I was recently reminded that my most recent post to our blog was from 2011. It looks like it's time to start writing again. Since my last post, we have finished the integration of our new mobile platform, added charting support from Highcharts, added new table generation features, added new ajax based dashboard technologies and have even implemented a file sharing protocol for communicating directly with fitness devices.
We've also expanded our developer network and have been producing new training material for website developers and clients who are editing website content. Our latest training series, Ittrium Display Options, provides an overview of the display options we use to organize content elements in the body of a web page. You can find the videos on my youtube channel or on our help site at help.ittrium.net.
It's not "The Who", but we're not musicians!
Get ready to Go Mobile with easy mobile websites! We've started work on integrating the JQuery Mobile Website platform into our content management software which means our clients will be able to easily launch mobile versions of their website that look great and work like an integrated mobile application.
We'll have a demo site launched in the coming weeks to show you how this works, but if you're interested in a sneak peek of the JQuery Mobile website platform, you can test it for yourself on your mobile browser by visiting the following URL.
http://jquerymobile.com/test
Let us know if you're interested in Going Mobile!
If I complain about Microsoft copying software ideas then do the same thing does that make me a hypocrite? I'm guessing the answer is yes, but our search results display for our embedded search engine was due for an upgrade.
The new Googleish results clearly display the Title, URL and Abstract for each page that is returned in the search results. This will make finding content on an Ittrium powered website even easier, especially for large websites.
You'll also noticed that we've moved the search button directly beneath the form where it's position is fixed so that you no longer have to scroll to the bottom of the web page to start a new search.
The upgrade for this feature only takes a few minutes so give us a shout if you're interested in giving it a try.
If there are other improvements you would like to see in search or any of our other tools, please post your comments. We're always looking for feedback so we can continue to improve our products.
We recently released a new survey feature that you can use to automatically send email replies to the person who fills out a form on your website. The setup requires a few simple steps to configure your survey with the new auto reply feature. These steps are outlined in the video below.
I'm a big fan of using YouTube for streaming videos that we want to include on our website. Storing your videos on a streaming server such as YouTube is important since you don't want those videos chewing up the bandwidth that you're using for serving web pages. Smaller videos can be stored directly in the website, but larger videos should definitely be stored on a streaming server.
YouTube videos can be embedded easily on any web page by simply copying the YouTube embed code for the video you want to add to your website and then pasting the simple code provided by YouTube into your web page.
You can also organize and display multiple videos on a single page where each video is displayed through a modal dialog box as illustrated in the following video.
It's been a long time coming, but today we're proud to officially announce the launch of our new Website Maintenance Service Plans.
These website service plans are designed for companies who want to get more out of there website. Use your service plan to add a new Blog, improve your Google search page rank, launch a new Mobile Website and more.
Service plan customers receive significant discounts off of our standard service rates so you'll save both time and money with a Website Maintenance Service Plan.
To find out more about our new service plans, please visit our website or give us a call at 952.401.7999.
What if you could update your blog by simply writing an email? Well now you can. All we need is an email account where you'll send you blog posts and we'll automatically read your email account and update your blog using emails we find. Each email represents one blog posts and you can easily incorporate pictures and other content features by attaching files to your email.
We've always powered our own website, but we re-launched our website today using one of our standard Blueprint website designs. The new site going forward will highlight standard Ittrium features that any client can use. This design features a simple color palette that is easy to change and can be adapted for any website.
We'll continue to implement custom website designs for clients who need them, but new and existing clients will have the option to migrate to a standard Blueprint design as a cost effective alternative for your next website upgrade.
We've also migrated out blog that was hosted at 39ideas.com into the new site. We'll be posting product updates and website tips here so please check back for the latest updates. The blog contains a few new features. We've added pagination and tagging support as well as a new Archive feature. The Archive feature is not active on our site today, but we'll be turning it on shortly to show you how it works.
People these days have the attention span of a gnat. If your web site visitors have to search for what they need, your bounce rate will soar. Bounce Rate essentially represents the percentage of first time visitors who immediately leave your web site to go somewhere else.
Consider using icons or other visuals to highlight those things that are most important on a web page. Drive your visitors to the information they need so they don't get lost and bounce away.
This video shows how to add icons to a web page using Ittrium web content editing tools.
For this example, I used the Mezzoblue Chalkwork Family of icons.
If you have a web site, you've probably thought about search engine optimization for improving the visibility of your web pages for "organic" unpaid search results which happen to be the search results that are most often clicked.
There is plenty of competition for the first page in Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine. If you're not on page one, the odds of someone clicking your link drops dramatically. There's further evidence that you not only need to be on page one of the search results, but you also need to be listed in the first three links.
So if you're putting in the effort to improve your organic search engine rank, then why not start thinking about Search Click Optimization. If SEO is the process of improving your organic search rank, then SCO is the process of creating search links that match the intent of the searcher to increase your odds of a click.
Getting on page one of Google for a keyword is hard enough, so take the time to think about the searchers intent and provide copy in your search link that matches their intent so you can improve your click percentage for your organic search results.