Testing your website in all major browsers

We believe in testing all our clients websites in the major browsers in use today, as of Jan 2012 our list includes:

  • Windows: Internet Explorer 7 to 9, Firefox 4 to 9, Safari 4 & 5, Chrome 17+
  • Mac: Safari 4 & 5, Firefox 4 to 9, Chrome 17+
  • Mobile: iPhone, iPad (iOS 3+)

To speed up testing and development, we use a number of online browser testing services we thought we’d share, in order of brilliance.

Litmus

These guys do an awesome job of email and website previews (even if they are limited to static images of each website so you can’t scroll around or test Javascript like slideshows etc).

We have been using this UK based outfit for years and heartily recommend them:

You can also share any results with clients, such as this sample of a new Home page and slideshow for Brookfarm:
https://evolvedwebsites.litmus.com/pub/e38bf7e

View their full offerings at http://litmus.com

Browserstack

We’ve only just discovered this service which lets you browse any website using actual browsers, not emulators, so far so good, and we’ll likely signup for their professional account at $19 per month (unlimited testing).

http://www.browserstack.com

IE Netrenderer

An older service which lets you take a screenshot using just one IE browser at a time, since using Litmus I have to admit we don’t use this anymore. It can be quite slow, but is free and still useful if you can’t afford to pay for a one-off testing session:

http://netrenderer.com

Posted in Tips & Resources on 1 Jan '12, 11:30am | No Comments

Facebook integration with Evolved CMS v9

Seems like everyone is on Facebook these days, so we’ve decided to make it so much easier to share your website updates on your Facebook Page.

fb link

If, like us, you have a Website, a Facebook Page and a Twitter account it can be a nightmare to keep all three updated, with our new ‘Share on Facebook / Twitter’ feature its a simple 3 step process:

1. Add new information on your website:

2. ‘Share on Facebook’

3. Review what’s about to be shared (above)
..and edit as you please, then press Save, and its instantly sent to your Facebook Page:

A lovely new feature, give us a shout if you want to upgrade…

Next up, Twitter integration in a week or so.

(available for CMS v9)

Posted in News from Evolved Websites, The Evolved CMS on 10 Oct '11, 03:24pm | No Comments

New Feature: Top Weekly Searches

Not only can you now see what your customers are searching for, right in the CMS Admin and on the public website as Top Weekly Searches, these searches also become new, highly focussed pages in Google and other search engines for the search terms.

E.g. a search on Ask A Naturopath for ‘tea tree‘ shows a range of treatments for blackheads, candida and others.

Here’s a little video we made explaining how it work:

Posted in The Evolved CMS on 10 Oct '11, 03:27pm | No Comments

Email usage update: iOS devices take 2nd spot

Looking over some of our client eNewsletter stats we were surprised to find iOS (iPhone, iPad etc) now easily is the 2nd most used email platform for our clients:

 

 

Luckily iOS devices are easy to design for, and seem to replicate much of Apple Mail’s features so eNewsletter still end up looking great.

Now would be a good time to start thinking about designing more fluid, mobile friendly eNewsletters that take full advantage of the iPad and iPhone interface. Or even a mobile-specific enewsletter layout, which is sent at the same time (using CSS code) as the full-version.

 

Posted in eNewsletters on 9 Sep '11, 11:41am | 2 Comments

Benefits of using email marketing

We offer all of our clients access to world-class eNewsletter software, if you are wondering why you should be using eNewsletters in the first place, here are some great reasons.

Benefits of using email marketing include:

  • It works - Based on research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing is predicted to return an incredible $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, more than 6 times the return from print catalogs.
  • It’s cost effective - There are no printing costs and you can get your message delivered for several cents per recipient. Once a template is setup you can use it again and again with new copy, without extra design costs.
  • It’s immediate - Email generates an immediate response, the majority of your recipients will see your message in the first 24-48 hours (see sample graph below).
  • It’s relevant - Email makes it easy to segment your subscribers using a variety of criteria like demographics and past campaign behaviour (such as clicking a certain link). Ensure your message goes to the individuals most likely to be interested in your offer.
  • It’s completely measureable - More than any other form of marketing, email can provide actionable data on the results it generates. Keep track of who opened your email and when, what topics they were interested in, who forwarded it on to a friend, how many sales were generated and much more.

Posted in eNewsletters on 7 Jul '11, 03:35pm | No Comments

New Feature: Revamped Media Area

We’ve completed a radical overhaul of the Media Area in Evolved CMS v8, something long overdue and we are very happy with the results.

 Media Area v8

Just some of the benefits of our Media Area are:

  • drag n drop uploading saves oodles of time, right from your desktop or even iPhoto
  • you don’t have to resize any images before uploading (as long as they are under 5Mb they will be fine), as we resize all uploaded images
  • you can delete images from The Media Library and they will still show on the website
  • better organisation by categorising images into folders

And a few technical, but important, additions:

  • PNG, BMP and TIFF files are converted to JPG to make them smaller and web-safe
  • CMRK print-ready images are converted to JPG making them web-safe
  • 300dpi images (or anything bigger than 72dpi) will be converted to smaller, faster 72dpi images

We are thrilled with this update, and are sure you will be too.

Available now in CMS v6, v7 & v8.

Yari McGauley

Posted in The Evolved CMS on 7 Jul '11, 10:10am | No Comments

eNewsletter Updates

This month we are all about eNewsletters, not only do we have a swag of new features for you to try out, also more and more of our 75+ clients are finding out how cost-effective using eNewsletters are.

New eNewsletter Features

Worldview
Shows each and every subscriber on a world map as they open your eNewsletters, complete with name, email and if they opened, clicked or shared via Facebook or Twitter.

Social sharing to your email subscribe forms
Rally your people to spread the word about your site launch or product by integrating social media ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ in your eNewsletterts. Ask us how.

New Templates
You can now also choose from 37 pre-designed email templates, which we then customise with your logo and content (text & images), or have us custom-design your own email template.

All this is instantly available, just login to your eNewsletters as normal at http://mailout.evolvedwebsites.com.au

New eNewsletter Editor

Editor video

We’ve undergone a huge upgrade to the eNewsletter editor, here’s a short video showing some of the highlights.

This changes lots of small things when editing your eNewsletters, such as live preview as you type, no more annoying popup box when pasting text, more images per template and lots more.

Login and create a draft eNewsletter to have a play with the new changes.

New eNewsletter Monthly Pricing

eNews sample templates

We now offer 2 ways to pay for eNewsletters:

  1. Pay per mailout
  2. NEW Pay per month, for unlimited sending

Send more than one eNewsletter a month? Unlimited mailouts, billed monthly based on number of subscribers.

Contact us here for pricing

Did you know we have an online eNewsletter Manual?

enews manual

In case you didn’t know, or haven’t been there recently our online manual has plenty of advice and guides on creating eNewsletters, sending, reports and subscribers:

 

Get in touch with us if you would like help with any of the things discussed here today.

Posted in eNewsletters, News from Evolved Websites on 7 Jul '11, 03:31pm | No Comments

New Features: Customer & Order Stats

New in CMS v6 & v8, for websites with eCommerce we now show some really insightful stats:
  • Top Selling products
  • Most valuable customer
  • On each order, the customers purchase history and value
  • On each customer profile, the full order history, customer value over the years & most bought products

Posted in The Evolved CMS on 7 Jul '11, 03:42pm | No Comments

Why Do People Hack Websites?

Why do people hack into websites? Well according to Web Hacking Incident Database (WHID), in the second half of 2010 the top reasons for hacking were:

  1. website downtime 33%
  2. defacements of websites 15%
  3. leakage of information 13%


Not upgrading security of open-source software can lead to serious hacking, the Evolved CMS is NOT open-source, some common hacks we’ve witnessed include:

1. Pornographic Content (website defacing)

The hacker inserts pornographic material on the website, usually in blog comments (also called comment spam) linking it to their own website in an attempt to lure visitors away. They may also setup redirects to their own website, so visitors are automatically sent to their own website.

2. Illegal Back Links (search engine optimisation)

Hackers insert links to their own websites on as many pages as they can, often hiding them with Javascript or CSS so they are undetectable to visitors, however Google and other search engines then count these links as ‘votes’ for the hacker’s website, boosting their position in the search engines. This may also lead to the hacked-website being black-listed by search engines.

3. Political / Fun Hacks (website defacing / mischief)

Illegal political groups or simply kids may hack into websites as a test of skill and post anti-government statements / images or just their pseudonyms as proof of their hacking skill.

4. Stealing Emails & Passwords (stealing information)

Potentially the worst kind of hack is when someone gains access to the Administration area and can steal usernames, emails and passwords for all customers, email subscribers etc.

 

NOTE: The Evolved CMS has never been successfully hacked into.

Posted in General Posts, The Evolved CMS on 7 Jul '11, 10:45am | No Comments

Open Source vs Closed Software

Open Source software is freely available to download, edit and use as you please. Many website companies use popular, cheap open source CMS platforms such as WordPress and Joomla for their clients.

Closed or proprietary software is custom-build to ensure quality, security and ease of upgrades for the future.

Open Source

Great for simple blogs and personal websites, built and maintained by a large community of software enthusiasts.

Pros

  • free, including free plugins
  • easy to setup for programmers
  • many web developers are familiar with the code / programming

Cons

  • easily hacked into, weekly security upgrades needed (partly due to the number of programmers who know how to use it)
  • can be overly technical and difficult to use (tries to be everything to everyone)
  • costly to maintain, upgrades require expert assistance, plugins often do not work with latest security upgrades

For businesses we believe open source software is too insecure, costly to maintain and difficult to keep up with the constant upgrades required. As it is maintained for free, there is little incentive or accountability to fix issues as they arise, especially for the free plugins which are required to customise the website to suit a clients needs.

Proprietary Software

Flexible, customised software which is professionally maintained and held accountable by Evolved Websites.

Pros

  • flexible, we custom-build each feature required, making it fast & tailed just to your project
  • stable & easy to use, tried-and-tested over 8 years with real businesses to produce a simple, fool-proof website
  • secure, only Evolved Websites and our team know the website code used, preventing hacking attempts
  • support, we have a vested interest in keeping your site up and running, offering exceptional customer support for over 12 years to 100+ clients

Cons

  • costs more than open source initially, however no maintenance costs as any bugs are fixed free of charge
  • longer setup as each feature is custom-built for speed and security
  • Evolved CMS is owned by Evolved Websites, however the entire public website and all design files belong to the client, we also offer a severance clause for peace of mind:

    “Severance, in the case of Evolved Websites not being able to provide reasonable support and future upgrades to the website (at market prices), the entire website including design, content, hosting, Evolved CMS Admin and all related materials will be returned to the Client, who may contract another web developer to work on the website.”

By building a closed (not open source) website, Evolved Websites significantly reduces the risk, and success, of our website being hacked into and exploited.

Posted in The Evolved CMS on 7 Jul '11, 10:45am | No Comments

Evolved Websites Blog

This is the blog of Evolved Websites, written by owner and founder Yari McGauley.

We write monthly on new technology that our clients can use in their businesses, without being tech-savvy.