miles design | news, tips & tricks

major business catalyst feature updates

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:25:00 GMT

Business Catalyst has released 3 major feature updates since June. Below are my highlights for business owners:

Free additional mailbox storage

As part of BC's ongoing efforts to provide customers with the best email platform possible, they have upgraded the standard mailbox size to 5GB of storage, up from 2GB. There's no additional cost and there's nothing you need to do to implement these changes. The upgrade has already been completed, allowing both new and existing sites to take advantage of the additional storage.

Blog improvements

Similar to other blogging platforms, BC now allows customers to change a blog post author by selecting it from a list of site admin users. Additionally, site users can now enter a short biography and profile image that can be included in the blog post layouts using the: {tag_blogpostauthorbiography}, {tag_blogpostauthorpictureurl} and {tag_blogpostauthorpicture}. The user can change both user biography and avatar from My Account interface, while site administrators can update them from the user management interface.

Site settings

BC are starting to consolidate some of the site-wide settings in a new section called Site Settings. With this release, they're enabling you to define Facebook, form security (Captcha) and shop settings. In future releases BC plans to allow customers use this interface to update site timezone, country and other global settings.

Shop settings: you now have the ability to set the shopping cart lifetime (lets you define how many hours a cart content is kept in the system for returning customers) and the ability to enable/disable the productfeed.xml which you can use to publish your products on product directories like Google Product Search.
Captcha settings: this is used to enforce server side check on Catpcha for the Refer to a Friend, Campaign Subscription and Comments forms. The forms built with our web forms engine have this setting incorporated and they check for Captcha only if you've added the field when you've created the form
Facebook settings: this is where you can enable Facebook login for your site and enter your Facebook application details (URL, App ID and App Secret Key)

Customisable SEO Friendly URLs for Web Apps

Continuing the work on this feature, BC has now added support for customisable URLs to the Web Apps module. To take advantage of this feature for your web apps, you will need to enable it from Admin > Search Engine Optimization settings page. The new URL will look like:http://www.yoursite.com/webapp-name/webapp-item-name. The web app item URL part is automatically generated from the web app item title and can be modified when editing an web app item. Similarly, you can edit the web app url, which can be edited from the manage web app screen.

Customisable workflow notifications

One of the most requested features on BC's wish list was to give site administrators a way to customise workflow notification emails to include relevant information or to have it translated in the site user's language. BC has now provided a solution that offers the ability to customise those workflow notification emails from the "Customize System Emails" area.

This notification template will work for all workflow notifications and can be customised by adding different tags, changing From: address or email Subject: fields. Configuration window will be similar to other system emails.

Further enhancements to the customisable workflow & order notifications:

Made the new layouts available through FTP. Starting next week, you can use Dreamweaver or any other FTP tool to grab the files and edit them, as well as doing bulk transfers between sites.
Added new tags to Packing Slip and Package Label layouts: {tag_shippingattention} has been added in the Packing slip template while {tag_invoicenumber}, {tag_shippingattention}, {tag_shippingdescription} and {tag_shippinginstructions} have been added to the Package Label layout.

Read the Knowledgebase article

Order status change notifications

This is an essential e-commerce feature for keeping paying customers up to date with the status of their online order. We want to make sure that when an order status is changed, the customer will be notified of the new order status. For example, when an order is shipped, an automated email is sent to that customer with a proper notification.

The e-mail message template used for customer notifications will be available in the System Emails section. The system will generate an email template for every order status and will allow partners and site administrators to pick which order statuses will require a notification. By default, no status types will have any associated notifications set.

Read the Knowledgebase article

AWB tracking number and tracking URL support in orders

One piece of information missing from the Business Catalyst order system was the ability to save a tracking number (AWB) and an URL to the shipping provider web page so that customers can access information about their shipment status in the My Account section or through an order notification email. The June release will enable the following workflows:

Site owners can assign a tracking number (AWB) and tracking URL to the order once the shipping providers picks up the package. The Update Order user interface now includes these two fields allowing site owners to manually include this information; Automation integration with shipping providers is planned for a future release.
Administrator/Partner can use this information in Order notification emails layouts and site front-end layouts to make it available to site customers.
Once the changes are made on the site, customers will be able to track their orders effortlessly.

Read the Knowledgebase article

Recursive modules (modules inside modules)

You now have the ability to display modules inside modules, including the ability to insert modules inside content holders. Other examples include (but are not limited to):

Being able to put products or catalogs inside blog posts
Being able to insert any module inside a web-app list or detailed view (webform module, catalogs/products, literature items)

Other updates

Social integration updates: BC has improved the social integration support by adding two new modules: Facebook Activity Feed and Facebook Send. Additionally, all social modules are now available in the Insert Module menu from Admin and in the Dreamweaver extension as well.
Alternate email address: BC has added an additional email field for every user, that will be used to send forgot password emails. This is particularly useful for those users hosting their business email with BC and had to go back to their partner or BC's support team to recover their password. Starting with this release, you will be able to receive the email on a secondary email address at your choice.
Remove related DNS records: when you remove a domain name or its "www" counterpart, the system will automatically delete all related records (redirects, mail records, etc.) after requesting and receiving a confirmation.
Added subscribe & unsubscribe to newsletter confirmation pages: this will prevent automatic mailing list subscription or unsubscription to mailing caused by search bots indexing web mail; as a consequence, instead of automatically subscribing or unsubscribing users to mailing lists, BC has added a page requiring users to press a button to confirm their action. You can modify the page content and appearance by updating two additional System Messages layouts: Subscribe Confirmation Form and Unsubscribe Confirmation Form.
Payment gateways infrastructure updates: payment infrastructure updates for enhanced security and reliability.
Updated the WYSIWYG editor to the latest version which includes better support for iPad and lots of bug fixes.
Forum subscriptions: users can subscribe to forums and receive notifications every time a new topic is opened. The email notification template allows you to use topic subject and forum name in the email notification subject, making it more easy to filter and read.
Updated social integration: added support for Facebook activity feed and Facebook Send as well as updating the Like module to add support for Facebook send.
Packing slip and package labels: site administrators or drop shipping suppliers now have a way to print packaging list and package label for each order received. Also the templates for both the packaging list and package label can now be customised. Read KB article
Email marketing: campaigns with 20 or less subscribers are now automatically approved by the system
Extended FTP support: With the June release BC has extended FTP support by making email campaigns and content holders available through FTP.
Device specific site wide templates: BC's multi-screen support has just got better by allowing you to define device specific site wide templates. Each template now has a default version for desktop screens and two additional ones (tablets and smartphones). When displaying a page, the system will automatically use the template corresponding to te detected device, if that template has been defined. If no content is defined in a template, the system will fallback to the immediately higher resolution templates (phone falls back to tablet which falls back to desktop).

latest BC websites launched

Thu, 12 May 2011 00:16:00 GMT

We've been busy over the past few months launching some fantastic new Business Catalyst websites. From design & web development through to web development only, we have implemented feature-rich websites that enable clients to manage their own website content, send email marketing campaigns, sell products, publish latest news & events and much more. Click on the images below to launch the websites.

new BC plans & pricing in 2011

Tue, 10 May 2011 05:24:00 GMT

We're happy to announce that during mid-late January, Business Catalyst introduced new plan names and streamlined their monthly pricing.

Under the new structure, the Websites Starter plan has become the "Starter" plan and was reduced by AU$7/mo for all new sites.

The Websites plan has become the "Business" plan and was reduced by AU$7/mo for new sites. This plan now also includes Email Marketing (with 1,000 newsletter credits per month). Existing "Websites" and "V2" clients have also automatically received the bonus Email Marketing feature. (Note: New features and monthly pricing only applies to new customers. Existing clients do not qualify*)

Finally, the "Full Solution" plan is now simply referred to as the "Pro" plan and was reduced by AU$5/mo for the 1-User plan. 5-User and 10-User plans have also been reduced by AU$10/mo and AU$15/mo respectively, upon site upgrade.

See our Business Catalyst products & plans page for more details.

*Important: Pricing changes are only applicable to new sites. Existing clients on older plans will not receive this new pricing. The BC accounts team will not accommodate requests to manually change any existing site to the new pricing structure.

new & improved BC knowledgebase

Tue, 10 May 2011 05:24:00 GMT

Business Catalyst has launched a new and improved Knowledgebase. The new Knowledgebase introduces a range of requested features, including enhanced navigation options.

You can access the new Knowledgebase at kb.worldsecuresystems.com

Other new features include:

A Flash-free landing page featuring small business owner focused "Getting Started" tutorials
Category based "Browse by topic" navigation
A dynamically generated "Recently updated" section
A new set of 6 white-labeled "Getting Started" videos for SBOs
Search auto-completion based on popular search phrases (start typing "w" for instance, and you'll see suggested searches such as Web Apps and Web Forms)

We hope you find the improved Knowledgebase helpful.

important update for all triangle users

Tue, 10 May 2011 02:58:00 GMT

Starting 29 April 2011, the existing (2.60) version of Triangle extension will not be able to login to Business Catalyst servers due to a change in authentication protocols.

To allow you to continue using Triangle, Business Catalyst have released a new version (2.61) and made it available for download from here.

email campaign deliverability enhancements

Tue, 17 May 2011 23:16:00 GMT

To improve deliverability of email campaigns from your online business, Business Catalyst made the following improvements to the system:

Created a global black list for email campaigns: bounced emails due to "mail box unavailable" or "user does not exist" errors will now be recorded in a Global Black List and the system will block from sending campaigns to that email address for 45 days unless the recipient verifies via double opt-in.
Block list emails report: the email campaigns report page will display how many recipients are black listed due to invalid email address and also have the link to open a report to show the email addresses that are invalid. Users can unsubscribe those invalid email addresses using the action drop down at the top of the results.

For more information visit:
http://kb.worldsecuresystems.com/893/cpsid_89341.html

january 2011 stability and email issues

Tue, 10 May 2011 05:27:00 GMT

Earlier this year Business Catalyst experienced a series of incidents that caused significant problems for a large number of customers. They had issues with their hosted email services followed by stability problems on the legacy Sydney data center.

In light of this, BC are issuing a full month credit for all paid sites that were hosted on the legacy Sydney data center, and those that were using internally hosted email services.

To be more specific, the following sites will receive a full month credit:

All paid sites hosted on the AU data center that have been upgraded on or before January 31st
All paid sites using the internal Business Catalyst hosted mail service across all data centers, which have been upgraded on or before January 31st 2011
All customers that were affected by these incidents will receive an email announcing the full month of credit.

In addition, BC has made some updates to the site Admin Console to help customers understand the period for which the credit has been applied. Go to Home > My Account.

To issue the full month of credit, BC will skip a month of invoicing for websites with monthly billing, and simply postpone the invoice for one month for sites on annual billing. If your site is billed monthly, no invoice will be generated between 15 Apr and 15 May 2011. If your site is billed yearly, the next due invoice will be postponed by one month.

Since the series of incidents, BC has managed to solve all email issues by shifting to an externally hosted email provider and migrating all sites from the legacy Sydney data center to a new location.

Once again, we apologise for the inconvenience caused by these outages and thank you for your support. If you have any other questions, please submit a Support Request via your Partner Portal or contact us.

lord howe island resort refresh launched

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 02:09:00 GMT

The website and branding refresh for Pinetrees Lodge on Lord Howe Island is now complete. Pinetrees have provided so many amazing photos, how could you not produce something spectacular! View the new site at http://www.pinetrees.com.au

christmas closing dates

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:02:00 GMT

As 2010 draws to a close, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of my valued clients and suppliers for a busy and successful year and wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas and New Year.

Our office will be closed from 23 December 2010, returning 17 January 2011. For any urgent enquiries over this close-down period please email info@milesdesign.com.au. I look forward to working with you in the New Year!

Best wishes
Rob Miles

troubleshooting BC email marketing campaigns

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 03:14:00 GMT

There are various issues you may encounter when using the email marketing features of Business Catalyst. This article from BC aims to explain some of these issues and their causes.

Why are my emails bouncing?

Bounces can be caused by numerous issues. The first thing to look at is the number being written in the bounce report.

550 series errors are caused by non-existent or incorrectly spelled emails. If you have imported a large list it's very likely some of your emails are invalid and as such you will find this number appearing in bounce reports. It is important you unsubscribe these individuals as servers view this as an attempt to "phish" for valid email addresses. If you have a large number of these bounces you may find that your overall marketing suffers as the server starts refusing your emails!

4xx series errors often are temporary deferments caused by excessive server load on the recipient side. Our mail server will most likely send out the email but this report will not be updated upon completion. The bounce report is written once and includes the first wave of tries from our marketing servers.

Though such heavy bounce rates are not a regular occurrence, there are a few steps you can take to help us and yourself with email deliverability. The first thing you can do is evaluate the campaigns you send and make sure that:

There are no broken images
Your messages maintain a ratio of 80:20 images:text and no higher. Full image emails are often content filtered as spam immediately
You monitor your bounce lists for 550 5.1.1 errors and remove these non-existent users from your email lists
Have your customers white list your email address and list you as trusted senders in their email clients

My customers say they aren't receiving my emails!

There are numerous reasons for this, most of which have to do with the first question! However, there is also a chance that the mail application of the client, whether it be a web based system or local client application, is sending your mailing to the spam filter. Along with the suggestions above, you should always include language on the signup page and on emails that indicates to your client that they should whitelist your server and emails to achieve better marketing performance.

Why is nobody opening my emails?

They most likely are, but they are probably not registering. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, be sure you have selected to send an HTML version of your email.

In order for the system to register an opening, the email client needs to download the images from the email or the user needs to click on a link and go to your website. The tracking code is attached to the images. If your newsletter does not have an image in it, the system will insert 1px x 1px image into it for the recording purposes. That image download is then recorded by the system. The image download is what causes the reports to reflect that the email campaign message was opened. The problem is that the email clients don't do this by default to prevent spammers form identifying the legitimate email addresses. In Outlook, Gmail, Thunderbird, Mail and most other clients, you often have to specifically click on "Download Images" (or something along those lines) link. So, for all those customers that end up viewing the newsletter without downloading the image, the system will have no way of recording the opening.

Finally, some clients just don't like HTML emails and will default to the plain text version of the mailing. For example, many older Blackberry models do not display HTML unless written in a very strict fashion or at all!

Why is my email going to the spam folder?

This ties into the first two issues discussed. Inbox placement is a tricky issue and is due to a multitude of factors. Follow best practices and engage your customers with calls to action for whitelisting and you will find success.

Why is my campaign not going out or seems delayed?

Typically you will find that campaigns are sent out within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. However, campaigns can take up to 24 hours to finish fully broadcasting. Keep in mind that reporting is only available once the broadcast is "finished" but this does not necessarily mean sending hasn't begun.

How can I stop a campaign from going out?

If you go into your campaign and choose "Save Draft" then it will revert to a draft state and no longer be sent at its scheduled time. As long as you do this before the time is reached this should work for you.

adding a TweetMeme button to your BC blog

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Adding a TweetMeme button to your BC blog posts is a great way to encourage "retweeting" of your content via the Twitter social network.

The standard TweetMeme button includes a count of how many times your blog post has been retweeted already, plus a clickable "retweet" button for your visitors to quickly and easily share a link to the content.

In just 3 easy steps, you can integrate a TweetMeme button with your blog.

Click here to get started

adding a facebook like button to your BC blog posts

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:59:00 GMT

Adding a Facebook "Like" button to your BC blog posts is a great way to encourage social media sharing within your community and spread your content across the web.

What's even better is that it takes just seconds to implement.

Click here to get started

adding a share button to a BC blog

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:58:00 GMT

In this BC article, you'll learn how to quickly and easily add a "Share This" button to your BC blog using the popular AddThis service.

Integrating a "Share" button to your blog enables readers to easily refer friends, family and co-workers to your site and can increase traffic to your online business.

Click here to get started

a sneak peak at BC v3

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:27:00 GMT

Today Business Catalyst released a sneak peak of the preliminary UI design for the new dashboard - click below to enlarge. BC V3 is going to have more of a 'desktop' feel where each module or feature is contained within an App that is launched from the BC Dashboard. For example, to manage your blogs, you will open the Blog App, for your photos you will have a Galleries App, ecommerce gets a Store App, the CRM gets a Customers App and well, you get the idea. The aim of this approach is to provide for all of your end-to-end workflows within individual apps rather than trying to make you skip around the system. We would only turn on the Apps that you need to run your Online Business to keep the system easy for you and the side dashboard navigation menu uncluttered.

Furthermore BC will be building the whole UI in HTML not Flex (turning BC into an Air App) as some have feared so it will work in all your favourite browsers. One of BC's primary UI requirements is to be accessible from iOS devices as well so you will be able to use BC from an iPad! As the BC team builds more and more of the App we'll be able to sneak more previews and details over the coming months.

new datacentre live for asia pacific region

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:11:00 GMT

Great news for online businesses hosted in the Asia Pacific region especially in Australia and New Zealand! Adobe Business Catalyst's new Asia-Pacific Datacentre, located in Sydney, is now online and all new Online Businesses that are being created with 'Australia' chosen as the data center location will reside on the brand new hardware there.

This is an important milestone in building a more reliable and scalable platform for partners to deploy Online Businesses on. In the last 9 months, BC has built and deployed 3 new data centres in 3 geographies across USA, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. They are now all accepting new sites.

some more little BC enhancements…

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:39:00 GMT

As part of the R150 Release on May 11 which included new DNS tools, improved site search and partner consolidated billing, Business Catalyst engineers have worked on some minor improvements to BC including:

Enable/Disable Menu Items - there is now a checkbox at the bottom of each dynamic menu item that lets you choose whether a menu item is displayed live on your site. Toggling these on or off means that you don't have to delete a menu item to remove it from the live view anymore.
Recurring Billing now pays Affiliate Commissions - when affiliates refer customers who purchase products that have generated a recurring order the affiliate will now be paid commission each time instead of just paying on the initial order.
Allowing Recurring Billing for "Process Offline" Gateway - a much requested feature, you are now able to use 'Process Offline' as a payment gateway type for recurring billing. However, please keep your encrypted customers billing details handy as these are only sent once on the initial recurring order.
New Tags introduced for ECommerce (Shopping Cart) - for countries such as Australia where store owners are entering prices inclusive of sales tax we now have {tag_producttaxpercentage,percentage} and {tag_totaltaxpercentage,percentage} to use on the shopping cart and invoice layouts which will calculate and display tax based on the retail or sale price entered for the product

Thanks for reading, we hope you find these enhancements useful!

new dns management tools released

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:31:00 GMT

BC has recently launched a new and powerful set of DNS Management Tools for your BC sites.

In this post, we'll show you how to get started with the new DNS tools and point you towards the relevant articles and resources.

1. Check out the refreshed interface

Our new DNS tools give you full control over the DNS settings for your BC sites.

Simply navigate to Admin > Manage Your Domain to access the updated interface.

From here you can:

Setup Domain Names - add your own domain names choose whether you want to host your Domain name externally or re-delegate to your Business Catalyst sites.
Forward Domains - allowing you to forward your www records to your non-www records, solving canonical domain issues and helping your SEO.
Setup A records - create sub-domains for your site and choose the start page, country and culture for them.
Setup CNAME records - add any number of sub-domains and point them to externally hosted websites and services, or to another A record that you've created on your site
Setup MX Records - quickly and easily set up external hosted mail services
Setup Advanced records - add your own TXT, SPF, SRV or AAAA records

2. Read the brand new DNS tutorial

As with all new feature releases, BC has updated our documentation to provide clients with a detailed run-through of how to use the new DNS management features.

To familiarise yourself with the new DNS setup process, it's important you refer to the following article:

Setting up DNS and Re-delegating Domain Names

The article will explain the process for adding new domain names, all the way through to setting up sub-domains and externally hosted mail services with MX Records.

3. Issues? Check the troubleshooting guide

To help you troubleshoot DNS issues yourself without waiting on a Support ticket, BC has put together a handy troubleshooting guide, sharing their own personal tips for diagnosing DNS-related issues.

Troubleshooting DNS Issues

Please note that DNS re-delegation is not an instant process - you may need to wait for the changes to propagate before the domain name update becomes effective. If the changes are not visible within 48 hours, please follow the steps outlined in the troubleshooting guide prior to submitting a Support ticket.

remove unused tags from your blogs

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:17:00 GMT

You can now delete blog tags from Business Catalyst when you aren't using them anymore. You just need to click the little 'delete' icon next to each tag to remove the tag permanently from the system. This is a welcome update... thanks BC!

new and improved site search

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:11:00 GMT

On May 15, Business Catalyst engineers 'flicked the switch' to enable the new site search engine for all BC sites. Both the site search (which searches forums, blog posts, web-app items, products etc) and product search (which searches products only) are powered by the same upgraded engine.

The Result:

Speed: The new site search is exponentially faster period. Where we used to measure site search result generation in seconds, we are now measuring in milliseconds in the latest performance tests. Even on large sites like businesscatalyst.com, search results are being returned almost instantaneously for commonly occurring keywords.
Search Terms Highlighted in Results: In the text blurb displayed below the result link the search will now display the text fragment that surrounds the search terms to give a better context for the result. The search terms themselves will be highlighted. In the past the system would display the first paragraph of the item description.

5 key benefits of migrating to a web-based CMS

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:39:00 GMT

1. Synchronisation

With an online CMS such as Business Catalyst, the website files exist only online therefore you don't need to worry about who's got the latest version of the website locally on their computer. Without a CMS, if we were to make any changes to your website, we would need to download the latest version of the website from the web, make any changes and then upload those changes. After we do this, if you don't download the latest version from the web to replace your local copies, then any changes you make and upload will be using outdated pages (and vice versa).

2. Convenience

Updates can be made from any computer at any time, you just need a web browser. The Business Catalyst basic plan comes with 1 admin user login, however multiple logins can be purchased if simultaneous logins are preferred.

3. Advanced built-in analytics

As well as a weekly summary email, advanced analytics similar to Google Analytics are built-in to Business Catalyst. It also includes detailed reporting of every type of content including most popular pages, news announcements, downloadable items, etc. No separate login is required for a 3rd party website and you receive a weekly summary email.

4. Ease of updates

The Microsoft Word style WYSIWYG editor in Business Catalyst is really easy to use. And there's an Archive & Rollback feature for every webpage and template just in case. Adding pictures is easy and you can even resize images to the right size using the built-in image manager.

5. Trackable downloads

The literature module in Business Catalyst allows you to upload PDF, MS Word, Audio and other files and make those files available for users to download. Download rates of each literature item is recorded and can be reported on.

I hope you found this article useful. To find out more about Business Catalyst, please visit this page or contact us for an obligation-free quote.

creating a Google-friendly website

Sat, 08 May 2010 01:59:00 GMT

Today I'd like to share with you some tips for creating a Google-friendly website taken from Google's own Webmaster guidelines. You can access the original article here. I hope you find these useful.

things to do

Give visitors the information they're looking for

Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site. In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site.

Make sure that other sites link to yours

Links help our crawlers find your site and can give your site greater visibility in our search results. When returning results for a search, Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to display pages that are both important and relevant to each search. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Keep in mind that our algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors. Unnatural links to your site are placed there specifically to make your site look more popular to search engines. Some of these types of links (such as link schemes and doorway pages) are covered in our webmaster guidelines.

Only natural links are useful for the indexing and ranking of your site.

Make your site easily accessible

Build your site with a logical link structure. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

Use a text browser, such as Lynx, to examine your site. Most spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Adobe Flash keep you from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then spiders may have trouble crawling it.

things to avoid

Don't fill your page with lists of keywords, attempt to "cloak" pages, or put up "crawler only" pages. If your site contains pages, links, or text that you don't intend visitors to see, Google considers those links and pages deceptive and may ignore your site.

Don't feel obligated to purchase a search engine optimization service. Some companies claim to "guarantee" high ranking for your site in Google's search results. While legitimate consulting firms can improve your site's flow and content, others employ deceptive tactics in an attempt to fool search engines. Be careful; if your domain is affiliated with one of these deceptive services, it could be banned from our index.

Don't use images to display important names, content, or links. Our crawler doesn't recognize text contained in graphics. Use ALT attributes if the main content and keywords on your page can't be formatted in regular HTML.

Don't create multiple copies of a page under different URLs. Many sites offer text-only or printer-friendly versions of pages that contain the same content as the corresponding graphic-rich pages. To ensure that your preferred page is included in our search results, you'll need to block duplicates from our spiders using a robots.txt file. For information about using a robots.txt file, please visit our information on blocking Googlebot.

business catalyst tutorials released

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:46:00 GMT

I've just uploaded a number of business catalyst step-by-step tutorials covering some of the most common tasks I get asked about. These have been developed by miles design for our clients. They are to be used as a general guide only and are not official tutorials from Business Catalyst. I hope you find them useful and welcome any feedback. For further information, see our Business Catalyst downloads & support page.

Adding PDF Files (PDF: 536 kb)
Creating Hyperlinks (PDF: 90 kb)
Uploading Files and Resizing Images (PDF: 164 kb)
Creating a Photo Gallery (PDF: 44 kb)
Adding a Blog Post (PDF: 163 kb)
Create and Grow an Email List (PDF: 65 kb)
Sending an Email Newsletter (PDF: 329 kb)

4 new websites launched

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:55:00 GMT

Miles Design is proud to announce the recent launch of 4 new websites, all of which have been developed with Business Catalyst CMS. More information on each will be available in our projects section shortly.

1. Carpark King website

Client: Carpark-King Pty Ltd
Tasks: Template customisation, website development, Business Catalyst CMS
Link: http://www.carparkking.com.au

2. Marymead website

Client: Sam Behr Design, Canberra
Tasks: Website development, Business Catalyst CMS
Link: http://www.marymead.org.au

3. JV Holt website

Client: J.V. Holt & Company
Tasks: Website design, website development, Business Catalyst CMS
Link: http://www.jvholt.com.au

4. Gymea Bay Public School website

Client: Gymea Bay Public School
Tasks: Template customisation, website development, Business Catalyst CMS
Link: http://www.gymeabaypublicschool.com.au

a testimonial worth sharing

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 05:59:00 GMT

I recently received a glowing testimonial from one of my new clients that I couldn't help but share with you. It's fantastic to receive such positive feedback and makes it all worthwhile when you do. Thank you Jule for your business and generous comments... it's been a pleasure working with you!

View the ThinkRight work here

I have been extremely impressed with the work that Rob has completed on my logo, marketing flyer, business cards, document template and PowerPoint presentation template.

Originally I was only going to get Rob to design my logo but I was so impressed with his work that I got him to design my business cards. I continue to be impressed with Rob’s work and hence all my document and marketing design requirements are now being undertaken by Rob.

Rob’s work impresses me on several levels. Firstly he always offers me a number of options to choose from. Those options include traditional, semi traditional and very creative way outside the square designs. Rob also completes all jobs in a very impressive turn around time. Rob’s greatest asset is his creative flair and his ability to come up with designs that meet my business needs.

I would have no hesitation in recommending Rob Miles as a talented graphic designer who knows how to brand a company for success.

– Jule Fuller, Director
ThinkRight – Thinkology

new BC feature: InContext Editing has arrived!

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 05:51:00 GMT

Business Catalyst's newest feature - InContext Editing - is now available in the Administration area and ready for use. It's a next generation tool that gives business owners greater control over their websites. You can now make changes more easily without compromising the overall design of your website. Some of the main benefits include:

The ability to set editable regions within any web page to limit scope of change and preserve design quality
Content editing is more intuitive - you edit "InContext" on the page rather than having an editor pop-up as was the case with Sitewalk
The new InContext content editor is much more robust compared with the Sitewalk text editor

Please note that InContext Editing will be in Beta for the next 12 weeks during which Sitewalk will continue to remain available. When the Beta period ends, Sitewalk will reach end-of-life and will be removed from the Administration area. During the Beta period for InContext Editing BC will continue to make small improvements.

To learn more and get started, click on Website > InContext Editing link.

BC support central gets new knowledgebase

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:04:00 GMT

If you login to your BC sites and click on Support Central in the top right corner, you'll notice that it's been redesigned. That's because BC have moved all the content from the Online Business Wiki into a Knowledgebase that now forms the centre of Support Central. For all things BC this is the place to go for answers. The new Knowledgebase brings a bunch of benefits including:

Improved Navigation - with articles sorted by topic or by where they belong on the user interface it's much easier to browse what you're looking for
Improved Search - don't want to browse? The new search in the Knowledgebase completely knocks the socks off the Online Business Wiki search with a much more complete set of results for any term

As with Sitewalk, the Online Business Wiki will stick around for another 12 weeks while the Knowledgebase is in Beta as BC iron out any small kinks. Additionally the BC Support team will be busy adding new articles to the Knowledgebase and editing current ones to make them easier to understand.

welcome to our new look website

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:25:00 GMT

It's been a long time in the making and it's finally here! Welcome to the new version of my website which now showcases all of the fantastic business features of Business Catalyst, allowing me to easily manage my website and keep everyone updated more regularly. I know I've been a bit slack in this regard... I'm determined to start off the new year on the right track and start practicing what I preach :)

Features of the new website include:

Project finder – search our database of feature projects.
Blog – includes latest news from us and Business Catalyst, case studies, before & afters, tips & tricks, and more.
RSS feed – keep updated with the latest from our blog.
FAQs – search for answers to common questions on graphic design, web design and Business Catalyst.
Online quote forms – receive a quote for your next graphic design or web design project.
Pay your invoice online payment form – secure online payment using Visa or Mastercard.
Business Catalyst free trial – signup online for a free trial version of Business Catalyst.
Email newsletter – subscribe for latest news, graphic & web design tips, recent work, the latest from Business Catalyst and more. It's free to join and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Hopefully you like the new website! Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

new year, new name

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:27:00 GMT

From 1 Mar 2010 our name has changed from Robert Miles Design to Miles Design. Not a huge change, just a reinforcement that we are an established, experienced and versatile business with a proven track record since 2001. And let's face it, no-one really knows me as Robert anymore :)

Please update your records to reflect this change. New email addresses are listed below:

rob miles = rob@milesdesign.com.au
tracy davison = tracy@milesdesign.com.au
general office = info@milesdesign.com.au
accounts = accounts@milesdesign.com.au

Times are a-changing so time for a change I say!

'my account' page now available

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:39:00 GMT

Business Catalyst has just released a new 'My Account' page in the Administration area. To access this page click on Home > My Account

If you are billed directly by BC, this feature allows you to:

See a list of all invoices you have received
Email invoices to yourself
Update your Credit Card details*
Cancel your site (Please note: If there are outstanding invoices for the site, these will need to be paid first before you can cancel your site)

* If there are any outstanding invoices, these will need to be paid via the site admin login – updating credit card details will not automatically process any outstanding invoices.

Enjoy!

adobe acquires business catalyst

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:59:00 GMT

On 31 August 2009, Business Catalyst was acquired by Adobe. I am really excited about this and can't wait to see the features and advancements Adobe will bring to BC. Below are excerpts from emails received from BC that I'd like to share with you. Hopefully this answers any questions you may have. For more information see BC's statement here or Adobe's statement here.

Here at BC we're unanimously excited to be joining Adobe. Adobe is a company that the team and I have always admired. Their products are widely known and used, from PDF to Flash®, Photoshop® to Dreamweaver®, Flex® to AIR®. Their community of web professionals is vast and vibrant, and their approach to business is open and innovative.

Firstly, I want to emphasize that when it comes to our system, our support and our dedication to our Partners and customers – it is business as usual. As a result of this deal we have not currently planned any significant changes to things like:

How we provide technical support

How existing Partners and Resellers create and build new sites

The continued operation of the Business Catalyst system

Secondly, while we're not ready to share any specifics just yet, the future of Business Catalyst is very exciting. Within Adobe, we'll continue to innovate and improve the Business Catalyst software with the help of our new friends inside Adobe. So while the future will hold some changes, we're hoping most of them will be positive for you and your customers.

In the short term we are focused on a number of integration tasks including the migration of BC to Adobe data centers. We don’t expect this to impact your customers and we will provide ample information in advance of any move. Other short term tasks include:

Replacing SiteWalk with Adobe’s InContext Editing

Releasing a new Business Catalyst Extension for Dreamweaver

A new self-help system (to replace our Wiki)

An enhanced user interface to make BC easier to use

Please feel free to post any questions or comments below.