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If you, like me, have ever ever scratched your head, dropped your jaw, or clenched your fist at that mysterious “bounce rate” figure in your site analytics, take a look at this fantastic article called “How-to: Improve Your Site’s Bounce Rate (Intro to Google Analytics Advanced Filtering” from the good people at NTEN. This article will help you understand not only what bounce rates are, but how they are relevant to your site’s success and how you can improve them in a meaningful way. We learned a lot and know you will too! Tired of boring old static webforms? Feeling restricted by limited confirmation emails you can send after form submissions? Sick of taking out the trash all the time? Well, the gang at Wufoo has great news for you — they’ve introduced conditional logic and branching to make their webforms smarter and more effective! Sorry – still waiting on that trash bit, though. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Whofoo? Conditional What?” For those of you out there asking yourselves these questions, let us take a step back. Wufoo is a super easy and affordable webform solution that we’ve found works well to fit many of our clients needs – as well as our own! As they’ve put it on their FAQ page:
We at PICnet are big fans of Wufoo and the great work that they do over there. For more information on why you might want to look into using Wufoo (hint: 50% discount for nonprofits) check the Tips & Tricks in our Help Desk. Wufoo recently announced some awesome new functionality to make forms even better. With conditional logic and branching, you can now:
Even better, they’ve managed to make constructing the conditional rules as easy as we could have ever imagined in our wildests dreams (trust us — our dreams about webforms have been wild). Want to learn more? Check out their conditional logic blog post for more information and how-to screencasts. Not yet using Wufoo? Unsure if it’s right for you? Check out Wufoo’s site to get the get the lowdown. I wanted to share some great webinars for you to look into – check out the details below from Idealware. *************************************************************** Ready for a spring lineup of live online seminars? Idealware has a great slate scheduled for this month, including a NEW session on Getting Started with Mobile Outreach. Don’t see what you’re looking for in the schedule? Make sure to check our library of on-demand recordings, offered for only $20 each. Our live seminars are capped at 25 participants, so you’ll have lots of opportunity to ask questions and get just the information you need. All you need is an internet connection and a phone line to participate. Each of these seminars are only $40 per participant for a 90-minute workshop. Check out www.idealware.org/online_seminars for more information and more seminars, or http://www.idealware.org/online_seminars/recordings.php for a full list of on-demand recordings. Idealware is an awesome nonprofit service organization that provides technical capacity building to other nonprofits and publishes consumer-style reports on software targeted to nonprofits. We’re happy to unveil the latest release of Soapbox 2 and introduce you to seven handy tools we dropped into the toolbox in the wee hours of the morning. Manage standard content more efficiently, reduce spam, mix up slideshow transitions, alert folks when they’re leaving your site, monitor the disk space you use, customize page not found errors, and maximize Google Analytics. Whew! That was a mouthful for just the overview. For the full details, check out our Help Desk and Happy Soapboxing! What: Webinar – Get Started on Facebook Many nonprofits and libraries are using Facebook to interact with their constituencies and reach out to new audiences – but what’s the best way to get your organization started on this hugely popular social networking site? In this webinar, Kami Griffiths will interview social media consultant John Haydon, who will walk through the essential steps to establishing and managing a successful Facebook presence for a nonprofit or library. We will also hear from Gabe O’Neill of Kids Are Heroes, who will share lessons learned from developing their own Facebook page. Get practical how-to information, learn best practices, ask questions, and leave with action items that will help you create an engaging Facebook presence for your organization. This webinar is for people who are beginning to explore Facebook and have questions on how to get started. We’ve been hard at work putting the finishing touches on Soapbox 2.0.10, the latest upgrade to your website management system. What do those numbers and dots mean to you? Two things: powerful page titles and slick slideshows. Both available now. And both part of the Soapbox service you’re already paying for. Let’s dive into the details, shall we? Read the juicy details at our Help Desk. If you have any questions related to your version of Soapbox or on these particular features, give us a shout! You have a very large video file, pdf or document… or you have a large number of smaller files. These can become too large to store on your web server, and they can quickly push your beyond your bandwidth allowance. So, what do you do? One solution worth considering is Amazon’s S3 cloud storage solution. S3 allows you to store large amounts of data at a surprisingly low cost. Additionally, the cost structure is scalable, so you will only ever pay for what you use. All that means is that it is a service that allows you to store data in the “cloud” in a way that is fast, cheap and reliable. We often recommend Flickr to clients as a robust photo management tool because it’s fast, easy to use, and offers nice-looking slideshows that can be easily embedded on webpages. But no-profits looking for more sophisticated slideshow options might consider checking out a new tool we just found called PhotoSnack. While Flickr focuses on photo sharing and organization, PhotoSnack takes online photo album displays to another level. They have a variety of slick, professional-looking photo albums and slideshows that can be embedded on your site. See some examples here. Free accounts are limited to 250mb and are branded with the PhotoSnack logo, but a premium account is available with 5GB storage and no branding for just $99.99/year. If you know a site using this or have tested this out on your own, let us know how it goes! Are you thinking about revamping your website but not sure where to start? Are you working with a web developer but wonder if you’re paying too much? With all the tools and strategies available, it’s hard to know where to start and what to expect. Attend this free webinar on Thursday where Allen Gunn, Executive Director of Aspiration (one of our partners!), will share valuable information about:
This will be a basic-to-intermediate level overview of the website development process and ideal for decision makers, board members involved in the process, and accidental techies. The webinar is this Thursday, the 17th, at 11am PST. You can join here. If your holiday calendar isn’t full yet, we’ve got something to fill it with – PICnet is reinstating Soapbox Tuesdays, a monthly forum held at our offices for Joomla and Soapbox users. We’ll discuss the up and coming, answer your questions, brainstorm, and give feedback where needed. We’re excited to create a space where people can bring their lunch and their questions to chat about how technology is changing the non-profit world. As the year wraps up, it’s time to gear up for last minute changes to your Non-Profit Soapbox and Joomla Web sites. What better way to do this than by sharing some lessons learned with your fellow Non-Profit Soapbox and Joomla! users at PICnet! When: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 We hope to see you there! Click here for more details. |
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