Research, Implement

What I’m all about …

Hi! I’m Krystal Featherston. I am an Product Support Manager here at Compendium. My goal is to make our clients “blogging experience” as seamless and easy as possible. I work to resolve changes and issues - both internally and externally. I serve as the support and work to ensure Compendium's blogging software is the best.

The purpose of this blog is to help inform readers about blogging techniques and trends, and will provide some best practices for posting a “great blog.”

On a personal note, I’m your average 26 year old trying to find her way in this strangely complex world. I graduated from Illinois State University in 2005, where I was a collegiate diver. Then unsure of where to go or what to do I ventured back to the place I call home – Indiana!

I love the Colts, Cubs,& the Hoosiers! I also love snowboarding (I must admit I’m not very good – but practices make perfect)!

Get Your Questions Answered at Thursday's Webinar!

Friday, January 15, 2010 by Krystal Featherston

Next Thursday {January 21st at 2:00 pm (EST)}, Compendium will be co-hosting a Webinar with CEO, Chris Baggott, and SEO expert, Stephan Spencer. Stephan is well known for his expert knowledge on online marketing - including usability, ecommerce, email, and SEO.

You won't want to miss this Webinar, below are some of the topics they will be discussing:

Basic SEO techniques to help you get found
Why business blogging is a great SEO strategy
A live Q & A session from the audience.

Also … there are only a limited number of spots available so make sure to register right now!

Click here to register for this webinar!!

CNAME - What is it? How to set it up?

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Now that you're on board with Compendium and you've filled out your getting started form, the first thing you'll need to do is set-up your CNAME.

Now if your wondering what a CNAME is, well .... let me explain:
A CNAME record or Canonical Name record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) that specifies that the domain name is an alias of another, canonical domain name. This helps when running multiple services from a single IP address. Network administrators also use CNAMEs when running multiple HTTP servers on the same port, with different names, on the same physical host.

What does this mean for you ....
At Compendium, we require our client select a domain or sub-domain for their blog and create a CNAME Record for this domain. As a software as a service, Compendium hosts all of our clients blogs, including content and images. By using a CNAME Record, and directing to the Domain of www.compendiumblog.com, we have the ability to add to and modify our infrastructure when necessary without affecting service to our clients.

When a CNAME record is set for the URL of blog.EXAMPLE.com, and the CNAME record points to www.compendiumblog.com, the browser will resolve to the content at www.compendiumblog.com, but the browser would show http://bog.EXAMPLE.com in the address bar.

Now that you know what a CNAME is and why Compendium require our clients to create one, its time for you to get your set-up. Click here for some basic instructions. However, if you manage your DNS records through your registrar, here are links to some step-by-step instructions to some of the main registrars that will help you with this action.

After you get your CNAME set, your just a few days away from blogging for your business! So get your CNAME set and starting blogging today!

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or fill out the online submission form.

Hats Off to Fuseworks Studios

Friday, October 16, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

I just wanted to share something I found to be very interesting today, I was on the phone helping a client with an issue they were experiencing while designing their blog template - and when I opened their template I was very pleased!

Fusework Studios, one of Compendium's Clients, who has control over the design of their blog has done a great job! I am a big fan of well designed templates, websites, landing pages, etc. and when I opened their blog I was speachless (in a good way)! So I just wanted to give them a shout out! Check out their blog, visit blog.fuseworkstudios.com!

If you like the look of their blog and want to be able to customize your own blog, well your in luck! Compendium has a new functionality related to the product - Designer Role.

If you have a good understanding of web design and web development, the designer role at Compendium may be a good fit for your business blog. Once you have designer access you can completely control your tempalte design, and make changes as often as you wish. This is espeically great for our clients who are consistently testing their calls to action!

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or fill out the online submission form.

Put a Spark in Your Blogging Program

Monday, September 14, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

So every month our Marketing Department has great blogging incentives for Compendium Staff. The past couple of months we've blogged for drinks/candy, Indians Tickets, gift cards, and free PTO days.

However, this month it is the "Blogging Bucket and Content Cooler,"which is filled with yummy snacks and drinks for the week. Each department in this contest and the first to reach their goal of blogs for the week receives the bucket and cooler exclusively in their department for their blogging efforts. Last week my department won, and we got lots of yummy snack - below is just part of what we got ....

Compendium's Blogging Contest Winners Gift

... so that's why I'm blogging today! I want to keep those snacks coming! Everyday around 3pm I need a candy pick-me-up!!!

I think that our Marketing Department does a great job at helping to keep everyone here at Compendium motivated. Also, by providing your employees with incentives is a great way to get your company blogging about your business. It also allows for your customers to see the "inside" of your company and it can allow them to connect with your company on a deeper level.

So create a blogging incentive program today and see if you can get your bloggers blogging!

Designer Role - What does this mean?

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

So just recently, Compendium has released a new functionality related to the product - Designer Role. Now, you might be wondering what this means for you ... well you will have access and complete control of your blog template.

This role was created for clients who:

Are designers themselves and have a good understanding of HTML/CSS
Are creating CSS for their blog
Want frequent changes made to their blog

If you have a good understanding of web design and web development, the designer role at Compendium may be a good fit for your business blog. Once you have designer access you can completely control your tempalte design, and make changes as often as you wish. This is espeically great for our clients who are consistently testing their calls to action!

If you are interested be sure to reach out to your Client Success Manager today, they will be able to give you some more information!

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or fill out the online submission form.

Customize Your Blog - Write Your Own CSS

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Have you looked at your blog and wondered how you can make it look more like your website? Well Abby, Allison, and I get this question quite often - and our answer is .... "You can write a customize CSS stylesheet."

What is CSS?
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents.

How do I apply CSS to by blog template?
Compendium's templates are 100% CSS compliant, and can be highly customized by applying CSS to your blog. If you chose to apply CSS, we recommend hosting the file on your end and providing Compendium's Support team with a link to that file. This will allow your organization control and will allow you to make changes at any time.

Compendium's template is a great example of a highly customized blogging template (there is more than just CSS, but a great example a customoized template). However, writing CSS is not something that you have to do - we will design your template and match your website as much as possible. Here are some of our clients that are on the standard template (which happen to be some of my favorite designs):

hhgregg's green - www.hhgreen.org
Bottom's Up - blog.Bottoms-Up-Baby.com
LOHAS's - blog.lohas.com
Fairytale Brownies - blog.brownies.com
Taiga Company - blog.taigacompany.com

Also, another route if you don't want to write CSS, you can provide us with images and we will insert them into your blogging template. Get image specification sizes here.

These are just a few suggestions for some ways to make your template design a little more appealing if you'd like. However, contiuning to write quality content is more important for your business blog - but if you anything like me I'm a visual person and love a great design.

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to our team, by either calling us at (317)777-6255 or filling out our webform.

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or fill out the online submission form.

FAQ ... Learn some of the most frequently asked questions!

Thursday, August 27, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Everyday, the A-team (Abby Brosmer, Abby Greenbaum, and Allison Bowen - I'll explain later!) and I get to help our clients with any questions or issues they encounter when using Compendium's Blogging Platform. We have questions ranging from Google Analytics and SEO, to how do I retrieve my password, to what is an RSS Feed ....

We always recommend to our clients to first check out our knowledge base for answers and if they cannot find and answer, then fill out the webform. Here are links to some of our top questions...

These are just some of the top questions ... So, if you have a question, don't be shy - ask, we are here to help your blogging program succeed!

Google Analytics - Get Read Only Access

Sunday, June 28, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

I know, I know ... its been a long time since I've blogged (insert frown face here ....) However, keeping in tradition with my posts - something that clients have been requesting a lot of lately is read only access to their Google Analytics Account.

Here at Compendium we provide everyone with a Google Analytics Report for tacking their blog and weekly PDF report of your blog analytics and statistics. But, if you want more details - All you need to do is let us know! You can request access to your Google Analytics Account by simply filling out this form with contact information and be sure to include a gmail account or the email address associated with your Google Account!

Keep Blogging!

Saturday, June 27, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

So we understand that it’s the summer and July 4th is just around the corner, and you'd probably rather be outside enjoying the weather than writing blog posts. Luckily, Compendium has a solution for you …. All you need to do is write some blog posts before the go outside or before the holiday's and schedule them to go through while you're out!!!

If you anything like me … I like to write my blogs post for the week on one day and schedule them post throughout the week!!!

If you know how to schedule a post … here are step-by step instructions! Also, before you start scheduling your posts you need to make sure you've set your Time Zone up correctly - here are step-by-step instructions for doing that too!

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or fill out the online submission form.

Need Help?

Saturday, June 27, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Do you have questions? Do you want to change your call to action? If so, here's how you can get help ...

Search Compendium's Knowledgebase
Submit your request Compendium Online Submission Form (and we will respond to you with 8 Business Hours)

Do hesitate to ask all the questions you have!! That's what Abby and I are here for ... we want to help you succeed!

Are you stuck? Don't know what to write about?

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Don't know what to write about? Are you have writters block? Believe me I have this all the time - I always try to over analyzing what i'm writing! After reading this a little light came on in my head!!

However, our Client Marketing Team here at Compendium put on this great webinar "50 Content Strategies," that provides in-dept ideas & topics for your coporate bloggers.

Be sure to visit our help page to watch this webinar and many other to help with your blogging program!

If you have specific questions concerning your blogging program, you can send an email to clientsuccess@compendiumblogware.com.

What do I do if I've forgotten my password?

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Recently we've had a lot of clients who have forgoten passwords. Luckly, Compendium has has a back-up - and the best part its really easy!

If you forgotten your ..... Password, all you need to do is follow the steps below:

Go to www.compendiumblog.com
Click on "I Forgotten my Login Information" Link
Enter your Username and Email Address Associated with your Account
Click Recover
An email will be sent to you with a new password
Go back to www.compendiumblogware.com and login

Once you are in the system, you can change your password by clicking on the "Account" tab, modifying your password and then clicking make changes. The next time you login, you will need to use your new password.

If you have any questions about how to retrive your password you can always do 1 of the 3

Call: (317)777-6255 | Email: help@compendiumblogware.com | Online Submission Form

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase.

Social Media Icons - Add them to your blog

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

We've recently been getting a lot of requests to add social media icons and links to our clients blog. Below are the social media icons and links that Compendium has on our blog.

If you'd like to have social media icons added to your blog, all you need to do is send an email to help@compendiumblogware.com. What you should include in that email is ....

Social Media networks you've like included
Links for those each of those networks

Compendium has a variety of icons avaiable, so all you'll need to do is provide us with the information and we will get it added to your blog.

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or shoot us an email or fill out the online submission form.

Google Alerts! What & How?

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Recently, we've had several question come in concerning Google Alerts and how to set them up for your blog.

First, "What is a Google Alert?"
Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feedreader of your choice.

Second, "How do I set them up?"
Simply visit the Google Alerts home page, enter your search, the type of alert you'd like (News, Web, Video etc.), how often you'd like us to check for results, and your email address. When you're done, click the 'Create Alert' button. We'll send you a confirmation email; clicking the link in this email will activate your Alert.

Visit Google's support page to find more answers to your questions regarding setting-up your Google Alerts.

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or shoot us an email or fill out the online submission form.

Understanding Google Analytics

Monday, March 30, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Compendium uses a combination of Google Analytics and custom analytics to track each client's blog. The custom analytics within the application provide a basic tracking analysis overview, but do not provide the in-depth detail we are able to pull from the Google Analytics Reports. We recommend that clients use Google Analytics for tracking your blogging success!

Compendium uses Google Analytics because ...

We are able to block certain IP addresses from those reports and do not have the ability to do this with custom analytics found within the application.
They are easy to read and understand.
They generate detailed statistics about visitors and help to gain more insight into blog traffic.
They allow client success managers to elevate the success of selected keyword phrases and look at possible additions to help grow the program.
They allow for both the client and the client success team to view the information in one central location.

You can visit our Compendium's help page to view a webinar that will help you understand your analytics for your blogging program.

Also, if you have more questions you can reach out to our Client Success Team at clientsuccess@compendiumblogware.com and they will be able to answer all of your questions.

RSS? What & Why?

Monday, March 30, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Lately, we've been getting a lot of questions about RSS feeds. What they are? Why are they important for blogging?

RSS is used to publish frequently updated work—such as blog entries. An RSS document includes full or summarized text. RSS benefit readers because it provides regular updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's URL into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

Why are RSS feeds important to blogging?

RSS Feeds help writers generate content ideas by knowing what is going on it their industry at any moment.
Allows readers to receive frequent updates on content that is posted on any specific blog.

Still have questions? If so, click here to view a video.

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or shoot us an email or fill out the online submission form.

Contacting Compendium ....

Monday, March 30, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Are you wondering the best way to get your questions answered ...

In order to better serve our clients, we’ve created two email addresses to answer client requests.

help@compendiumblogware.com: email this account when you have a question on the actual software (for example, if you are experiencing an issue within the platform, if you don’t know how to do something, you want to change your CTA, you want to add a user, you have an enhancement request, etc.).
clientsuccess@compendiumblogware.com: email this account when you have a question regarding your blogging program, or if need coaching (for example, how does my content look, how long should my posts be, how can I get more content ideas, what should my CTA be, how can I increase my traffic, Google Analytics, etc.).

By creating these emails it allows for us to better serve your needs and get back to you quicker. Instead of having one dedicated manager, you now have a whole team behind you, working to make your program great.

Also, you can always check out our help page that has answers to a lot of frequently asked questions. Click here and search for your question today!

Product Support Team Highlighted for Ada Lovelace Day

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

With a special thanks to fellow co-worker PJ Hinton, for writing a blog post about our Product Support Team here at Compendium!

He wrote his blog post because today is Ada Lovelace Day, which is "the international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology".

Get to know your Support Team a little better, be sure to check out PJ's post.

You asked....and we listened!!!

Monday, March 9, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

As many of you might know, last week Compendium released the ability for users to select TimeZone and schedule blog posts....

These added features go hand-in-hand with one another!!! In order to schedule posts you must select your TimeZone. Once your TimeZone is selected you can start scheduling out your posts.

Why ....

Vacation. You can still blog even when your not there
Writing a series. We have a lot of clients that break-up their posts, this way you can write them all at once, but make them live at different times
To me the most important ... I tend to slack off and not blog regularly - now I can write 2 or 3 blog posts for the week and set the dates I want them to go live. So now I only have to worry about it once a week!

Have you set your TimeZone? If not, click here! Questions about scheduling a blog post...click here!

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or shoot us an email or fill out the online submission form.

Research, Implement - Blogging

What I’m all about …

Get Your Questions Answered at Thursday's Webinar!

CNAME - What is it? How to set it up?

Hats Off to Fuseworks Studios

Put a Spark in Your Blogging Program

Designer Role - What does this mean?

Customize Your Blog - Write Your Own CSS

FAQ ... Learn some of the most frequently asked questions!

Google Analytics - Get Read Only Access

Keep Blogging!

Need Help?

Are you stuck? Don't know what to write about?

What do I do if I've forgotten my password?

Social Media Icons - Add them to your blog

Google Alerts! What & How?

Understanding Google Analytics

RSS? What & Why?

Contacting Compendium ....

Product Support Team Highlighted for Ada Lovelace Day

You asked....and we listened!!!

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