News for our Clients

Smart Art Announcements Feed

• Another new CMS from Smart Art goes live today.
  

  Smart Art's latest creation is a full Content Management System (CMS) based website for Disserth Caravan and Camping Park and it was opened to the public today... The new website includes many new features and, like all CMS's, is driven by a database. The site's owners have already added a new article successfully using the highly intuitive back-end Administration System. You can view the site here: http://www.disserth.biz

  
  
  
• Website Promotion Package - changes in reporting
  

  Smart Art intends to simplify the Search Engine Ranking Reports, as some clients have said that they contain TOO MUCH data, making them difficult to read quickly. And, as we make a financial loss on each report we create, we feel it is now time to look again at this service...
  
  As Google and Yahoo dominate the search engine market these days by a large margin, it makes sense to stop gathering all the data from 20+ search engines each month for each of up to 20 keywords/phrases for each client, but instead to raise the limit on keywords and concentrate on the results from only a handful of search engines, in order to reflect the popularity of the major search engines. This will make the reports more meaningful and easier to read quickly.
  
  Also, the time taken in gathering the data into a presentable report from over 400 searches per client each month, with each result being tracked against the last month's result, means that the web promotion fee of £35 a month simply does not cover the time taken - and Smart Art does NOT intend to increase the price for this service.
  
  So, in order to provide a more meaningful, streamlined service that will cover our costs and make the reports less overwhelming we propose the following changes with immediate effect:-
  
  Most clients wish to know how they are doing on Google and Yahoo as a priority, and may have a personal preference of another two or three of the smaller search engines, and Smart Art needs to change reporting procedures to reflect this.
  
  So from now on, the reporting limits, which were:

  • A limit of to 20 keywords/phrases
  • Tracked and reported in each of up to 20 search engines
  • (which equates to a maximum of 400 individual search results displayed in your report)

  
  will change to:

  • A limit of to 50 keywords/phrases
  • Tracked and reported in each of up to 5 search engines
  • (which equates to a maximum of 250 individual search results displayed in your report)

  
  We suggest that two of these SE's are Google and Yahoo, leaving you to choose the other 3 yourself according to your personal preferences.
  
  Smart Art has already started adding in some keywords that we have noticed being used frequently to find your sites over the last 30 days. And we will set each Promotion Package to report in Google and Yahoo as standard as of the next report on 25th May.
  
  What we would lke to hear from you now is your personal choice for up to 3 OTHER search engines that you would also like to track your keywords in.

  Please click here to contact Harry Adams with your preferences for the 3 extra search engines ASAP

   

  
  
  
• Another new CMS goes live today
  

  Smart Art's latest "baby", a Content Management System (CMS) based website for CARAD (Community Arts Rhayader & District) was opened to the public today...

  The new website includes many new features and, like all CMS's, is driven by a database. The site's owners have already added new articles successfully using the highly intuitive back-end Administration System. You can view the site here: http://www.carad.org.uk

  
  
  
• Editing Price Increased from 6th April 2009
  

  The price for editing/updating sites, and for design and graphics work has now increased to £0.75 per minute, effective immediately. We still have NO minimum charge and 'minute billing' (and we can do a LOT in a minute), so a 5 minute job on your site will still only cost £3.75

  
  
  
• Switching to monthly invoicing
  

  I have had several requests from clients asking to switch from annual billing to monthly billing for hosting and promotion services. This is absolutely ok.

  If you think switching from annual to monthly billing will help your budget or cash-flow, please just ask and it will be sorted out for you immediately.

  
  
  
• Maintenance Downtime Scheduled
  

  On Thursday, March 19th, 2008 between 12:00AM and 6:00AM EDT, we will perform maintenance on a server hosting client accounts.  A reboot of the server will be required.  We do not expect the downtime to exceed 15 minutes.

  
  
  
• Spam Reporting - Train your filters
  

  PLEASE report all SPAM as this helps train the filtering system and reduces future spam

  When you receive a SPAM message you have a choice to either just delete it and move on, or Report it to our mail server to improve its antispam performance. To report the spam message select the message in your inbox, right-click and select "Forward as attachment", or simply "Forward" if your email software doesn't support "Forward as attachment". Address it to assp-spam@yourdomain.com and click SEND. Done, you have now reported the spam message and helped train our mail server's spam filters.

  N.B. Replace 'yourdomain.com' in the email address above with your own actual domain name

  
  
  
• Network Issues Page added
  

  We have now added a new "Network Issues" page to the Client Area. All planned maintenance, system outages, email issues, or any other issues (current or planned) affecting Smart Art's services will be published in this new system.

  This give our clients far more information when experiencing problems that the "Server Status" link, and is a very good reason for clients to visit their Client Area regularly.

  
  
  
• Getting Help - A Reminder
  

  All Smart Art clients are hereby reminded that here are 3 steps to resolving problems with any aspect of your hosting accounts:

  1. Check the Announcements section in the Client Area (www.cms-wales.co.uk/clients) in case the problem is known and we are already working on a fix.
  2. Check the Knowledgebase in the Client Area to see if we have already published answers that may help you.
  3. If you still need help then please use the "Submit Ticket" link in the Client Area to send us a trouble ticket describing your problem - Submitting a Trouble Ticket is the only SURE way of getting a rapid response - especially if you are having trouble with your email accounts.
  
  
  
• Account Upgrades Required for some clients
  

  Due to the release of the Data Centre's charges for 2009 I have had to look at the accounts of those clients on "Business Hosting" that are hosting more than 1 website within their account. The Data Centre is now charging me more for these accounts (those with 2 websites in the account) than I am currently charging for the hosting plan, and I cannot swallow the loss, as it is quite substantial.

  Therefore, all clients with more than 1 website within their Business Hosting plan will be upgraded to the next level of hosting plan - which is "CMS Business Hosting" which is £170 a year or £17 a month. The changes will take effect immediately.

  By way of compensation, the new "CMS Business Hosting" plan has some extra features that will make your hosting account "future proof for quite some time:-

  • CMS OPTIMISED (ready for the future with Content Mangement Systems)
    
  • DATABASE ENABLED
    
  • ALLOWS TWO Websites (and both can be full CMS's)
    
  • UNLIMITED Email accounts
    
  • UNLIMITED Disk quota
    
  • UNLIMITED FTP accounts
    
  • UNLIMITED Mailing lists
    
  • UNLIMITED Sub Domains
    
  • UNLIMITED Databases
    
  • UNLIMITED Bandwidth
    
  • UNLIMITED Parked Domains
    

  So for those clients with 2 sites you will be upgraded to an account with far superior features to those you have now, and should you decide to move from static websites to CMS websites in the future your account is already optimised and enabled to handle up to TWO fully blown CMS websites, each with their own separate Admin areas.

  For those clients that require more than 2 websites we also have other plans at £250 a year or £500 a year allowing 5 and 10 websites respectively in each account.

  
  
  
• Xmas Holidays - Office closing times
  

  The Smart Art office will be closed for Christmas Holidays as follows:-

  Office closes on Tuesday 23rd December at 12:30pm

  Office re-opens on Monday 5th January at 9:00am

  If you experience problems during these times please use the "Submit Ticket" link within your Client Area at http://cms-wales.co.uk/clients/ and we will address your problems ASAP.

  Otherwise, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - see you all in 2009 !!!

  
  
  
• Another New CMS for a Smart Art client
  

  Smart Art's latest project; a full blown Content Management System based website for Tryst Introductions, was opened to the public at the weekend. The new website includes many innovative features and, like all CMS's, is driven by a database. The site's owners have already added new articles successfully using the highly intuitive back-end Administration System. You can view the site here: http://www.trystintroductions.co.uk