The latest version of Ektron CMS400.NET version 8.02 builds off of the success of earlier Ektron versions that offered powerful Web 2.0 features with a mix of user-friendly tools and reporting solutions. Version 8.02 now offers even more improved social media integration as well as tools to make managing operational efficiency and customer loyalty easier and more effective.
In addition to the latest improvement from 8.02, the enhancements made earlier in May 2010 from Version 8.01 of Ektron CMS400.NET offered new improvements that made document management, web traffic analysis, and social media integration.
The new Ektron OnTrek Starter Site features out-of-the box website solutions that using Ektron's best practices in website development for usability and online visibility.
Ektron OnTrek lets business create a starter site that builds on the best practices in websites using Ektron CMS technology. Additional details are available from Ektron’s book, “Ektron User's Guide: Building an Ektron Powered Website.” The book focuses on three main enhancements for business, which include:
- Track customer purchases and support cases.
- Attract top talent to your organization.
- Allow employees to gain access to company information and collaborate through internal social networking and forums.
- Improve revenue generation.
- Products and services sales from a website.
- Assessing user behavior and customer activity to better optimize the site for increased traffic and higher sales conversions.
Get your website live fast with the standard starter site features that are available right away using Ektron's powerful CMS400.NET. Features include a home site, eCommerce solutions for products and user accounts, as well as company pages for client support or team collaboration. Building up a social networking presence to establish community is also ready to go in the Ektron OnTrek enhancement, making it easy for your website visitors to interact with your content and return to the community, or for your business team and marketers to collaborate on information and improve productivity. Ektron OnTrek has all the essentials as well as Web 2.0 enhancements to make sure your website is ready for the 21st century web user.
Directly modify from the CMS Workarea or through the in-context editor from the access point with Ektron OnTrek. There is also the easy drag-and-drop PageBuilder menu, which allows users to quickly drop widgets of functional content onto a page and customize as needed. Depending on the widget purpose and function, they can offer flexibility as to how they are displayed to users, including publish or access timeframes and other conditional settings.
In addition to out-of-the-box business user-friendly tools to quickly drag and drop to create a website, Ektron also offers flexible customizations through ASP.NET templates as well as user controls within the installation hierarchy, with the help of Microsoft Visual Studio or related developer tool.
Ektron offers new tools that will help you promote your brand and further communicate with your customers by reaching them through social media and interactive tools, such as product ratings.
Engage your customers and keep them coming back to your website to continue the conversation on your site, rather than elsewhere. Customer loyalty tools include:
- Forums
- Knowledge base
- Technical support
- Promotional events
Breadcrumbs are an important part of user navigation, especially when you are receiving traffic to articles on your website that might not have a clear context for new visitors to your website. Ektron provides a breadcrumb feature that allows you to include the hierarchy or attribute location of the page where the visitor has landed from either a search engine navigation or other link source.
In the 8.02 version of Ektron CMS, a new property to add the content title to the breadcrumb was also included in the breadcrumb feature. This Boolean property of hierarchical organization allows you to include the content title in the breadcrumb path, which is optional for providing your user with a secondary method of knowing where the article is in relation to related content on your website.
Make it even easier for team members or community members to interact with discussions related to your products or services. When your users subscribe to content updates, new user activities, new posts, and other topics of interest, they can opt to receive an email update instantly. Not only does this keep your visitors coming back to your site, it makes it easier for them to keep the conversation active by using email reply to respond the post or topic.
The email reply feature in Ektron CMS automatically inserts text into a community activity notification. The recipient can send an immediate response, which results in timely message board and other discussion topics.
Users can subscribe to notifications if new content is added to a community group or other activity is performed within a community group. In addition to text notifications, Ektron CMS400.NET also has the capability to attach uploaded or edited assets to activity notification messages. For instance, if a user uploads a new document or image to a community group, the email notification of that activity includes the uploaded file as an attachment.
Respond to the community or make quick revisions when combining the Ektron CMS email reply feature and community group attachments feature. When you enable the attachments the email Reply feature, the recipients who receive notifications of changes are able to then download the attachments, modify them, and can then add their changes to the site using the email reply feature. The reply will then replace the attached file on the community page from where it was updated.
Ektron CMS400.NET offers a Targeted Content Configuration tool that allows editors to add a widget for targeted content, which can be created and stored in the Ektron CMS400.NET Workarea. When an editor drops a Targeted Content widget onto a PageBuilder page, it can then be configured and customized. Reuse the same Targeted Content widget on any number of pages with the content reconfigured to meet that page’s format and content.
In addition to the XML SmartForms that allow you to easily repurpose content based on the viewing device, the Targeted Content widget also can detect the site visitor's device and only display a widget if it is on a configuration list. Content blocks that are able to display correctly for the user accessing the page will display for the user, but other pages that aren’t easily visible from mobile devices or other viewing devices will not show. Ektron also offers enhanced mobile device support features.
Another benefit of the Targeted Content widget is its ability to allow for Facebook integration based on user data. Users with public information available that includes age, gender, marital status, likes, or employment can dynamically pull content or merchandise from your website relevant to the user’s demographic or interests. For instance, if your website offers car merchandise and a Facebook user "likes" a certain car model on their Facebook profile, you can automatically show content or products relevant to the user’s interests.
In addition to using social media aspects to cater content to a specific demographic, the Targeted Content widget also offers GeoIP integration capability. The Targeted Content widget has the ability to allow widget designers the use geographic information as a criteria to show users relevant content. Currently the feature is capable of offering criteria specific by states within the United States. Businesses that have offerings that would benefit from know whether a user is from a colder region verses a warmer region (such as with snowblowers vs. summer gear).
In contrast to the GeoIP integration capability of the Targeted Content widget, GeoIP support from the widget is able to offer a more location-specific approach to content. Messaging can be easily targeted to create content that is specific to your website visitors based their current geographical location. Ektron CMS400.NETuses the visitor’s IP address to detect their current location, making it possible to pull up business locations or maps relevant to the user’s location.
For further customization, developers can use API calls to control the content that appears on a master page. If a map server control is in place, the GeoIP Support ability also offers the ability to produce map-specific information that is near the user’s current location. |