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The unique features of Populate

The populate content management system can be thought of as three separate products in one. The ecommerce solution, the content management tool and the email campaign manager

The content management system

• Infinite pages. There is no limit to the number of pages you can create within the populate system.
• Easily add content to your pages. Adding content to pages is a simple matter of rolling over a button and selecting what type of content you want to add: text, titles, images, links, forms, flash, video etc. Images are cropped, re-sized and optimised using our simple tools. Forms can be fully configured with fields, field validation, captcha code, email upon success to multiple emails, SMS on success to multiple mobile numbers all fully editable. All form data is also stored in the database and via a simple admin panel can be viewed, edited, deleted and exported.
• Multiple page versions. Within Populate you create multiple version of a page. This allows you to preview and work on a page that a normal visitor can't access. When it is ready and approved, you can, with the click of a button make it the live version. This not only makes editing pages easier it can be used for circumstances where you might want to change a page temporarily, e.g. for the Christmas period, once Christmas is over revert to the original version.
• Easily integrate pages into your page structure. Pages can be linked and unlinked into your page structure. 
• Search engine optimised pages. Each page can have its URL, page title, meta, H tags and content fully configured by the site administrator.
• Dynamic linking between pages. All links created internally are dynamically built so that if you should change the URL of a page all of the links to that page are automatically updated, reducing workload and minimising missing page errors to your visitors. In additional any URL that is changed is stored and if called is redirected (*301) to the current URL meaning any pages that have been indexed by Google or the other search engines maintain their position and any user clicking a changed URL that has been indexed by a search are transparently redirected to the correct URL.
• Secure user area. Site can feature a user area and pages and content locked to not only logged in users, but to types of users. Theses features were originally developed to allow us to build intranets.
• Blogs. Full blogging engine including user feedback
• Cutomisable. We can extend the populate system to do pretty much anything you want. In the past this has been for dealer locator tools, high score areas, image galleries etc. If you have a particular requirement pleas get in touch and we can provide a schedule and cost.
• Dynamic page redirection. Populate allows administrators to set the URl of their pages in order to better place them for searches. It has features that store all legacy URLs so that if you want to change the address of a page it is automatically redirected to the new address (301) in order to maintain any search engine position if might have obtained. This system also allows us to migrate sites in from other systems and remap the old urls to the new ones, again to avoid losing search engine position but also to make sure any visitors that have bookmarked your pages/product get where they wanted to go rather than the dreaded error page. These legacy urls are also fully configurable by the admiinstrator. This system also makes sure that all pages/products etc can only ne reached on the correct URL to avoid duplicate content issues with search engines.

The ecommerce module

• Dynamic price preparation. Product prices can be entered in Populate as either net prices or as a purchase price and a profit margin (profit margin is set globally and overridden on each product) Tax rates are entered into their own table and are then the applicable tax rate is selected for each product. In most ecommerce solutions this leads to problems as it results in some odd numbers for the gross price, the normal solution is to enter the net price with a few decimal places in order to get a nice round gross price. However this means that if the tax rate should change e.g. from 17.5% to 20% you need to re-enter the net price of each product in order to get back to a nice round price. Other systems allow you to enter a gross price, however this means that you will still need to edit each price otherwise an alteration in the tax rate will affect your profit margin. Populate's dynamic price routines allow you to set you product to round up to e.g. the next £xx.99, £1 or £4.99, £5 etc. The system uses the net price and tax-rate to work out the gross price, it then rounds the price up and reverse calculates the adjusted net amount and tax amount for invoicing purposes. This feature is especially powerful when combined with our dynamic currency conversion routines as the prices will change daily as the exchange rate fluctuates, yet Populate can automatically generate 'cleaned' prices.
• Multiple currencies using live exchange rates. Your shop can operate with multiple currencies, you can either enter all of the prices or you can set up one master currency (usually the currency you purchase your goods in) and the other currencies are automatically converted.
• Multiple languages. Populate is fully multilingual. We normally set up multilingual sites with each language on a separate domain or sub-domain so that each language can be indexed as a separate site in order to respond better to searches.
• Fully integrated into Google Analytics. Populate's ecommerce system has been developed to report sales into Google Analytics ecommerce tracking so that you can analyse your visitors behavior and more accurately focus your advertising budgets in the future.
• Multiple images at multiple sizes. Populate features a central image library where all images are kept and can be organised into folders. You can add as many images to a product as you want to create a slideshow. these images are automatically re-sized and optimised to all of the different sizes that your site requires.
• Downloadable documents. Populate can handle the upload storage and delivery of any type of document relevant to your products on a per language basis.
• Linked products for cross or up-selling. Depending on your requirements we can set up your site to allow for products to be linked together. This can be used on the product page to up-sell to a more expensive model, or as a cross promotional tool while adding products to the cart, for instance to sell a cable or print cartridge as the visitor buys a printer.
• Search engine optimised product pages. Each product page can have its URL, page title, meta, H tags and content fully configured by the site administrator.
• Infinite sections and subsections.
• Products that can exist in multiple sections.

The email campaign manager

• Create multiple campaigns. Create email campaigns using the same visual content tools as you get with the site, 
• Manage your contacts list. 
• Add contacts to contact groups.
• Testing emails. Add email addresses into a test group and test campaigns
• Reporting. Because the campaign manager is part of the same system as the main site far more detail is available for tracking. Track which emails were bounced, opened, unsubscribed and clicked through to the site and then track which pages and products each recipient viewed and whether the email resulted in an ecommerce sale or form submission.
• Managed unsubscribe list. Users who unsubscribe are stored in a separate table and while the contact will remain in the database, no email will be sent to them while they exist in the unsubscribe list. Whole domains can be manually added to the unsubscribe list.

Other features

• Google sitemap. The populate system features a fully automated Google sitemap that has accurate modification dates on all pages. This can be submitted to Google for improved indexing of your site.
• Ticketing system. As a supported system, any problems you are having with your site will be dealt with by us. Once logged in to the administration system, you can support any query to us and we guarantee a same working day response.  

_{(* A 301 redirect is a redirect that tells a browser or search engine that a page has been permanently moved to a new address)}