Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada and the UK, Ektron Digital Experience Management Solutions markets content management software designed to assist marketers in engaging, connecting with, acquiring, and retaining Web customers. Ektron Web Content Management Software is used by more than 3,800 companies from all over the world for creating, deploying and managing large-scale personalized websites.
Ektron CMS Review
Ektron CMS allows users, designers and developers to work at the same time. Content updates can be made directly onto a site using an intuitive browser-based editor. But these are only a few of the benefits of using Ektron CMS. To help you decide whether Ektron is the right CMS product for your company, we’ve outlined several product features in this Ektron CMS review.
1. Mobile device improvements
Using Ektron CMS, marketers can now have more control over mobile devices than ever before. Ektron’s PageBuilder application allows users to visually arrange pages and offer the necessary support for the Responsive Design frameworks. Digital marketers are now able to create, edit, preview or optimize different pages for a variety of mobile devices – from smartphones to desktops – without the assistance of a development team. By previewing the content they want to publish, marketers have the ability to decide which images will be presented according to the viewable area of the targeted device. Applying an easy-to-use interface provides a compelling experience for every visitor to a site.
Pro-tip: As a marketer, you can set break points, which will indicate how sites respond to different devices on various screen sizes, and use them to create adaptive images automatically. This will save you time in the content creation process and will also have a decisive impact on the performance of the CMS.
2. Increase clients’ engagement
Persona Management is an application Ektron provides to target the content by personas and geographical areas. Combining analytics and data, you can access “key insights,” a concept that means simply getting the right message to the right person. You can use data from the CRM system or Marketing Automation System to create a persona. For instance, personas can be based on the customer’s purchase history or geographical location. Taking it from there, you can target content to any of those personas from inside your site.
Pro-tip: Use Google Analytics reporting, then filter it by persona to better understand how people behave on your site and determine what aspects of the site need attention.
3. Expanded search capabilities
Easy navigation is the key to successfully converting site visitors to customers. Visitors who spend more time on a site and keep searching for content are more likely to convert. Although search technology can be complicated and a bit difficult to configure, Ektron Search really simplifies that process. It only takes 5 minutes to install and then 10 minutes of indexing a site’s content. After that, you’ll end up with a powerful search engine that includes a differentiated search, similar results, and many other options.
Pro-tip: Using this tool, you will be able to increase your site’s performance by having access to data such as number of visitors and the duration of the visit.
4. Enhanced user experience
For a much more pleasant user experience, Ektron CMS utilizes a brand new toolbar that eases the process of moving from the edit to the design mode. Also, the new Content Dashboard helps users view and filter published content, as well as the PageBuilder that simplifies user procedures.
5. Use forms to stay in touch with customers
The powerful HTML online forms provided by Ektron can be used to create online dialog boxes so you can maintain an ongoing relationship with your customers. Use Smart forms to display, save and validate content. These configurations utilize tags that are hidden from users and support content on different devices — a benefit for all users who will not need to create duplicate content.
6. Raising community awareness
By using activity streams, you can send notification messages describing activities or updates within the Ektron community.
Pro-tip: Notifying users about a recent event and then directing them to the indicated page will help you build a strong and efficient community.
7. SEO-friendly URLs using aliasing
By creating SEO-friendly URLs you maximize your website’s potential to be placed within the first findings of a search engine. Ektron’s URL aliasing makes this task easier for you. By using the words and phrases that define your site, you will increase the search engine rankings, and by using a pattern you will measure your aliases on your site as they increase.
8. Insert a calendar on your website
A calendar will help you maintain a connection with your visitors as they will be informed about any upcoming events. The events can be added by any authorized user. Also, the calendar type determines where the events are stored in the database and what type of permission is needed to edit them.
9. Discussion Boards
Provided by Ektron, discussion boards come in an unlimited number and with unlimited topics and solutions to any type of problem. So you can feel free to use this feature and increase your knowledge.
10. Multi-language content – the key to international settings
Ektron supports the organizing, publishing, authoring and versioning processes of Web content in multiple languages. Mixing Web content management with localization or translation management results in a complete Web content solution for any language supported by the Unicode standard.
You don’t need to be a CMS expert – or even an IT professional – to utilize Ektron CMS. Armed with only some knowledge of HTML and Photoshop, you can set up Ektron fairly easily. We hope that in providing you with this Ektron CMS review we’ve shown how this relatively non-technical tool can assist users in adding fresh content and updating websites, ultimately resulting in increased website activity. Remember that if you choose to utilize Ektron, you can always call on our CMS experts to help out.
For more information about Ektron and other CMS products, contact our CMS experts at PointClick. Click here to download a data sheet for more information about PointClick and the specialized services we provide for our clients.