Today we are launching our redesigned website for QuickBizSites.  QuickBizSites provides a complete ecommerce management platform.   The redesigned website includes an updated look, social media integration as well as our new system blog.  Check back with our blog for up to date information, QuickBizSites updates, Ecommerce Tips, Marketing information and more.

User accounts

• drop down menu to switch between groups
• Popup account edit window
• Updated user accounts UI with new user accounts tab and quick drop down menu for switching the group view.
• New option to send an email from the user account page.
• Updated UI for selecting group membership

Mailing list

• 30+ new mailing list templates
• Updated mailing list UI
• Option to set the mailing list tracking code
• Set the "email from" name
• Social networking links in templates

Form builder

• Updated form builder UI to make it easier to enable the contact DB and mailing list signup options.

Misc

• The view/edit tab drop down menu now includes links to the settings pages.
• Message board no longer requires capcha when you are logged in.
• Displayable user name for message board when user accounts/login required to post messages.
• Updated mobile/browser detection for stats and mobile pages.
• The drop down tab menu for edit site now includes direct links to all of the settings pages.
• Calendar uses timezone offset.
• Site page search now includes blog posts and HTML pages.

Social networking

• Send tweet from a blog post
• Google +1 button
• LinkedIn button
• More display options for social networking links

Text editor

• H1, H2, H3 tags added to the style menu

Blog

• Updated blog manager UI
• New option to save a blog post as a draft
• Option to enable facebook comments for your blog
• Send a tweet about a blog post from the blog manager
• Next/prev links at bottom of blog page to easily view older posts

Basic traffic stats

• Basic traffic stats are now maintained for up to 3 years (this will only include stats collected after the update is installed)
• New option to reset all your traffic stats
• New option to reset your traffic stats referrers/search engines/keywords
• Stats have been updated to be tracked in the site owners local time based on their time zone setting
• NOTE: stats before this update will not reflect the correct timezone

Ecommerce

• Ecommerce reports are now displayed in the users time zone (only applies to new orders completed after this update)
• For products that ship in their own box, you can now set the package dimensions
• New gateway (Moneris for US merchants)

Animated image transition effects
Go to the design area to setup animated transition effects for your image galleries, rotators, rotating banners and content slider components.

Australian ecommerce updates
This feature displays the shopping cart prices/total including tax. To enable the feature, go to the "customize fields/international" settings page and check the "Use Australian VAT tax display" box.

Product ID on product catalog page
Go to the general settings page to enable the product ID display. When this option is enabled, the product ID will be displayed to the right of the product name on your product display page. There are 2 settings, one for the product category and another to display the product ID on the detail pages.

Social networking link
When the Facebook link is enabled, the Facebook like button is now display along with your social networking links. To configure social networking links, view your website, click the settings button and then click the social networking link on the left side of the page.

Product zoom images
Use the new product image upload user interface to upload zoom images of your products. When a zoom images is loaded the system will display a zoomed version of the image when a visitor hovers over the main product detail image. 

Bulk image import
Easily import your main product images as well as more product images. To learn more, go to the store import/export page and click the bulk image upload option.

Additional product images
It is now easier to load more product images using the new product image upload user interface.

Features

• Content slider - make a section of your site slide content between multiple slides
• Easier sidebar configuration - enable/disable sidebars, set sidebar minimum width and disable sidebar on product pages.
• Multiple file upload (drag / drop) for Firefox and Chrome

Search & Marketing

• Customize meta tags on a per page basis

Design

• New text/style selection with font and size previews
• Google font directory - customize your site style with fonts from the google font directory
• Layout builder (advanced) - get more control over design layout, colors, background images and spacing
• Design library updates - now more color options for designs

Ecommerce

• Edit products and product layout from the product detail page
• Sidebar - new display mode for showing product categories/subcategories
• Sidebar - expandable tree view for categories
• Option to display the full path for products (breadcrumbs)
• Customize text on your ecommerce pages (forms, descriptions and more) for your store cart and checkout pages
• Easier to move products between hidden categories

Design
New layouts and background styles have been added.

Blog
The blog has been updated to allow you to enter a blog summary. If you have long blog posts you can enable the blog summary to be displayed on the main blog page. To enable the summary feature click the blog settings tab.

Blog RSS feed enhancements
From the blog settings page you can enable the site blog feeds. This option will add this blog feed to your main website feed. The main website feeds are seen by visitors in the browser toolbar as a clickable RSS feed icon.

Updated mobile admin pages
The mobile admin page style has been updated. The ecommerce reports have been added to the mobile admin console.

RSS feed component
The RSS feed component will display a RSS news feed from another website on your pages. You can now set the number of feed entries to be displayed. Use the customize style option to customize the feed display.

Page editor
Updated text/image components. These components are now easier to edit and modify. Add captions and border colors to standard text component images.

Quickbar
Add social networking links to your quickbar. Setup links to your facebook and twitter pages as well as your site mailing list and RSS feed pages. The quickbar now has the option to add a Google translate drop down to your site. Visitors can switch the language they view your site in and Google will translate the site contents.

Social networking
Use the social networking links component to add graphic buttons that link to your Facebook and Twitter pages. A new 3d social networking icon set has been added.

Google menu
Access adwords, search engine submission and webmaster tools/site map verification.

Search - Advanced HTML
Set your preferred domain name for search engines. This option tells the search engines how to setup links to your website. You can choose the following forms... domain.com or www.domain.com

Ecommerce
The site builder 2 store manager pages have been updated to include the product/order search field on every page. The shopping cart product detail links will now include the product name on the URL. This can help with search engine rankings and also makes it easier for visitors to identify product links.

• Option add the product name to the URL for product detail pages
• Google base export
• New gateways (Payment Gateway, RealEx Payments)
• Property on product to set product as not discountable (coupons/discounts - do not apply to product)
• New ecommerce button style

Misc

• Next/prev links have been added to the bottom of the file manager.
• The disk space usage page now displays the amount of SiteBuilder Media™ space being used.
• Drop down menu added to view tab to easily access the website and mobile website.
• Set the preferred version of your domain name (www.domain.com or domain.com) for search engine indexing (Cannonical meta tag)
• Added options for email based approval of message board posts

Account settings (site access)
From the my account page you can now manage your site availability. Click an option to set your entire website to under construction.

Did you know Americans spent $155.2 billion dollars in online transactions in 2009? Many of those sales are done near the holiday's and peak on Black Friday or Green Monday (the first Monday in December which is usually the busiest online shopping day of the year). Now is the best time to get your store ready for the rush.

1. Create a promotion to drive sales - you can create a coupon that gives a vistor a discount for ordering over a certain amount on your site.  This leads to people being more willing to spend more (be sure to use the related products/upsell feature to prompt people on products they may want to buy with their purchase).

2. Use rewards to get the to come back - Use the rewards feature to give customers an incentive to shop and to come back.  Send them an email using the mailing list to let them know they have rewards available.

3. Setup a Facebook page for your store. Let your customers know about it by putting a link on your site.  Get your most loyal customers onto your Facebook page talking about you and reward them for it (discounts or gift certificates for the most loyal customer)

 

One way to spruce up your site for seasonal occassions is to use our header graphic library.  We have a cache of different holiday themed headers you can switch out on your site.  Visitors like sites that are festive which can increase your return shoppers and increase your sales.

 

All QuickBizSsites sites are designed for search engines performance.  Visit our marketing and SEO center within your site to learn more about maximizing your website search engine performance.

The first step in optimizing your website is to determine which keywords/search words you are targeting.   These are the words/phrases that potential visitors will type when searching for your site.  You want to make sure that the most important keywords are used throughout your website.

• In your page content
• Page/link names
• Page titles

After you have your pages setup with your keywords you can use the Google sitemaps generator and use the search engine submission feature that is included with your store.

Blog
The blog has been updated to allow you to enter a blog summary. If you have long blog posts you can enable the blog summary to be displayed on the main blog page. To enable the summary feature click the blog settings tab.

Blog RSS feed enhancements
From the blog settings page you can enable the site blog feeds. This option will add this blog feed to your main website feed. The main website feeds are seen by visitors in the browser toolbar as a clickable RSS feed icon.

Updated mobile admin pages
The mobile admin page style has been updated. The ecommerce reports have been added to the mobile admin console.

RSS feed component
The RSS feed component will display a RSS news feed from another website on your pages. You can now set the number of feed entries to be display. Use the customize style option to customize the feed display.

Quickbar
Add social networking links to your quickbar. Setup links to your facebook and twitter pages as well as your site mailing list and RSS feed pages.

Search - Advanced HTML
Set your preferred domain name for search engines. This option tells the search engines how to setup links to your website. You can choose the following forms... domain.com or www.domain.com

Ecommerce
The site builder 2 store manager pages have been updated to include the product/order search field on every page. The shopping cart product detail links will now include the product name on the URL. This can help with search engine rankings and also makes it easier for visitors to identify product links.

Misc

• Next/prev links have been added to the bottom of the file manager.
• The disk space usage page now displays the amount of media space being used.

Mobile web pages (BETA)
More and more internet users are using mobile devices such as the iPhone or Android. This release will include support for adding mobile optimized pages. Customers can create new pages that are designed to work on advanced mobile devices.

The mobile support is not for all mobile devices. It is designed to work with advanced mobile smartphones such as the iPhone and Android based devices that have full HTML support (we are not supporting WAP based phones).

To add mobile pages to your site, go to the page list and click the mobile website button.

Blog enhancements
New customization options have been added that let you customize the styles, fonts, colors of many of the blog display elements. You can also customize how many blog posts are displayed on the first page. You can set the system to show all the post from the last 7 days, last 30 days, or you can specify the number of posts to display.

Site feed/RSS auto discovery: Blogs can now be set to show up in your website feed. Go to the blog settings page and enable the "Add blog to site feed" setting. This setting allows browsers and search engines to more easily find your blog.

Blog summary: You can now set the main blog page and your RSS feeds to show a short summary of the full blog post. Go to the settings page to enable summary display and then edit your blog posts to add the blog entry summary.

Ecommerce - Rewards
With the ecommerce rewards system enabled, you can give your customers discounts for shopping at your website. Customers will earn reward points for making purchases at your website. They can login to their accounts and redeem the reward points for credit that can be used on future purchases. You can configure how points are converted, which products are included/excluded and set specfic products to be worth more/less points.

Form builder data
The form builder has been modified to allow you to view your form data on your website. All data will now be saved in a forms database. To view form data, you can login to your website, click the form data link and select the form that you want to view.

The form data csv file has also been updated. The csv data file for newly submitted forms will contain the form data fields in the file header. This will make it much easier to use/import the file into other applications. The form data file will also contain all data fields such as radio buttons and checkboxes. Each time you change the form field data structure, a new csv file will be created.

Secure forms upgrade
With the secure forms upgrade you can use the form builder to collect form information over a secure https:// page. The data that is submitted is saved in your site admin. You can then login to your site to view the form data over a secure link.

• When visitors browser to a page with a secure form they will be redirected to a https:// version of the page
• For data is not sent in the form email. You must login to your website to view form data
• The secure form cannot be used to collect credit card/billing information

AppDb upgrade
Use the AppDb feature to setup a searchable/sortable data table. You can define your own custom fields when setting up the data table. To create a new AppDb go to the page list and click the AppDb page type.

Social networking
Social networking The social networking icons can now be added to the bottom of the product catalog detail pages. Social networking icons allow visitors to share the product page/information on their social networking pages (twitter, facebook...) To add the social networking icons to product detail pages, view your website, click the settings button and then click the social networking link.

Google Buzz has been added to the list of social networking icons.

Design

• New groupbox styles
• Advanced css menu settings (align right, margin/spacing, menu bar settings)
• Animated text/css menus
• Setup up to six groupbox styles

Misc updates

• Image tools: A slider has been added to the main resize image page allowing you to easily reduce the image size by moving the slider.
• Footer styles: the advanced padding/border/margin settings have been added to the footer styles area.
• Image gallery/rotator: all of the image gallery/rotator modes now support the image description display.
• Product search: the product search from within the store manager now allows you to change the product category/login after clicking on the edit link from the search.
• Ecommerce order notes: The new append to notes button allows you to enter time stamped updates to the order notes area.

FireFox 3.6 file upload/drag drop
Firefox 3.6 supports the HTML5 enhanced multi file upload. When the advanced file upload option is enabled, you will be able to use the Firefox 3.6 upload features. When you browse to select files to upload you, will be able to select multiple files in the file open dialog box.

Drag/drop upload: A drop files box will appear next to the file upload/browse button. To upload files via drag/drop, open a file/explorer window. Select the files you want to upload, click the files and drag the files to the "drop files" area in the browser window. The files will be uploaded to your website.