the server.

4)      The web application framework is safe and secure when used with native Windows security and has the ability to trust other authenticated users.

5)      As a Microsoft product, it is integrated into Visual Studio allowing for robust design capabilities including WYSIWYG.

6)      Provides tools to easily create custom controls and data-driven visual elements.

ASP.NET is an easy framework to use and provides developers with flexibility which can make customization possible to keep consumers happy. Doing your research before choosing a web content management system can be difficult, but hopefully this information clears up what some of the tech jargon is trying to convey.

Auctori is one web CMS that utilizes ASP.NET which provides an easy mechanism to customize your website. Contact Auctori to find out more about ASP.NET and how Auctori customers benefit from the enhanced capabilities it provides.

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20
Nov

Website Design Fit for an Audience

The design and layout of a website is the first thing a visitor sees and it can immediately generate a positive or negative reaction. If you own a website, you want to engage your audience, and more importantly you want to reach out to the correct audience with the right web design.

The first step in deciding upon the most effective web design is determining your target audience. Background research on the interests of your audience is great information that will help you move forward. Is your audience more visual? Do certain fonts or images grab their interest over others? Analyzing habits can help answer these questions and provide a design strategy. Check out what your prospective clients follow on Facebook or what they retweet on Twitter.

After you determine your target audience, the next step is understanding the purpose of the website. Are you selling something? Are you providing information? This is crucial to how the layout and design of a website come together. The website of a graphic design company is much more visual than that of a law firm. A graphic design website establishes creativity through imagery where as a law firm’s goal is to provide information.

As the final stage of designing the website approaches, it’s important to keep the website clean and cohesive. Look at competitor sites and take-away different approaches on layout to decide what is best for your visitors. Balance the web pages out by utilizing white space without overwhelming your audience with too much content. A good color scheme and selection of fonts goes a long way.

Not every individual or company bears the resources available to design a website. An option for website development and design is a web CMS, or web content management system. A web content management system allows users to build and design websites with little knowledge and experience of technical code. Auctori is a scalable, secure, SEO-friendly web CMS that allows users to layout their website according to their needs. With visual consistency and tools to build out a website with articles, rotating content, biographies and more, Auctori can save time and resources while providing a website fit for an audience.

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