Drop Files. Save a Bunch of Steps. It's Magic!

Magic Drop allows you to drag files from your computer and drop them directly into any region on your Radium3 website. Radium3 creates the appropriate elements and adds your dropped content to it, saving you a whole bunch of steps in the process. Currently, Magic Drop works with image files and zip files containing image files. Magic Drop will be expanded to support additional file types and additional elements in the future.

Drop a single image file and Radium3 will create a new Image Element containing that image. Drop multiple image files and Radium3 will create multiple Image Elements, one for each image. Drop a zip file containing multiple images and Radium3 will create a single Image Element as a gallery with multiple images.

This is just the beginning for Magic Drop technology. Stay tuned for updates on its development. For now, give it a try. We think you're going to love the magic!

A Giant Leap for Our Database Servers

We'll be completely replacing all our database servers this weekend with brand new machines. This improvement in hardware and software is huge and will continue to keep Radium3's infrastructure well ahead of the fast-growing demand on our resources. This type of operation can be quite invasive, but our team has been planning and testing for this event in order to create a process that will minimize service disruption as much as possible.

We will begin this upgrade at 12:01am CDT (GMT-5) Monday morning, October 15, 2012. We anticipate a maintenance window of approximately 30 minutes, but we encourage you to plan for at least an hour. Our team will keep you updated throughout the upgrade process via our system status page. 

We do not anticipate any downtime for public-facing websites during the upgrade process. Visitors to your websites should be able to view them without interruption. However, you will be unable to login to your websites during the upgrade window. If you are logged into your website when the upgrade begins, you will be logged out and any unsaved changes will be lost. Additionally, website visitors who attempt to post comments or complete forms on your website may experience errors during the upgrade window. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Thank you for your understanding and your continued support of Radium3. We look forward to continuing to serve as your website partner.

When using Disqus comments, you'll get access to Disqus's full set of features, including:

• Real-Time Discussion.
• Threaded Comments.
• Social Sign On.
• Integrated Moderation.
• Moderation Dashboard.
• User Analysis and History.
• Spam Control.
• Word Filtering.
• and more...

Using Disqus comments will require you to set up a free Disqus account. For full details on setting up this new feature, see our support article regarding Disqus comments.

Slate is a beautifully intuitive template created over months of planning and design, with each element of the CMS handcrafted in its display. Slate features some stunning extras such as a highly-polished sidebar region on its homepage which can be used to create a sophisticated display of recent blog posts, upcoming calendar events, and more. As with all of our recent designs, Slate offers a fully responsive display that adapts to fit beautifully in browsers of any width, whether on desktop computers, tablets, or smartphones. 

We are sure that businesses, churches, and organizations of all types will find Slate a simple and smart tool for creating a refined website. To check it out, log in to your website and click "Design" on the top toolbar. Then click "Gallery" and look for Slate in the list of featured designs. It only takes a click to preview the design, apply it to your website, or even download the source code to modify on your own. Plus, as always, you can customize the design in the Radium3 Design Editor as well.

If you haven't checked out the new Image Element yet, you might want to review this post which includes our Image Element video. It's an amazing new element that makes it incredibly easy to drag and drop high resolution images that get displayed at the right size every time.

Today's release enhances the Image Element, giving you the ability to edit your images and apply brilliant effects, filters and more right inside the Radium3 platform. You can use these powerful tools on any image uploaded to the Image Element, including single images, photo galleries, and slideshows.

To access the image editing tools, log into your site then locate an existing Image Element or create a new one. Select "Add or Edit Images" from the Image Element's menu and you'll see thumbnails of all the images currently stored in that Image Element. Clicking a thumbnail will load the image editing tools for that image (you can also click the "edit" link below the thumbnail). 

Once loaded, you can use the vast collection of image editing tools to make your changes. You can crop, adjust, resize, apply filters, color correct, and much more. All of your changes will be previewed live for you right in the interface. You can undo and redo changes as long as you are working inside the image editing interface. When ready, click the "Save" button to process your changes. Once you save the image, your original image file will be replaced with the modified version and your new, edited image will appear in the Image Element.

Advanced effects and filters are just a few of the many available image editing tools.

Please note the image settings that used to be accessed via the "edit" link (captions, descriptions, links ... etc.) can now be accessed via the small information icon at the lower right of each thumbnail. Of course, you can still reorder your images by simply clicking and dragging any thumbnail to a new location.

We're very excited to bring you this incredible upgrade. It's already up and running inside your Radium3 account at no additional cost. If you haven't tried out the new Image Element yet, I highly recommend you take some time to discover all it has to offer. Uploading, managing, editing and displaying brilliant images and galleries on your site has never been easier. We look forward to seeing all the ways you make use of the new Image Element.

Two New Designs

Spread and Vanity are the names of two new designs now available inside your Radium3 account (see screenshots above). To access them, log into your Radium3 website and click "Design" in the top toolbar. Then, click on the "Gallery" link to view all available designs. From there, you can apply these designs to your website and even customize them with our design editor.

These new designs are fully responsive and will automatically adjust to look great on screens of any size, from smartphones to tablets to retina monitors.

Per-Variant Handling Fees

We've also added a new feature in the Radium3 store. You can now specify handling charges for your products at the variant level, so that each variant can have a unique handling fee. Handling fees are bundled into the shipping charges that the customer sees. Customers don't see how much of their shipping charge is made up of handling fees.

Enjoy the new designs and features. We've got much more on the way so stay tuned!

Properly displaying images on your website can be a challenge. Radium3 has worked hard to make this task as simple as possible. But with websites being viewed on mobile phones and other devices, including high-resolution retina displays, the challenge becomes even greater. We're up to the task, though, and today we're announcing a new element that puts Radium3 customers even further ahead of the curve. It's the new Image Element. Take a look at the video and read more about it below.

AdaptiveImage Technology: The Right Size Every Time

Simply drop your high-resolution image into the new Image Element and Radium3 will display it at the optimal size for its placement on your site. Not only that, but Radium3 will also detect if the user has a retina display and, if so, will upgrade the resolution accordingly. Drag the Image Element to a new region and its size is automatically updated. The Image Element even accommodates responsive design, resizing the image dynamically for browsers at any width on any device, including mobile phones.

The new image element with a single image automatically output at optimal dimensions

The Image Element's AdaptiveImage technology is very advanced with a lot of things happening behind the scenes. We won't go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that this technology ensures fast, accurate loading on small screens such as those found on smartphones, while still accommodating the needs of even the highest-resolution monitors. It all happens for you automatically. You can simply upload a single image and we'll take care of the rest.

You can disable our AdaptiveImage technology by changing the element's settings. Doing so will cause the Image Element to output the image file exactly as it was uploaded in all cases. Of course, it is enabled by default and we recommend you leave it that way for best results.

Drag and Drop Right Onto Your Page

Another big upgrade with the Image Element is the ability to drag and drop one or more images right onto your page. Whenever you add an Image Element, you'll see a drop zone which invites you to drag in your images. The drag and drop functionality is available for all browsers that support it, which is most all modern browsers except for Internet Explorer. 

Of course, you can also simply click the drop zone to upload through a file system as well. Uploading this way has been improved to allow the selection of multiple images in most browsers by using cmd+click (ctrl+click in Windows).

Single Image or Photo Gallery

The new Image Element will be replacing our existing Photo Gallery Element, and it will include all of the current Photo Gallery functionality. Uploading a single image will cause the Image Element to function as described above. Uploading multiple images will automatically convert it to Photo Gallery mode. If needed, you can force a single image to behave as a Photo Gallery by checking the "Force Photo Gallery" box on the advanced tab of the element's settings.

When we launch the Image Element, all existing Photo Galleries will be automatically converted to Image Elements and will continue to function exactly as they have been functioning.

Launch Details

The Image Element is scheduled to launch next Thursday, August 23, 2012. We wanted to give you advanced notice so you would be prepared for the change. We look forward to bringing you the new Image Element. Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments below.

As with all of our included designs, these responsive designs are free to use on the Radium3 platform. Simply visit the Design Center by clicking "Design" on the Radium3 toolbar. Then click on "Gallery" to access all of our included designs. Look for these four new designs, called Haus, Great-Air, Great-Goods, and Great-Scape. You can apply them to your website with a click!

We hope you enjoy these new mobile-friendly designs. We've got several more designs scheduled to roll out in the coming months so stay tuned!

The ESC Hotkey

Radium3's first Hotkey went live last week. The ESC key can now be pressed when visiting any Radium3 site to accomplish the following:

• If you are not logged into your website, pressing ESC will take you to the login page and, once logged in, it will redirect you to the page you were previously viewing. This is the fastest way to get from viewing to editing a particular page on your site.
• If you are already logged in, the ESC key will toggle between preview mode and edit mode.
• If you are logged in and viewing a settings screen, the ESC key will cancel and take you back to the page you were previously viewing.

Facebook Open Graph Integration

Radium3 websites now provides automatic integration with Facebook's Open Graph. If you're wondering, "What is Facebook Open Graph Integration?" just know that it helps make your web pages look better when people like them or share them on Facebook.

This new feature also makes it possible for you to control which image is used by Facebook when you or others share a link to your page. Here are a couple of points to keep in mind:

• If you upload a website logo on the website settings screen, that logo will be used as the default image on your home page and as one of the Open Graph images on all pages of your site.
• The first image in the first element of your main region will be used as the default image on all pages of your site.
• If you don't want to mess with any of this, don't worry! We'll do our best to pick the best images for Facebook to use automatically.

We hope you enjoy all the new features. There's much more to come so stay tuned!

What Are Pingbacks?

Not to be confused with "Pings" (which we rolled out a few weeks ago), Pingbacks allow a blog to automatically link back to any blog that links to it. Here's a simple overview of how it works.

You publish a post on Blog A and in that post you include a link to a post on Blog B. Blog A pings Blog B to let it know about your link. Blog B automatically responds to the ping, usually by publishing a comment on its own post containing an excerpt from and a link back to the post you published on Blog A. Through this method, blogs can sort of pat each other on the back and say "Hey, thanks for the link and here's a link back to you," in an automated way. It also allows a post's comment thread to bring thoughts from outside articles into the discussion.

Of course, for this to work, both blogs have to support Pingbacks. Radium3 now supports sending and receiving Pingbacks and will interact with any other Pingback-supporting blogs.

How to Enable or Disable Pingbacks

There are three new settings related to Pingbacks in the Radium3 platform. Here's a look at them:

Under Blog Settings -> Basic Tab -> Comments Section  you will now find the "Prevent incoming pingbacks" setting (see below). Checking this box will prevent your blog element from responding to any incoming Pingback requests from other blogs. This means your blog won't automatically create comments linking back to other blogs when it detects incoming links from other blogs.

Under Blog Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Pings Section you will now find the "Prevent pingback requests to urls referenced in blog posts" setting (see below). Checking this box will prevent your blog from sending pings to outside blogs you link to in your posts, thereby preventing those blogs from automatically linking back to you.

Under Blog Post Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Comments section you will find the "Lock pingbacks to this post from now on" setting (see below). This allows you to override the blog-wide settings at the post level and prevent an individual blog post from responding to incoming Pingback requests.

Enabled by Default on New Blogs

The Pingback features went live this morning and all new blog elements created from this point forward will have Pingbacks automatically enabled (meaning all checkboxes described above will be unchecked by default). However, in order to prevent any unwanted changes to your existing blogs, we have disabled Pingbacks on any blog elements that were set up prior to this morning's release. If you wish to enable them, you will need to uncheck the boxes described above on the settings for your blog elements. You'll only need to change the blog-wide settings (the first two above) as we have only disabled Pingbacks at the blog level and not the blog post level.

Treated as Comments

If you enable your Radium3 blogs to respond to incoming Pingbacks, Radium3 will generate comments for any Pingback requests it receives. These comments will be treated as any other comment would be. They will be subject to the comment moderation settings you have enabled and you will receive email notification about them (if you have notifications enabled for comments). Also, you can moderate and delete Pingbacks just as you would any other comment.

Enjoy!

We hope you enjoy the new blog Pingback features. Look for more features in the weeks to come!

What's New?

Photo galleries and product detail pages now support an upgraded lightbox overlay experience. Not only are the images, captions, and image navigation elements properly aligned and optimized for mobile devices, but we also support the common mobile gesture of swiping between images. As an added bonus for desktop/laptop users, you can scroll or use the mousewheel to move between images as well.

Enjoy the new features. There's much more to come!

The New Page Bar

The Page Bar is the small toolbar which is visible at the top right of your browser when you're editing a web page with Radium3. The Page Bar has been around since we launched the new user interface a while back, but today we're giving it an update.

First off, the tools have been reordered. On the far left you will now see the Add Page icon. To the right of that you'll see the name of the template the current page is using and the opportunity to change that template. To the right of that you'll see the Preview icon then the Customize icon (this is the new one, see more below). And finally, at the far right, you'll see the Page Settings icon.

The New Customize Icon

The new addition to the Page Bar is the Customize icon, which looks like a paint brush. Clicking this icon launches the Design Editor with the current page's template automatically loaded up. This is a big shortcut that saves several clicks in the process of accessing the Design Editor from your pages.

The Page Bar's Customize tool also shows up on dynamic pages like blog posts, calendar events, and product detail screens. For these pages, the Customize tool will launch the Design Editor and load up the template that is used to display the detail content for these dynamic pages. Please note that on dynamic pages, the Page Bar contains less options — only Preview and Customize are included at this time.

How it Works

It's a pretty simple feature but one we know is going to be used on a large number of blogs across our platform, starting with our own Radium3 blog! You can turn it on by visiting the settings of any blog element on your site. If the blog element uses one of our "list" skins (list, list with body, or list with summary) you will see an additional section for pagination immediately below the skin setting. Simply check the box to enable pagination and enter the desired number of posts per page. The default is 20 posts per page and the maximum allowed is 1,000 posts per page.

The blog settings screen allows you to enable pagination.

Once that is set, your blog list will automatically be limited to the number of posts you specified and page navigation will automatically be added to the bottom of the list.

The page navigation automatically appears at the bottom of your blog list.

That's it! Blog pagination is super simple to implement but a really effective way to instantly improve the layout of your blog lists. If you want to see it in action, we've got it running on the Radium3 blog. Just visit this page and scroll to the bottom to see the new navigation.

Previously, all product options were combined into a single dropdown list on a product's detail page. So, if you had a shirt that came in three colors and each color had four sizes, customers had to select from a single dropdown menu displaying every possible variant of that product.

New: choose from three display options on the product settings screen.

Now, you have a choice in how to display your product options. You can set each product to display its options in one of the following ways:

1. Single Dropdown List
2. Multiple Dropdown Lists
3. Radio Buttons

Method #1 leaves things just like they've always been. In fact, all products that existed before the upgrade have retained this setting. So, nothing will change on your products unless you specifically choose to change them. Here's a look at a product using method #1 to display its options.

Options displayed as a single dropdown (current method).

Method #2 creates a separate dropdown list for each product option. The customer can then combine the options to specify the variant they are looking for. In this scenario, it may be possible for a customer to create a combination of options that doesn't actually exist or that is out of stock. If they do this, the "add to cart" button will disable and will change to say "unavailable." Here's a look at method #2.

Options displayed as multiple dropdowns.

Method #3 is just like Method #1, except instead of displaying the variants in a dropdown list, the system displays them as radio buttons. For shorter lists of options, this might be preferable so the customer can see all of the options at once.

Options displayed as radio buttons.

Ready to Go Inside Your Radium3 Account

This new feature is already live on your Radium3 website. To see it, simply edit any product on your site and look just below the variant box for the "Display Style" setting. Again, no action is necessary if you want to leave things the way they've always been. This upgrade simply gives you additional options for displaying your products.

New Ping URLs section from the advanced tab of a blog element's settings.

"Hold on a second!" you may be saying. "What is all this ping business?"

Pings are simply a method many blog platforms use to automatically notify other websites that content on a blog has been added or changed. Pinging can help with getting your content indexed by certain sites in a timely manner. Though pings have many purposes for advanced users, we've kept things simple by setting up a list of the most common pings for you. You can enable this pre-defined list of pings by checking a single checkbox (see the image above). We highly recommend that you at least enable these common pings on your Radium3 blog elements.

To enable our pre-defined list of pings, simply log into your site and access the settings for your blog element. Click the advanced tab and look for the "Ping URLs" section. Check the box next to "Ping the most common blog search services" then save your settings and you're done!

If you have additional websites you would like to ping, you can add those as well by entering them in the "Additional ping services" section. You can add them one at a time or copy/paste an entire list of URLs into the box.

Please note that you will need to manually enable blog pings for any existing blog elements on your sites. Moving forward, however, we will activate our most common blog pings setting by default on any new blog elements you create.

This update provides a new interface for changing and editing the background image used with your website design. Utilizing background images allows you to make dramatic changes to the look and feel of any site. This update truly opens up unlimited possibilities for customizing the hundreds of free, professional designs available within the Radium3 system.

To access the Design Editor, simply click "Design" on the top toolbar, hover over the design you want to edit and select that design's settings icon. Choose "Customize" to launch the Design Editor. Under Base Styles on the left-hand control panel, click background image settings and you'll see the panel pictured below.

Use the controls to upload your own image, establish if and how the image should repeat across the background, and set the positioning of the image.

We're excited about the new background image editor and all the functionality of the Design Editor. With this rollout behind us, our development team is already making plans for a host of new features that we'll be rolling out this summer. Stay tuned!

The role can only be assigned by account owners. To apply it, account owners may simply visit a user's profile and check the box next to "Developers" under the roles section.

Account Owners see the option to assign users to the Developer Role on their profiles.

Admin users will be able to see which users have the developer role, but will not be able to assign or unassign the role, unless they are the account owner.

Administrators see if a user is assigned to the Developer Role, but they cannot change the setting.

Enabling the Developer Role allows a user to see and select the "Design" section on the top toolbar and access the Collection of designs applied to their website as well as our Design Gallery of available free designs. They may also edit designs using the Design Editor (if the designs are enabled for editing) or using the Source Editor. They can upload new designs and they get FTP access to the "Templates" directory, which contains the source files for all designs in the website's collection.

This new feature is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, April 18, 2012.

Manage Designs With Fewer Clicks

The new Design Section is an extension of the Radium3 top toolbar that allows you to access and modify design settings while still previewing your live site content below. It saves clicks when performing most every design-related task, and it makes previewing your site with new designs a breeze.

Categorized Templates for Easy Access

The Design Section will present all of our built-in templates organized neatly into categories. Choose a category and scroll through the visual options presented. Then use the simple menus on each design to download, apply, or edit through the new Design Editor.

My Designs = Collection

One important change you'll want to note is that what we have thus far referred to as "My Designs" will now be referred to as "Collection." So, look for your "Collection" in the new Design Section to locate all the designs you've previously applied to your website. Whenever you edit a design, even if that design is in the gallery, it will automatically be added to your Collection in the background.

All the other functionality of the current Design Section is still intact and very intuitive to access. In fact, you'll be able to perform most if not all functions with fewer clicks than before.

Scheduled for Launch

This release is estimated to launch on Thursday, April 12, 2012 at approximately 10am CDT (GMT -5). Just as a reminder, only account owners are able to see the Design Section. In a future phase, we'll be rolling out the new Developer Role, which will allow you to grant access to the Design Section to users of websites under your account, if you so choose.

We look forward to bringing you these exciting new updates, and many more to come!

With the Store Manager role, a user will be able to:

• Access the store menu items on the top toolbar
• Adjust all store settings
• Add, edit and delete products
• Edit the settings on any product listing

The Store Manager role will be assigned by visiting a user's profile page. You'll find a check box for the Store Manager role immediately below the Administrators role. This check box will be visible only to Administrators and Account Owners who will be able to assign the role to any additional users on their site if they so choose.

The Store Manager role is scheduled to be released on Thursday, March 15th at approximately 10am CDT (GMT-5). We look forward to bringing you this update.

One of Radium3's built-in designs loaded inside the new Design Editor. Click the image to view full size.

Accessing the Design Editor

If you'd like to try out the new design editor, you might want to create a new, free website under your account. This will allow you to work with the features of the Design Editor without affecting your live website. You can add a new website from the "Websites" screen under your account.

Once you're logged into your website, you can access the Design Editor by selecting "Design" on the top toolbar and then selecting the "My Designs" tab. This will show you a list of all the designs enabled on your current website. Select a design and then select the "edit" button. This will load up the new Design Editor.

Templates and Panels

Once the Design Editor is up and running, take a look at the very top left. You'll see the name of your design and just below it, you'll see the name of the currently-selected template. Selecting the template name will open a drop-down list of all the templates that can be edited within your current design.

Just below the template name, you'll see the name of the currently-selected panel. This will say something like "Base Styles," "Wrapper Styles," "Header Styles" ... etc. Selecting this will open a drop down of all the available panels for the currently-selected template (see image to the right). A panel is basically a set of controls that are assigned to a particular area of your template. For example, the "Nav Styles" panel presents a set of controls that adjust the design of the site's navigation. Each template may present a different list of available panels. This is because the designer of the template can determine what areas of the site are able to be controlled by the Design Editor.

Global vs. Template-Specific Panels

The Base Styles panel and the Nav Styles panel will make global changes to your design. Edits made on these two panels will be reflected across every template in your design. 

On the other hand, all other panels make template-specific changes. This means, for example, that you can adjust the sidebar or the header uniquely on each individual template in the design. Or, you can set them all the same. The choice is yours.

More to Come

We'll be continuing to roll out improvements to the Design Editor over the next few weeks. For now, we just wanted to give you this overview so that you can explore the Design Editor on your own. Enjoy the new features!

Radium3 has always offered world-class, built-in designs at no cost, but those designs have required changes to their code in order to modify things like background colors, font styles ... etc. throughout the design. Now, with the new Design Editor, anyone can customize the foundation of these designs without touching the code. This opens up a new world of possibilities for anyone using Radium3's built-in templates.

The image below gives you a look at one of the editing panes in the new design editor alongside the preview of the design being edited.

Click the image above to view actual size.

The new Design Editor allows you to customize font styles, colors, background images and much more. Every change that is made is previewed in the Design Editor in real time and, when finished, you can publish the changes live or save your work to return later. It's incredibly easy to use, even for web novices!

Rolling Out Over the Next Few Weeks

The new Design Editor will roll out in phases over the next few weeks. The first phase of the upgrade is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, March 1st. This initial phase will include the basic Design Editor and additional phases will add more features to the editor over the following weeks. Radium3 account owners will be able to access the design editor under the "Design" option on the top toolbar. We will keep you informed of more details regarding the roll out on our Twitter feed and Facebook page.

We look forward to bringing you these exciting new features! Thanks for your continued support of Radium3.

Beautiful, Compact Design That's Always Accessible

The new toolbar is designed to be sleek, compact and accessible. It takes up a lot less vertical space than our current toolbar -- 66% less to be exact. That means it gives you a better view of your website while you're in admin mode. Plus, the new toolbar remains fixed to the top of your browser so no matter how far you scroll down, you'll always have instant access to its controls.

Click the image above to see a larger view.

We've reorganized the toolbar options as well. A simple toggle control on the left edge allows you to switch between website options and store options without refreshing the page. This saves you time when moving between managing your store and managing your website. Your account controls have also been moved under the new user session menu (more on that menu below).

The New Page Bar

The previous toolbar had a third tier of controls that were related to page-level editing. Those controls have now been separated out to the all-new Page Bar. The Page Bar hovers over the top right of any page you're editing, but only when your mouse is over the page. The page bar displays the name of the current page's template and contains the fast template switcher, the "add a page" tool, the "preview page" button, and the "page settings" tool.

Left: the Page Bar overlaid in admin mode. Right: fast template switcher appears when its icon is clicked.

The New User Session Menu

On the right edge of the toolbar, you'll see the new User Session Menu. It shows the name and image of the currently logged-in user. If the user has a gravatar, it will automatically use that image. Users can also upload their own images on their user profiles as well. The User Session Menu shows custom options based on the user who is logged in. All users will see a link to edit their profile in the User Session Menu. This means that non-admin users now have the ability to update their own profile information, a brand new capability with this update.

The User Session Menu with all options active (account-owner view).

Account owners will also find the link to the account section and billing section under the User Session Menu. All billing-related screens have been moved under the "Billing" menu item.

Launching Next Week!

We're gearing up to launch these new features next Thursday, February 16th at approximately 9:30am CST (GMT-6). We're super excited about this incredible update, but it's actually just a first step toward even bigger things coming soon. There's so much good stuff on the way. As always, we appreciate all of your support and look forward to continuing serve as your partner.

There are several reasons why you may not be getting customers from your website. This blog post will cover five common reasons.

1. Your website doesn't look professional. Your website is your first impression on the web so it needs to look great. Outdated or broken websites will tell visitors that you are the wrong company to work with. Whether you work at an international business or a local coffee shop, visitors who reach your website should know that they are in the right place. An outdated site tells visitors that you just don’t care; a broken website will give visitors the idea that you’re no longer in business. Taking care of this issue will go a long way toward increasing conversions.
2. Your website has no goal. When planning a website it’s important to think about what you want visitors to do when they get to it. Make sure that your navigation is clear and your content is understandable. If your website has a clear goal your design should show it; visitors will notice and follow the cues.
3. Your website is confusing. Everyone loves a really interesting website, but it is possible to have too many points of interest. If your website shines and shimmers like Las Vegas, you may need to tone down some of the flash. You want to impress your visitors but not scare them away. If you have more than one call to action on a web page you may be trying to pull visitors' attention in too many directions. Web visitors are easily distracted. If they have to think for more than three seconds about what to do on your website they will likely just leave.
4. Your website has no contact form. Not every visitor will want to fill out a form on your website, but not every visitor will want to call you either.  It’s important to have a variety of ways for visitors to get in touch with you. Some people like to call, some like to email, and some like to fill out contact forms. If you don't provide all of these options you're making it harder for a certain group of people to get in touch and that can hinder the effectiveness of your website.
5. You're not listening to your visitors. Visitors to your website have a lot of information to share with you. Some information, such as how they found your site and what pages on your site were most interesting to them can be discovered using web analytics software such as the freely available Google Analytics. Other information such as what services they are looking for and how they like to be contacted can be acquired by getting your visitors to fill out a contact form. If you know who your customer is, you can make your business better by catering your site to them.  So, use the tools available to get information from your visitors and then use that information to improve your business.

We have covered five reasons why your website may not be converting your visitors into customers. I encourage you to consider how you can improve your site's performance in these five areas.  If you have questions or other tips to share, please leave them in the comments below.

Wide Open Canvas

The image editor is the most apparent improvement you'll see when you interact with the text editor.  You'll be welcomed with a larger, cleaner canvas to work on when you click the "Image Editor" icon.

There's something about the wider space, and the cleaner controls, that somehow makes the air around you breathe sweeter.

Cropping is easier than ever now, and you can even add some basic text to your image.  Cool!

Newfound Precision

And now for the thing that a lot of you have asked for: We finally have the ability to resize images to exact pixel dimensions.  No longer will you be forced to use a slider to merely approximate how small you want your image.

Browser Compatibility Updates

This release covers a spate of compatibility improvements and tweaks that have accumulated since the last update.  We're on track keeping this text editor, and the rest of our CMS, up to date with the Wild Wild West of fast-changing browsers.

If they click the "Check out with PayPal" button, users will be taken to PayPal's website where they will login and review their transaction before returning to your site. If they check out using Radium3's built-in process, they will stay on your Radium3 website throughout the entire experience. No matter what the user chooses, payments are still processed through your PayPal Website Payments Pro account and the same PayPal fees apply.

This feature is great for store owners who want to provide a seamless checkout experience on their own website while still providing customers with the option of a separate PayPal checkout experience. To enable it for your Radium3 website, login and visit Store -> Settings -> Payments -> Payment Gateways. Select "Website Payments Pro" as your credit card payment provider and check the box next to "Enable PayPal Express Checkout."

Today, we've added eight more designs to the mix and they are all ready to go inside your Radium3 account. You can see a screen shot of these designs below. Take a look at what's new.

Shark Architects

Life Fellowship

Big Lake

Second Street

RSA Accounting

Lone Cross

AES Architecture

Venture Church

To use the new skin, simply visit the settings for your blog element and choose the "Archive By Year" skin. For more information, see the blog skins section of our user guide.

Pro vs. Standard

We've always had support for PayPal's Website Payments Standard, so what's the difference with Pro? The biggest difference is that Pro allows your customers to complete their entire checkout experience on your Radium3 website, without being directed offsite to PayPal's own checkout pages.

Just like Standard, Pro offers you a one-stop shop for all payment processing. Rather than having to have a separate merchant account and gateway, Website Payments Pro wraps it all up in one system and since it's PayPal, it's likely a system you're already familiar with.

The pricing structure is different with Pro as compared to Standard. Pro assesses a monthly fee but offers discounted transaction fees based on volume of sales. So, stores that generate more sales may find Pro to be more attractive in overal cost, but that decision must be made by you based on your store's situation.

Get more information about Website Payments Pro, its benefits and its pricing structure here on the PayPal website.

Ready to Integrate

Once you have a Website Payments Pro account, all it takes is plugging a few pieces of information into the Radium3 system and you'll be up and running. Simply log into your Radium3 site and visit Store -> Settings -> Payments then check the box that says "Enable credit card payments" and select "Website Payments Pro" from the list of processors (which now includes Authorize.net, Payflow Pro, Stripe and Website Payments Pro.)  If you need help, you may contact our support team at any time at support@radium3.com.

Stripe: A New Kind of Payment System

Radium3 now offers seamless integration with the Stripe payment system. Stripe is a fairly new tool, but is gaining a lot of support because of its unique approach to solving the e-commerce payment dilemma.

Stripe offers an all-in-one approach to payment processing. With Stripe, you don't need a separate merchant account or gateway. All you need is a bank account into which Stripe will transfer funds from your sales.

This all-in-one approach means that getting up and running on Stripe is fast and easy. To make it even easier, we've put together a support article with all the details you need to get started.

Stripe utilizes flat-rate pricing. Currently, Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction. Stripe allows you to accept payments on Visa, Mastercard, Amercian Express, Discover, JCB and Diners Club. Their transaction fees are the same no matter which card is used.

Currently, Stripe is only available to customers in the United States. You can accept payments from customers anywhere in the world, but you, as the store owner, must be in the US. They are working on adding new countries to the mix and you can sign up to be notified when Stripe is available in your area. You can get detailed information about Stripe on their Frequently Asked Questions page.

Payflow: a Granddaddy of E-commerce

Something old, something new — while Stripe is one of the newest payment systems on the market, Payflow is one of the grandaddies of Internet commerce. Formerly a part of VeriSign, Payflow is now owned by Paypal. Though the Radium3 store has allowed you to accept payments by PayPal from day one, standard PayPal payments are very different from the functionality offered by PayPal's Payflow.

Payflow is a payment gateway which works with an existing merchant account. If you already have a merchant account for accepting credit card payments, the Payflow gateway can allow you to accept online payments using that account. If you don't have a merchant account, you can set one up through a number of vendors.

Radium3 now allows seamless integration with the Payflow Gateway. All you need are a few pieces of information from your Payflow account. For more information about setting up and using Payflow, visit PayPal's Payflow Website.

Carrier-Calculated Shipping for Your Store

You can now tie-in with Fedex, UPS and USPS to have your store calculate shipping rates in real time. When your customers checkout, they will be presented with shipping options and pricing calculated by the carrier you choose based on the weight of the items purchased. This can streamline the shipping set up process and also allow you to charge your customers more accurately for their shipping requirements.

Setting up carrier-calculated shipping requires some specialized account set-up with the carriers you would like to use (such as Fedex, UPS and USPS). We have provided some instructions on setting up your carrier accounts and getting the information you need from your carrier accounts on the Radium3 User Guide at the following links:

• General set-up instructions
• Instructions for Fedex
• Instructions for UPS
• Instructions for USPS

Carrier-calculated shipping is already live on your Radium3 website. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below!