Support Manual / Dashboard

You can add your 3rd party SMTP settings into the "Email and Spam Whitelist" area.  Most people do this when they use another mail provider for their email and they want system messages such as invoices that automatically send from the system when an order is made, or your Blogs sending email address needs to correlate to your mail provider hosted elsewhere.

Common issues you might hear if you have not set these settings up, and your are using a 3rd party mail host issues with messages going into your client's inbox. "sender email could not be verified" this is the most common error your clients will see when you send an automated message from the system such as an abandoned cart notice, order notice, blog announcement, new products notice etc...

Once there you will see screen that looks like this:

Click "Add Account" and you will get a pop up to enter in your SMTP Settings.  Be sure to collect all of the settings from your current mail host.

The pop up screen will look like this:

Once you populate the info with your email hosts info click "save" then "test".  You can send a test to any email account you like, and alter the content of the test mail.  Then click "Send Test Notification"

The Testing pop up will look like this:

If your email is full you can empty out your junk, spam, and sent folders to free up some space.  Here is a quick way to do that.  Be sure when you clear out those folders that you empty the "trash" folder afterwards.

You can empty entire folders easily if you are wanting to delete the entire contents of an email folder.

Click on the gear icon in the bottom left corner.

Click "manage Folders"

Click the folder you want to empty.

Click the gear icon in the bottom.

Then click "empty".

This is pretty easy! Here are the steps below, also feel free to scroll to the bottom and play the video.

• Link to an External URL (such as WebsiteForge.com)
• You can also change the Link Type from URL to link to:
• Anchor Text
• An Email
• Call To (which will open the call dialog box on a mobile phone)

• Link to a File
• Link to a page on your site
  
• Link to a Module Category
• Link to a Module Item

Once you've decided what you need to link to you can choose the method above and enter the data relevant to your link type.  Be sure to hit apply and save when done.

Yes you can edit your live site by using the URL yourdomain.com/#edit and then logging in using your login credentials.  I strongly recommend you use a strong password with your unique ID.  Also, if you have employees working on your site we also recommend adding them as a Sub-account user and not handing out your main login credentials.   You can contact support to add sub-account user access.  It's a free option for your website.

Also, with the new builder you can publish a single page!  When you are on the Preview Tab and click the "publish page" button you will get a pop up that gives you the choice to publish the page you are working on or the entire site.

The new page builder is currently being used on a beta trial.  If you are interested in trying out the new builder please contact support to have them enable it for your site.  Once the builder is finished the beta process it will be available to all users system wide.

We've made a general overview video of some basic functions and flow of the new builder.  Please see the video below.

You can access the new builder (once enabled for your Login ID) under the "dashboard" and "New page builder" link.

Another great feature of the new page builder is the ability to edit your site from the /Preview page.

Manage Your Subject Line

Subject line will be a huge determinant to your email's ability to get into the inbox. You should not write an email subject line that is significantly longer than your header because the longer your email subject line is, the more likely it would be flagged as spam.

Remember three primary rules:

•     Shorter is better! (But not less than five or six words)
  
•     Don't rely on words that are included in the "spam words" list in the next section of this post.
  
•     Avoid using all caps or special characters in your email. They may end up resulting in having you flagged as spam.
  

You can get away with using "spam words" in your subject line if you have a great sender reputation and use them with moderation. However, if your test email goes to the spam or junk folder and you have a spam word in your subject line; your first test fix should be to remove it.

Write Content that Isn't Full of Spam Words

This rule, as well, may seem fairly obvious. However, you'd be surprised how many emails are sent daily and then end up in the spam or junk folder because they were loaded down with words like "free" or "credit." Writing content for email marketing can be a very specific process that's not different from writing for a Search Engine Optimization page in the fact that you need to write to a certain algorithm. There are many free online tools that will scan your email content and give you a score or a color-coded rating regarding the likelihood that you will be flagged as spam. While these tools are imperfect, they can give you a red flag if you are clearly in the danger zone.

The basic rule of thumb is to understand the words and types of language that most email service provider spam filters will consider likely junk mail. Then simply write in a manner that doesn't incorporate those words or style. It may mean that you need to think a little harder while writing your copy, but that effort will be worth it when you hit the inbox. After all, it doesn't matter how persuasive the word "free" would be with your subscribers if they never actually see the email.

Avoid Emails that Are One Large Image: Minimize Images Overall

Emails that are one large image have a high chance of being flagged as spam if you don't already have a good sender reputation. Using a large image to encompass the entire email is a frequent trick of email spammers. If the entire content of your email is in an image file, then the email spam filters have nothing to spider in terms of content and can't figure out if your message is junk or not. We've all seen emails get delivered to our inbox that are one large image. However, your deliverability chances decrease if your email is one big image. As we noted earlier, even if you hit the inbox, your conversion percentage will be decreased as well.

While images are an important part of any email template, the more images you use the more you may experience spam filter issues. If you are having a difficult time making it into the inbox, then one of the first steps you'll want to explore is to reduce the number of images in your email template.
Minimize the Use of Red Fonts and Huge Headline Size Fonts

Red fonts and huge headline size fonts have also been shown to cause spam filter issues, though not as frequently as many of the other issues noted here. As a general rule, it's just a better idea to avoid using red fonts (pick an off-red color), huge headline fonts of more than sixteen pixels or a combination of both. There are plenty of design options that still give you great flexibility without using those font sizes and colors.

This can be done by following these steps:

• Log into your WebsiteForge Members Area.
• Next, in the left hand navigation area, go to Dash Board  > Sites and Invoices

• When you are there, click on one of the invoice numbers you will see in blue.  This will open your account within our system. 

• On the upper right of the page,  you will see a link for Profile.  Click on this. 
• Then you will see an option to choose "Automatic Payments"

• At the middle of the page, you will see a place to change the card information.  Update your billing information here and save your changes.

If you have any questions or need assistance with making these changes, please feel free to contact support and we will be happy to assist you.
 

One really great way to reduce the amount of 404 hits on your site is to have a "full text Search" as your 404 page, this is also really great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

You can enable this option in your "Site Template and Settings" area.

When using this option you can have the system search, instead of showing a 404 page.  So for example if you had an alias "christmas" indexed:  http://www.YourDomain.com/christmas
And that URL no longer exists.  Instead of a 404 error page showing, it redirects to the "Full Text Search" page and searches for whatever characters are used after "http://www.YourDomain.com/" so it goes to that page and searches all pages and products for "christmas".  This is also helpful if people had an old website and now all of the page and product URLs are different.

NOTE: if you select the "FULL TEXT SEARCH" in there are no pages for you to select in the second drop down, this means you need to add a page with the "Full Text Search Result" frame and the "Full Text Search Box" frame.

see screenshot:

Another cause of increased 404 errors on your site is altering a category name.

Categories create automatic aliases for a "Category page" for example: http://manual.websiteforge.com/5m2/ways-to-get-help.html ("ways to get help" is a category)  Since that category is already indexed on the Search Engines, if I make a change to the category name in any way (even changing a space  or adding 1 character) the URL will no longer work, because the alias name will not be the same anymore.  Having the full text search as the 404 will help eliminate this problem as well.

You can do this by creating a Page alias. 

If you go here: YourDomain.com > Page Aliases then you can create page aliases. 

For a quick video on how this area works please go here.

Having the URL show a name would look like this: http://manual.websiteforge.com/Support_Home ( the use of spaces and any special characters is discouraged).  We recommend using an underscore"_" or combining the words (Google will separate them automatically)

The default URL for this page is http://manual.websiteforge.com/2.html

Using Aliases has a great SEO benefit as well.  Because it will add recognition to that page for what the page is.

Note: Creating the page alias does not automatically link your Site menu, or any other links on your site to your Aliased page.  You will need to manually re-link anything that is linked to the page you have created for your Alias.  Or you can enable a setting in your "Site Template & Settings" area called "Redirect to Aliases".  Which will automatically direct traffic to your newly created alias, regardless of the link for that page.

Page aliases can link to A Site Page, A Module Item, or A Module Category.

NOTE: Module items and Categories already use the "Title" in the URL to be identified.  

For example:

http://manual.websiteforge.com/5m2/dashboard.html?m2:nested=0

(the URL above will take you to the category "dashboard".  As you can see an alias is not needed in this scenario unless you want to force a different URL.)

If you were to create an alias for the Dashboard category, let's say we call it "Dashboard" that URL would look like this instead: http://manual.websiteforge.com/Dashboard

The same is true for items (Products, ADs, & Blog Posts)

To Create an alias First add an alias name.

Next click the "Select" to choose where this alias will link to.

The "Select Link" pop up will appear.  In this pop up you can choose if you are linking to a Site Page, Module Category or Module Item.

(In this example I'm linking to a Site Page named "Results".)

You have 2 options on the right.  "Redirect" and "Member-dependent". 
Redirect will take a user to the page number, and not keep the name as the URL.  In the example above if we select "Redirect" the URL would show up as Http://manual.websiteforge.com/7.html when the alias is used.

This is used when, say someone had an old page and they want to make redirects from the old pages to the new ones...  That way people who may have bookmarked - or results in search engines, will get sent to the new page.

Member-dependent will allow you to make aliases for specific users.  Once the "Member dependent" box is checked you will see available groups to select to allow access to this alias.

NOTE: if you only have the "Default Group" in your members area, then you will not see any options when selecing the "Member-dependent" option.

This is what it looks like when you have multiple member groups:

This is what it looks like when you ONLY have the "Default Group" in your Members & Group's area:

For more assistance with this please feel contact support.

Here you will find what you can change and how it affects your site in the "my profile" area.

In your "my profile" area you can change:

1. Password (for your websiteforge Members area login)
2. Name (for the owner/contact of the account)
3. Last name
4. Email (this is used for us to contact you, as well as system notifications will be sent to this address.  you can also have your feedback forms or modules email this account where the settings say "email from my profile")
5. Country
6. State
7. City
8. Address
9. Zip
10. Company name (this is for our records)
11. Phone number (this is how we can contact you)

See screenshot below:

This area will keep you informed on system notices and upcoming updates.

For the most up to date info please join our facebook group.

This area will give you access to your site statistics and show you when your backups were last done.

To access your Site Stats click on a month next to your site name to view that months site statistics.

Understanding Your Website Statistics

Your website statistics (sometimes referred to as metrics) can help you see how many visitors come to your site, what pages they view, how long they remain at your site, and where they came from. Web metrics will also show what search engines and keywords were used to find your site.

Here are some definitions you may find useful:

• Unique Visitors - The number of unique visitors to your site. If someone visits your site every day during the month, they are only included once, assuming they visit from the same computer and/or IP address.
  
• Number of Visits - The total number of visits to your site. If someone visits your site every day during the month, each visit will be included in this number.
  
• Pages - This is sometimes referred to as page views, and refers to the total number of pages that your site has displayed. If someone visited your site once during the month and viewed ten different pages, each page they viewed would be included in this number.
  
• Hits - This is often the most recognized but least important number, because a "hit" is registered every single time an element (technically a file such as a page or an image) is opened. If someone visited your site once during the month and viewed ten different pages, and each page had nine photos on it, this one visit would account for 100 "hits."
  
• Bandwidth - This is the amount of data that is transferred from your site to your visitors' computers. Each time a file, such as text, an image, or a song or video is displayed, it uses bandwidth roughly equal to the size of the file. This means that large files, such as videos, use more bandwidth than small files, such as simple text pages. Every account has a bandwidth quota, so this number can be helpful in determining how yours is being allocated.

You will find lots of information in this report. Some of the more helpful statistics include:

• Monthly History
• Daily History
• Visits Duration (how long visitors stayed on your site)
• Pages - URL (which pages were most frequently viewed, which pages visitors landed on when they arrived at your site, and which pages visitors were on when they left your site)
• Origin (connect to site from shows which sites visitors came to your site from)
• Search (which keywords and keyword phrases were used to find your site)

Backups will be shown in this list for the last 3 days. 

Pages are backed up and stored for 30 days.

Modules are stored for 30 days.

Files are backed up once a day, and stored for 2 weeks.

This area is for you to view any of your pending tasks or errors.  For example when you export a large amount of products that will be sent to your "Scheduled Tasks" area.

You can see a video here for more info. about the Scheduled Tasks area.

This area is where you can see your billing for all of your domains, you can also Terminate your site in this area as well.

In this area you can

1. See Billing information and visit the Billing website(once you are on the billing site here is the video on updating your CC)
2. See the Status of your DNS
3. Check your Remote hands hours
4. And Terminate your site(see video on how this is done)

See screenshot:

You can go to the billing site when you click on the blue link for ANY invoice in your invoice list.

This area is where you can create email accounts for all of your domains listed.

If you have no email accounts you will first want to create them by clicking the "add email" button.

Next you will want to create a name for the email, and a password.

1. You can optionally setup an auto reply
2. If you wish to use this account to forward to other accounts this is where you will specify that.
   
3. If you want to forward your messages from this account to another and also still be able to check the account messages in a mail client or webmail, then you will want to enable "Keep copies of redirected messages on server"
   
4. If you wish to automatically redirect spam to another account (like Spam@yourdomain.com) you can specify that account in the next line.
   
5. You can enable greylisting.  For specific information about greylisting please click here
   
6. If you will be using Webmail you can enable it for this email account on the last line there.
   

Be sure to save your settings.

To setup your mail account you will find the settings on the bottom portion of the screen when you edit the newly created email account.

Also you can find videos for your mail client and specific instructions for each here

In this example these settings are for the account "blog@videos.websiteforge.com" your settings will reflect your account.

Also in this area you will find a "White list" box.  You can specify domains that you wish to always allow or specific email addresses that you always wish to alow. (this will bypass greylisting and spam filter)

A Sub account user is a user that can access certain areas of your site.  If you have employees that you wish give certain tasks to then you can give them a sub account and grant them access to do certain things on your site.

If you visit the Dashboard > Sub-accounts area and it says "This advanced feature is turned off. Please contact tech support concerning enabling this functionality." then all that you need to do is contact support and let the support person know that you wish to enable sub-accounts and how many users you would like to have.  You will create the rest once it is enabled.

When you are ready to add a new user click on the "add account" button.

Then you will need to fill in the user information seen on the next screen.

This is where you will give your new user a username, Password, and grant them permission to whatever area you wish to grant for this new user.

NOTE: when the user logs in to make changes they will need to login with the main username/TheirUserName.  For example the user created in the above example would need to login with "wfvideos/test" and the password given to that user.

Here are the instructions to setup your email account in outlook 2010:

(you can also click here to watch a quick video on how to set this up)

1. Open Outlook 2010. If the Microsoft Outlook 2010 Startup wizard displays automatically, on the first page of the wizard, click Next. Then, on the Email Accounts page of the wizard, click Next again to set up an email account.
   If the Microsoft Outlook 2010 Startup wizard doesn't appear, on the Outlook 2010 toolbar, click the File tab. Then, just above the Account Settings button, click Add Account.
2. Click Manually configure server settings or additional server types, and then click Next.
3. In the Choose Service page of the wizard, select Internet Email, and then click Next.
4. Provide the following information on the Internet Email Settings page:
   Under User Information:
   
   1. In the Your Name box, enter the name you want users to see when you send email from this account.
   2. In the Email Address box, enter your email address.
   3. (you can obtain your e-mail account information when you edit your e-mail address in the "email and spam white list" area of your Websiteforge Members area.  Or click HERE to view a quick video on how to obtain your email account information)
   Under Server Information:
   
   1. Under Account Type, select POP3.
   2. In the Incoming mail server box, enter "mail.websiteforge.com" OR "mail.wsfcloud.net".
   3. In the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) box, enter "mail.websiteforge.com" or "mail.wsfcloud.net".
   Under Logon Information:
   
   1. In the User Name box, enter your email address.(this will look like your e-mail address with the "." symbol instead of the "@" Symbol.  Example: Yourname.YourDomainName.com
   2. In the Password box, enter your password. If you want Outlook to remember your password, make sure the tick box next to Remember password is selected.
5. At the lower-right side of the page, click More Settings, and then fill in the Internet Email Settings dialogue box as follows:
   On the Outgoing Server tab, select My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication.
   On the Advanced tab:
   
   1. Under Incoming server (POP3), be sure SSL is NOT checked.  And use port 110 for Incoming.
   2. Under Outgoing server (SMTP), use either port 25 or 2525 for outgoing.
   3. If you're using POP3 and you want to keep a copy of your messages on the server, under Delivery, click Leave a copy of messages on the server. If you don't select this option, all messages will be removed from the server and stored locally on your computer. (it is recommended that you do not check "leave a copy of messages on the server".  However if you do BE SURE TO CHECK "Remove messages after x amount of days" and specify 1 to 3 days)
6. On the Add New Account page, click Next. After Outlook 2010 tests your account, click Close to close the Test Account Settings dialogue box.
7. On the Congratulations page, click Finish.
8. On the Account Settings page, click Close.

Yes, there are 2 ways this can be done.

1. You can sign up for Google apps standard.  This is a paid service with Google.  Once you sign up with that service we can point your mail records to their servers.  Click here to view Google's pricing.  Click here to see our procedure for changing the MX records for their service.

2. This is a free way to use Gmail to send and receive messages as you. (for example you can send messages as JohnDoe@JohnDoesDomain.com if "johndoesdomain.com" is your domain name)

First you will need a free gmail account.  You can use your personal gmail account or create a new one just for this purpose.  Then enter that account as either your personal user or the new user account that you have just created and follow these steps you can also view a quick video on how to set this up here:

• Click the Settings gear in Gmail.
• Now select Settings from the menu that comes up.
• Go to the Accounts and Import category.
• Click Add a POP3 mail account you own (or Add another email address you own) under Check mail from other accounts (using POP3):.
• Enter the account's address under Email address:.
• Click Next Step ».
• Type the user name (For Websiteforge users you will use your email address using the "." instead of the "@" symbol, for example "JohnDoe.JohnDoesDomain.com") under Username:.
• Enter your POP account's password under Password:.
• Next change the POP server name under POP Server to "mail.websiteforge.com"
• I strongly recommend NOT to keep copies of retrieved messages on the server (Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server.)
• Click Add Account » (or Add Account if you have previously set up the address for sending in Gmail; in this case, you're done).
• Make sure Yes, I want to be able to send mail as ___. is selected.
  • This allows you to send mail from Gmail using the POP account's address in the From: line. Typically, it won't hurt to turn this on.
• Click Next Step ».
• Enter the name you want to appear as the sender when you send mail using the address in Gmail under Name:.
• Click Next Step » again.
• Now click Send Verification.
• Switch to the main Gmail window and go to the Inbox.
• Open the Gmail Confirmation - Send Mail as ___ message as soon as it arrives (this may take a couple of minutes).
• Copy and paste the confirmation code into the Enter and verify the confirmation code form.
• Click Verify.

This is not a problem, if you wish to use an exchange server or other mail provider we can point the mail records to that provider.  All you need to do is contact Support either by email: support@websiteforge.com, by Phone: 1-888-558-2446 x2 or create a ticket and supply us with the I/P address of your new mail provider or exchange server and all of your contact info.

Once we make those changes we will notify you and ask you to confirm the changes.

Also see details here about DNS settings.

Currently we do not have a DNS manager for users to make these changes on their own.  But we are happy to make any changes like this for you.