| Getting Started Checklist for Bondware Sites | |
Congratulations! You have a Bondware website. Now what? Before all is said and done, you will have devoted many hours to setting up and customizing your site to meet your project needs. Over the years, we have added many useful features to our software to help you do this. That fact alone does not help you know what you should do and it certainly doesn't mean that you know where to find what you need to do it. Hopefully, the following will help you sort out several tasks that may not initially be on your mind.
Does your website project include having visitors sign up as members to your site? You don't want to miss the settings available to you at 'Members >> Member Settings >> Member Preferences' in your site admin area. This area will help you set up the Sign-Up and Sign-In function of your site.
Your site can and will send many communications to members, to you and others for various reasons. It is important that you update your site default admin email address to or from which most of these communications may come. You can update this address in your admin area under 'Settings >> Email Settings'.
It's been said, "You only get one chance to make a first impression." Don't let yours be "Publication Template Welcome Message." There are many messages that may come from your site to your members. You can edit most of these in your admin area under 'Members >> Members Settings >> Member Communications'.
Many of our sites will come with a default 'Contact Us' webform. This webform should have your email address included so you get the submissions. In your admin area, go to 'Tools >> View Webforms' and click to edit the 'Contact Us' webform.
Your site users will encounter errors (Form Validation Errors, Navigation Errors, Forbidden Access, etc). You get to console them by editing the messages they may encounter. In your site admin area, look in these two places: 'Settings >> Error Messages' and 'Settings >> HTTP Error Pages'.
It's a good idea to tell the search engines about your site. You have a location in your site to do just that. Under 'Settings >> Search Engine Keywords', the first two fields give you a place to describe your site (this will be seen by search engine users) and insert a list of keywords relevant to your site content.
Not often a priority are a few items that display in various parts of the user's web browser, but not in your site's content. Did you ever notice the tiny icons (favicon) at the left of a browser's address bar? You can update yours at the bottom of the page found at 'Design >> Basic Design Settings'.
Next, have a look at the very top of your web browser above FILE EDIT VIEW, etc. This is the browser title bar. You can affect what is seen here also. You can update yours at the top of the page found at 'Design >> Basic Design Settings' Your 'Short Site Name' is used in emails and other communications to site members. Your 'Long Site Name / Browser Title Bar' will affect what is seen in the browser title bar.
Under some circumstances, we expect that you may want a unique browser title for your site homepage. You may do so in your admin area at 'Design >> Homepage' in the field at the top labeled 'You can enter a custom browser title bar to override the default site title bar:'.
Noted here is only a drop in the website bucket of chores you will want to accomplish while on your way to website success. For all new Bondware websites, you will find many more core software tips in a downloadable PDF located in your admin area under 'Bookmarks >> Extras >> User Tips - PDF'. If this is not enough, feel free to contact us or visit out Support Knowledgebase for more information.
You paid good money to have that custom domain name, you asked us to set up your site with it and now, in some circumstances, you continue to see the domain.bondwaresite.com domain name on your site. What can you do about it? You simply need to tell your site to use it ALL the time. You can do this in your admin area under 'Settings >> General Sites Settings'. Near the top of this page is a field labelled 'Normal Server Address'. Put it there and click [Save Changes] found lower in the page. Make sure you use the full address. Correct example: http://www.mywebsite.com/ Incorrect examples: mywebsite.com or www.mywebsite.com. (Do not modify the 'Secure Server Address' without contacting us first.)
Now, at the bottom of the page, you will find a handy tool that will search your site and update most links on your site to use your new site domain name. After you have updated and saved your 'Normal Server Address', click the [Run URL Cleanup Script] button to make this happen. What in the world is a 301 redirect and why is it important to me? I expected you would get around to asking this question. Most sites on the web can be viewed with either domainname.com OR www.domainname.com. Is that a good thing? Google says its not. In short, your site's importance can be diluted in search results if users can visit both URLs to get to the same site. In your site's admin area at 'Settings >> General Site Settings', we added a new feature to cause all requests to your site to be routed through your selected Normal Server Address (also seen on the same admin page and explained above). Place a check in that box and consolidate that web traffic...and your site's importance in web search results.
Beginning with Bondware 4.8, we added a control for a new feature that you may have already seen if your site is on any of the Bondware 4 versions. You would see an 'admin' & login/logout link in the upper right corner of your site. This can now be hidden by visting 'Settings >> General Site Settings' in the admin area and look for 'Check this box to show the Support, Login/Logout in the top-right corner of your site.'
Also, if you haven't seen it, check out our Website Success Checklist! |
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