June 2014 News

In this issue of Website Builder news, June 2014:

  • Updated Mobile Templates
  • Auto Save Grids and Product Forms
  • New Ecommerce Features
  • Other New Features
  • File Space Limits Increased. 
  • New Domain Suffixes and SEO
  • Support Ticket System replaced
  • Free Xero Training (Auckland)
  • Need Website Builder Training? 
  • Guru Mediations 
  • Clear your Cache
  • Professional Web Design Services
  • Better Broadband
  • Affiliate discounts
  • Start your own business - reseller options
  • Cool links/system links
  • Websites of the month

Updated Mobile Templates

After strong customer feedback we have upgraded the default mobile templates to include banners.

If your banner is a large file, it might slow down load the time of your first webpage on a remote 2G or slow connection. 

The new default mobile layout also has a popup menu, that is always available even when you scroll. 

There are also several other mobile template layouts to choose from, and you can always request a quote for something a little special.

Or you can disable the mobile template mode completely. We do recommend that the mobile templates are used, as they are the most efficient for big fingers on little screens, without needing to constantly pinch and zoom the little screen. 

We have designed our mobile templates to be super fast and lightweight and great for customers who are not on 4G connections to get quick page load times. In comparison, a responsive wordpress mobile template with jquery and other unneccessary plugins might take 10 seconds or more to load the home page on a rural mobile connection. 

New Default Mobile Template

Auto Save Grids and Product Forms

We have added an auto save feature to many grids, tables and forms within the CMS. It will take time to update all pages, so in the meanwhile if you see a SAVE button, then you need to click it. If you see a little green box flash with the words "saving" then you know your changes have been saved... This usability enhancement makes it much easier to work much faster. 

We have not as yet added an "auto draft save" feature to the TinyMCE wysiwyg editor, but we hope to add a similar feature there at some stage. 

Ecommerce Updates

Stock counts. Stock counts are now updated when you delete or cancel or uncancel an order. 

Customers who are logged in and purchase digital files, will automatically we able to redown the file from the product page. 

Those who use a template with the shopping cart in the right column, will be enjoying the visual effect of their product photo visually moving to the cart, and the cart coming back into view if previously it was out of the scroll area.

You can add a quantity box next to the buy button on all product list page layouts now. Look in shopping category options. 

Other New Features and Bug Fixes

You can now rotate images within the Image wizard

You can drag and drop files (in bulk) more easily in many places in the CMS, with a similar look and feel. More work is happening in this area. 

The CMS menus now remain in focus when you scroll around inside the CMS. 

File Space Limits Increased

We have increased filespace limits on all hosting plans. Enjoy. 

New Domain Suffixes and SEO

There are now hundreds of new domain suffix options. The benefit of all of these new suffixes is you can always find a unique name just for you, and perhaps get a keyword into your web address. There is no real downside to the new options. 

Discussions in the SEO arena and comments from Google, suggest there is no lessor Google rank value of the new domain suffixes. All will be treated equally given all other considerations from google. 

For those who have been collecting variations of their domain name, it is my greatest advice that you don't do it. Just focus on your primary domain names.  It would be prohibitively expensive to secure your name in all the different registries... And with so many options available, there is just no point in doing it. 

Shortly the .nz domain space will be getting rid of the 2nd level part, eg all domains will look like "websitebuilder.nz" or equivalent. When this happens, we will anounce it so that you can apply to reserve your shorter .nz domain, once your shorter .nz domain is available, you will be able to make it your primary domain name and redirect your old domains to the new one. So therefore, if you are cost conscious, you should not renew your .co.nz domains past the end of 2015. The same thing is happening in the uk, and i would assume Australia will follow suit at some stage. 

It will take a few years for the world to stop thinking about ".com", or considering it the premium domain address, but that time will come soon enough. 

Support Ticket System Replaced

We have replaced the old Freshdesk support ticket system with a simple email based service. Simply contact us via email on support@websitebuilder.co.nz and our rostered team members will respond to your questions. By using Gmail we can more easily see your attachments, and provide better 24/7 service via our mobile phones.  

Free Xero Training in Auckland - July 15th 5pm

Anyone interested in getting some free Xero training? Training provided by Katalyst Office Management.  

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-xero-training-be-paperless-with-xero-files-tickets-11445583047

Need one-on-one Website Builder Training?

If you require personalised training, please contact one of our consultants, who are based all over NZ. Many of our Auckland team can also provide over the phone training at a scheduled time. 

We would encourage all customers to get at least one hour of training at the early stages of building their website, and one more review prior to going live, just to give your website that professional critique, and quick tidy up of the rough bits.

Training topics include:

  • How to use website builder and shopping cart

  • How to design websites

  • How to crop and tidy up photos

  • How to optimise to get your website higher on google and other search engines

  • How to setup a facebook page, or other social media account

  • How to send newsletters

  • How to use any other feature we offer.

Book personalised training here

Guru Mediations

We believe we have tamed the Guru mediation errors. They had happened less than 1% of the time when our servers were busy. We have done alot of work to smooth out the causes of slowness, and we have also replaced the oddly worded error message, with a new simple message telling the customer that they server is busy, and they should refresh the browser in a few seconds.  

Clearing your Browser Cache and Publishing

Caching speeds up your computer, but it also causes confusion when viewing changes to your website.  Every web master needs to become familiar with this concept. Almost a third of all our support tickets relate to mis understandings about caching. We can't change the nature of the internet, we only educate.

With the introduction of the international CDN hosting service, it's important that we highlight a few issues with regards to browser and proxy caching. 

  • The importance of the publish button is even greater now. Once apon a time, product page and blog page updates might have published instantly, now you have to press the publish button to see changes.
  • If your site had errors, or was offline for a short period, you may need to press PUBLISH again to tell our CDN service to check for updates on your website. Publish will generally resolve most issues. 
  • People in different parts of the globe, may now see different versions of your content. The CDN will cache your website in different locations based on the time content was first accesses. Pressing Publish will ensure every one gets the latest version. 

Learn more about Clearing your browser cache

Professional Web Design Services and Training

If you require training or professional help getting started with your website, please review their portfolios, specials etc and contact a local consultant. We have authorised all our resellers and design consultants to engage with you directly, and bill you directly for their time.

You can see all the available consultants at the following link from all across NZ.

/webapps/d/21/347206/web-designers-specializing-in-our-cms

 

Better Broadband

We have teamed up with the awesome 2talk team to offer you some great broadband options. If you have become disgruntled with your current isp, now is the time to get a great bundled broadband offering.  

/webapps/l/21/347206/nz-broadband-providers

Receive a 20% discount off your web hosting, for life, by referring a friend 

Did you know that if you refer a friend to use our awesome website builder service, you get a 20% discount off your hosting? If you refer 5 friends, then you will essentially get your web hosting for free! Not only that, but your friends will also get their 2nd month web hosting absolutely free. That's a nice little encouragement for them to check our service out and gives us the opportunity to setup your discount. Both discounts apply for your  2nd and subsequent websites also. It doesn't matter if it is yours, a friend, family or a stranger. Discounts begin once both websites are live. Please make sure you or your friend communicates the referral at the earliest opportunity. 

More information about affiliates here

Reseller Options 

We have an awesome new offer for web designers and awesome business networkers. We can setup any web designer who is interested with all they need to get started as a web designer at no cost:

  • There are no setup fees, no contracts to sign.
  • You will earn $2+ on every domain name sold (based on RRP $19 per year). 
  • You will earn (20%-50%) commission on hosting 
  • You can manage all your customers content, domains, emails etc, easily from just 1 login.
  • We take care of all the billing arrangements, so no administrative hassle. 
If you know of anyone who might be interested, point them at our reseller page. We'll offer a $100 finders fee commission for any existing customer who finds us a new reseller who set's up 3+ live websites. Offer expires 28th Feb 2014.

More information on reselling here

Need Help! is at hand...

There are several places you can find answers to questions about how to build your website and add features (which, there are a lot of) and its free for you to look:

If you can't find the answer you need - then get professional help

Contact - Web Designers or lodge a Support ticket

In 99% of cases the answer to a problem is covered in one (or more) of these places. We always fix bugs fast, with all the users we have we get notified very fast of any real bug -  they are not common, so if you are having an issue operating the CMS consider some online training with us - you'll always take something away worth value. In all other cases we are happy to do anything you are having trouble doing yourself for a small fee starting from $20 for 10 minutes. 

Cool links

All those links and more at our new toolbox page: More Toolbox / Links

Websites of the month

Here's a selection of some of our recent Go Lives.  

And view more examples of websites powered by website builder

Please contact us for more information. 

From the Team @ Web Widgets Ltd - Free Website Builder

www.websitebuilder.co.nz

Posted: Mon 16 Jun 2014

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