Create a free website with Yola

Seventh-Graders Ace Their Yola Assignment

Back in March, math teacher James Hochdorfer gave his 7th-grade algebra class at Classical Magnet School in Connecticut an unusual assignment.

He asked the 12- and 13-year-olds to make their own websites with Yola.com, to show they understood the math concepts they’d been learning all year.

“They started to panic,” explains James, who’s been teaching for seven years. “They wondered how they’d be able to do it all in just a month,” he says. “Then they quickly saw how easy it was to work with Yola to make a really awesome website.” The kids didn’t have any special technical skills to start with, worked on PCs, and finished their Yola sites in just four weeks of class time.

It looks like James’s kids had a ton of fun building their sites, from choosing templates to using tools like our HTML, text, and picture widgets. We especially love the animations on some of their pages.

“They really got a kick out of the voki and animate widgets. But overall, they were most impressed with the embedding feature,” says James.

James has a few recommendations to start your own class site-building project:

• First, give a lesson on design and making the site look good (space, balance, simplicity, consistency, no clip-art craziness)
• Introduce the Yola site builder and go through it with them
• Focus on learning one aspect of the site builder at a time, then practice it
• About halfway through the process, touch base and give critiques
• Have them do peer editing as they progress

We think this was a brilliant assignment for middle-school students. “The motto of our school is ‘We learn not for school, but for life,’” says James. “I believe the kids learned skills in communicating, writing, problem solving, and a little bit of programming, too.”

Take a look at their sites, enjoy, and get inspired. The possibilities are endless.

What do you teachers out there think? Is this an assignment you’d do in your own classroom?

Leave a comment on the blog and let us know.

Labels: Community | 3 Comments »

Jump Start Your Job Search with A Resume Website
6 Tips to Help You Stand Out

If you’re looking for a new job these days, you already know you’ve got to find fresh ways to stand out from the masses.

To get noticed in 2011 and beyond, it’s great to be online. LinkedIn and Facebook are great. But making your own resume website can set you apart from the rest in a very powerful way – and kick off your job search with a bang.

A site gives you a powerful way to show off all your work, in depth, with personality, instead of just handing over a static list on tasteful cream paper.

We’ve seen everyone from brand-new grads to mid-career experts make awesome sites.  And we’ve got some great tips for yours, so read on.

1. Help your future boss get to know you, quickly.   Keep your navigation simple, and make it easy for anyone to get to what’s important about you. Most people can stick with the following:

• Home page: Your (short) bio. A  30-50 word summary of your experience (think of this as your cover letter to the world). A great-looking headshot.
• Resume page: Your job experience, training, education, references, with as many links as possible. After all, this is the web, so use its powers!
• Portfolio or projects page:  Here’s where you can really shine and go above and beyond. Depending on what you do, this could mean a photo gallery, creative projects, career highlights, or if you’re just out of school, volunteer stints or internships. Videos, graphics, a link to your professional blog – it’s up to you.
• Contact page:  Your contact info. Keep it secure – include your email address and phone, but don’t add anything confidential. Even better – use our Forms Widget to create a “Contact me” form.
• Testimonials, kudos, recommendations page:  Don’t wait for them to ask for references. Lay it all out here. Then let them know they can contact you if they’d like to talk to any of your references.

2. Make a good first impression. Pick a font that’s readable and professional. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just out of school, your font is your voice. So choose one that speaks well for you. No Comic Sans. No script or handwriting fonts. Try Times New Roman, Cambria, Calibri, or another simple, cleanly designed font.

3. Show off your talent. If you’re a writer, a designer, an artist, an architect, or a landscaper, add photos or sketches of your work, before-and-after images of your successes, or samples of your printed work. But even if doesn’t make sense to include images of your work, you can still add logos of companies you’ve worked for or the university you just graduated from.

4. Get your point across clearly. Write simply. Strike a direct, professional, trustworthy tone of voice. Keep it easy to read. Keep it short! Then have someone you trust proof your entire site. Twice.

5. Make a name for yourself. Get a custom domain name.  A memorable, unique domain name can really set you apart, and add professional cachet to your site. You can also use it to create a Yola Mail address, or use our Forms Widget to make a “Contact me” form.

6. Wow them with your expertise. Start a job blog, post about your career interests, show your knowledge – and gain SEO benefits, too.

7. Keep on going! Creating your resume site is just the first step. Add your site’s URL to your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook profiles. Post it on job boards. Send your link out to potential employers and consulting gigs.

Yola makes it easy to get your resume site up in a flash. In fact, most Yola members tell us they created their sites in just one day.

So go for it. Make your own powerhouse resume website. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Labels: Community | 6 Comments »

Announcing the Yola Web Stars Contest!

Is your Yola site a Web Star? Enter it in our first Yola Web Stars contest for the chance to find out—and to share your success story with the world.

We love seeing the beautiful, cool, and effective sites you create. We started Yola Web Stars to celebrate your efforts and your successes–and to inspire others. So tell us how your Yola site has helped you grow your business. How it’s changed your life. How it helped you promote your cause. Let us know how you made it all happen with Yola, and get the applause you deserve.

Recognition is great. Prizes are even better. The top three Yola websites will take home terrific rewards, including a free year-long Yola Silver membership.

First Place prizes include:

• 64GB iPad2
• 1 FREE web press release for your business
• Your website featured on the Yola home page and our blog
• $100 Google AdWords credit to get traffic for your website
• 15 royalty-free photos from Fotolia
• Yola Web Stars Winner badge to place on your website

Second Place prizes include:

• 16GB iPad2
• 1 FREE web press release for your business
• Your website featured on our blog
• $50 Google AdWords credit to get traffic for your website
• Yola Web Stars Winner badge to place on your website

Third Place prizes include:

• 4 GB Kindle
• 1 FREE web press release for your business
• Your website featured on our blog
• $50 Google AdWords credit to get traffic for your website

Plus, starting June 6, Yola customers can vote on their favorites to elect a Yola Voter’s Choice site. And ten Notable Websites will receive a free one-year Yola Silver membership each.

So, if you have your own Yola success story, enter Yola Web Stars today and share your accomplishments with the world!

To enter, send us:

• Your website URL/address
• A few good photos of your business
• A 100-word paragraph or 30- to 60-second video that tells how your website led to your success

We can’t wait to see your entry. Best of luck!

Labels: Community,Competitions | 5 Comments »

Yola’s 4 years old

This month we’re celebrating Yola’s 4th birthday!

In the last four years, 5 million customers worldwide have created their website using Yola. We are thrilled that you chose us over the other site builders and we thank you for your support. We would not be here without you.

As a special thanks for supporting us over the years we are celebrating by giving you a $10 off coupon* to use on your next purchase.

I want to highlight a few key features we are particularly proud of creating, for you:

• Over 100 professional designs for customizing your site, to suit your business or personal needs
• A wide variety of widgets you can easily drag and drop including maps, appointment booking, PayPal and more
• Over 11 Million royalty-free, professionally taken, photos from Fotolia available for your use
• CSS editing to give you maximum flexibility to customize your site
• Ability to build, customize and launch your site in 6 different languages

Our award winning 24/7 customer support team is always ready to answer your questions and we are proud to have a vibrant community of customers who actively engage with us on our blog and Facebook pages. Once again, thank you for being a Yola customer and I am very proud to be part of a team that is working hard to make your online business become more successful!

Warm wishes,

Vinny Lingham

CEO, Yola.com

P.S Don’t forget to use your $10 coupon before March 31st, 2011!

*$10 coupon can be used towards the purchase of Yola Premier, Yola Silver and Yola Bronze. The credit may also be used to renew existing custom domains. This offer does not include Yola Mail or Photo Credits. Discount will automatically be applied at checkout, coupon code is ‘yola4′. Offer ends Thursday 31st March 2011, 11:59pm PST.

Labels: Community,News | No Comments »

Contest Winners Announced; Five Featured Websites

We know you have all been eagerly awaiting the results of the “Show off your Yola site” Facebook contest. We didn’t mean to keep you in suspense but with over 3,000 entries submitted, our panel of judges had their work cut out for them. There were so many fantastic entries but in the end we selected our winners from among the top 100 vote getters.

The best part is, this week, instead of one Featured Website, you get five! We hope you can draw inspiration from them as our judges panel did.

The Grand Prize goes to Down Syndrome Illawarra! We were all moved by this organization and their mission to bring families affected by Downs together. Their site is well organized and provides a wealth of useful information to their site visitors. We also loved the sense of community you can feel throughout the website.

Our first runner up is Ginger Kelly Studio. The panel was in awe of the visual design of this website. We were instantly transported to the fantasy world created by artist, illustrator and fashion designer, Lauren Kelly Small. While she may deal in fantasy, she also knows how to get down to business. The integration of her Cafe Press store is seamless and her custom navigation buttons are graphically stunning while allowing you to move around the website with ease.

Our second runner up is Julie K Photo. The judges were impressed by Julie Kalua’s use of her photos as links, transforming her site navigation into a photo gallery. We also like the customized social media buttons she integrated into her site.

Our third runner up is Naomi Frost. Her whimsical logo stole the heart of one of our judges and the rest of us agreed it makes this site truly stand out from the crowd. Aside from the logo, this site offers a professional and easy to follow navigation menu. As her menu suggests, we were captivated by her work.

Our fourth runner up is Little Sticks , a long time favorite of ours. They blew the judges away with their clean and simple design. We love the way it blends sophistication with fun and the dual navigation menu makes browsing their online store a breeze.

Congratulations to all our winners, you will be contacted individually to arrange shipment of your prizes very soon! Also, a huge thanks to everyone who entered! We truly appreciate you sharing your sites with us and look forward to continue being your website building partner.

Labels: Community,Competitions,Featured Websites | 3 Comments »

Announcing Yola Staff Build a Business Website Day

Yola is thrilled to announce our first “Build a Business Website” day. Later this month, every Yola staff member will build a website for a local small business still in need of a web presence. We understand that no matter how easy we make website building, some businesses will still need a helping hand to get online. We’re excited to both serve our local communities and to show off our skills in our Sitebuilder.

We do have an ulterior motive for this project. We figure the best way to stay in tune with the needs of our small business customers is to talk to them about what they need from their websites and then try to build it for them.  We expect this exercise will result in some impressive websites, but we are also prepared to learn valuable information about how we can improve our services to better meet the needs of small businesses.

It’s also vital for us to try and look at the Sitebuilder through your eyes. Many of us spend each day immersed in very specific aspects of our Sitebuilder and sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. We are looking forward to experiencing the entire site building process just as you do. Our staff is busy selecting their small businesses and checking out some of our best Yola built websites for inspiration. Wish us luck, we can’t wait to show you what we come up with!

Labels: Community,Small Business | 10 Comments »

Secret Santa Shops Revealed

Yeah, we’re just like your neighbors who still haven’t taken their holiday decorations down, we celebrated the holidays well into the new year! We had so much fun shopping your Yola websites for Secret Santa gifts to share with each other and we had even more fun opening them just before our holiday celebration!

We wanted to share some of our favorite gifts from your websites, and give a shout out to all the elves that helped make our Secret Santa gift exchange possible.

You can never go wrong with customized artwork. Pete got a portrait commissioned for his very own cartoon character from DeeKay Art.

Dave will forever be reminded of the little engine that could when he sees his Choo Choo print from Poochie Prints.

Food is always a hit, so Jack and the Bean Soup and Biltong Bites were both a popular choice.

The ladies were pampered with everything from jewelry to bath salts from stores like Apple and Ivy, Vivenne Kosviner Jewelry, Shipibo Spirit and Alieé.

Men are so hard to shop for, but we found some creative gifts for them from custom graffiti T-shirts from Gideon’s Graffiti to coffee mugs from Seashell Studio as well as a sensational cookbook that promises quick, easy and delicious meals from Quickies on the Dinner Table.

We loved the creativity and variety we found shopping your Yola websites and the biggest challenge we had was staying under budget and not buying out the stores!

Labels: Community,Small Business | 2 Comments »

Your website is hanging on our wall!

We love our customers and the websites they make, so Pete, one of our founding engineers, felt inspired one day and wrote a script that he used to take screenshots of over 30,000 Yola built websites. He then compiled more than 10,000 of the images captured into this mosaic of the Yola logo to remind us of your awesomeness every day. The finished mosaic was printed on a huge canvas and is proudly hanging over Stacey’s desk in our SF office so everyone who walks through the door can bask in your glory.

Take a closer look, maybe you’ll see your site in there!

Labels: Community | 21 Comments »

Secret Santa’s Shop Yola Sites

Lots of offices host Secret Santa gift exchanges, but not many offices have millions of amazing small business websites to use as their virtual shopping mall!

Yola’s Secret Santa gift exchange has a twist, we are only shopping Yola built websites for gifts to exchange at our company holiday party.

The rules are simple, gifts must cost no more than $20 and must be bought from an online store built using Yola.

If you have a Yola built website with an online store containing products in the $10-$20 range, our Secret Santa’s are eager for shopping suggestions. Please post a link to your recommended products and our Secret Santa’s just may shop your website!

Even the best Santa’s can use a hand, so please help us with our Christmas shopping. We can’t wait to see all the loot we discover in your amazing business websites!

Labels: Community,Small Business | 11 Comments »