Many ecommerce customers are interested in setting up their own SSL certificates for their domain names. SSL certificates are used during the secure checkout for ecommerce stores. Instead of checking out on a generic secure domain, customers can checkout at the secure domain for the website.

We are starting a very early access preview for SSL certificates. The certificates must be purchased and installed through the website store admin. We will be offering a variety of certificates from RapidSSL, Geotrust and Verisign.

If you currently have a Ecommerce shopping cart and  are interested in purchasing a certificate, let us know and we can get you more information on getting started. We are looking for a few customers to try out the process.

Rand from SEOMOZ discusses the future of link building in the ever changing world of SEO.  I have found seomoz to be one of the best places on the internet to find great website optimization tips.  Watch the video to see what working now and what's not.

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/future-of-link-building

The next release includes the following new features and enhancements. It may take a couple of weeks to deploy the update to all customer accounts.

CONTENT SLIDER COMPONENT

Use the new content slider to setup animated content sections with your own background images and text. Visitors can use arrows or page icons to navigation between slider content sections.

GOOGLE FONT DIRECTORY

Most newer web browsers now support the ability to download fonts, giving you more control over how your site text looks. Google has setup a font directory allow you to add new fonts to be used for your website page text.

In the text & styles area, you can now choose from a selection of many different font styles from the Google font directory. To choose your additional fonts, click the font drop down and click the more fonts link.

You can choose up to 4 additional fonts to use on your site.

SIDEBAR CONFIGURATION

The new sidebar configuration window provides easier access to sidebar minimum width and other options. A new icon has been added to the top sidebar to open up the sidebar settings window. You can set the minimum sidebar width as well as enable/disable sidebars while editing the page. The settings page includes an option to hide sidebars on product detail pages.

DESIGN LIBRARY

More color layout options have been added to the design library. To view more options, go to the design library, find a design and click the color icon to preview the design in many different color schemes.

ECOMMERCE

- Sidebar links mode - expandable tree format
- Sidebar links mode - display categories as section titles
- Option for full path navigation (breadcrumb links on top of all product pages)
- Easier to move products/categories in and out of the hidden products area
- Customize all labels/text for shopping cart and checkout pages
- Configure gift certificate expiration
- Customize css/style for the product sub category and links display

MULTI FILE UPLOAD WITH DRAG/DROP FOR CHROME AND FIREFOX

When using Firefox or Google Chrome, you will now be able to multi-select and upload files. This is useful for setting up photo galleries or uploading files via the file manager. The upload form also includes a drop box. You can select files from your computer and drag them to the drop box to automatically upload them to your website.

SEO

You can now customize the page head on a per page basic which allows you to setup page specific meta tags.

MISC UPDATES

- content rotator - set the start and end times
- Page title styles - you can use the text based titles for your page titles

DESIGN BACKUPS

The system will now automatically save your current design when you change your layout. Up to 6 backup copies will be kept. This allows customers to reset their design if they accidentally change their layout.

DEFAULT BANNER WIDTH SETTINGS

A new default banner setting has been added to make it easier to setup and manage your default site banner. You no longer need to specify a banner width (the width option is still available if you need to use it). The system will automatically generate the banner to the appropriate size. This feature is not available when the flash banner option is enabled.

LAYOUT BUILDER (advanced feature)

Get more control over your design with the new layout builder designs. Customize the backgrounds, margins and padding for different areas of your layout (quickbar, logo, banner, menu bar, content areas, sidebars, footer). This is an advanced feature that requires good knowledge of web design/css.

BIZLIVE CHAT

The live chat system now works on Firefox and Chrome.

WEB DEVELOPER TOOLS (advanced feature)

Use the web developer tools to customize your website. This is an advanced feature that requires good knowledge of web design/css and web programming. To enable the developer tools, go to the design and click the more options link.

- Install custom template templates
- Create custom layouts for products
- Upload your own menu buttons
- Customize your menu styles, photo gallery styles and more.

Webmail

Webmail is the easiest way to access your email from multiple locations. To access your email via webmail browse to http://webmail.edirecthost.com. Enter your email account name and password. More information on webmail.

Email program

You can also use an email program such as Microsoft Outlook to access your email from multiple locations. Email programs by default will download email from our mails systems to your computer. When the emails are downloaded they are removed from the server. To access the email from multiple locations you need to configure your email program to leave emails on the mail server.

The option to leave emails on the mail server is located in the advanced settings area for email account configuration.

More information on email accounts.

We have just finished rolling out our latest release on all sites.  You can read more about it on the right side of the main admin page.  This release includes Updated mobile admin pages, Site editor updates, New social networking options, Page language translation, Blog enhancements, Site under construction and more.

Mobile web pages 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.

The new layout columns component can be used to customize the page layout by adding additional columns into the main layout areas.

The new column component works with the existing page layouts by adding additional columns into the main section areas.  You can use this component to create a layout that has 4 columns across the top, with 3 columns in the middle of the page and 4 columns at the bottom.  Within each column, you can move components up and down.  Currently, there is not an option to move components between each of the columns.  

To add additional columns to a section, edit any page and click the add button in the section where you want the columns to appear.  Select the column layout component from the design/layout menu. The column layout component works like the tabbed groupbox component.  Enter a name for each column and then click the add button.    Customize the column display.

Customization options

• Column spacing (space between columns)
• Column padding (space inside of columns)
• Background color (default/per column)
• Border color (default/per column)
• Border size
• Column set width
• Column height (if column content is taller than the specified height scrolbars are added)

After configuring your columns, you just need to edit the page and add content into each of the column areas.

To comment on this blog just click on "comments" below, A form will open up below where you can enter your comments.  Commenting on this blog and then entering your website link will help promote your site and help it move up in the search engines.

Don't forget that eDirectHost Website Builder can help you build your own website.

Due to the increase in Iphone and Android support calls we are listing the directions on how to setup these phones.  Please follow directions and then contact support if you still have problems.

iPhone/iPad

1. Click Add Account…
2. Choose Other from list of mail providers
3. Choose Add Mail Account
   1. Enter information into New Account settings
   2. Name – Your name
   3. Address – your email address
   4. Password – your email password
   5. Description – a description
   6. Click “Save”
4. Select “POP” from choice of IMAP & POP
5. Enter information into “Incoming Mail Server” settings
   1. Host name – pop.domain.com
   2. Username – Your email address
   3. Password – should be set to value from previous step
6. Enter information into “Outgoing Mail Server” settings
   1. Host name – smtp.domain.com
   2. Leave username and password blank
7. Click "save"
   1. You may be prompted with a message indicating that you cannot connect using SSL. Answer yes to the option to try without SSL.
8. If you still get an error when trying to send/receive, make sure that your Authentication setting in Advanced is set to "MD5 Challenge-Response"

Please allow up to 5-10 minutes for the verify process to finish.

Android Device

1. Go to your email application, hit menu, and click add account.
2. Enter your email address and password. Then click the next button.
3. Select pop3
4. Enter your user name - your full email address (default is incorrect)
5. Enter your password
6. Enter pop3 server as specified in your email account setup instructions (ie pop.domain.com)
7. Set security type to none
8. Select next
9. Enter the smtp server (different from specified in your email account settings instruction). Use "mail34.bizsiteservice.com"
10. Confirm that your port is set to 587
11. Set security type to none
12. Confirm that require signin is checked
13. Verify user name and password are correct
14. Select next and finish setting your preferences

To comment on this blog just click on "comments" below, A form will open up below where you can enter your comments.  Commenting on this blog and then entering your website link will help promote your site and help it move up in the search engines.

Don't forget that eDirectHost Website Builder can help you build your own website.

Seems like google is ready to make more changes to it's search engine.  Read the full article here: www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/08/google.search/index.html?hpt=T2  

Please feel free to comment on how Google has impacted your websites search listings.

Don't forget that eDirectHost Website Builder can help you build your own website.