Create a free website with Yola

Customize your page heading

You asked for it, and now we deliver!  Our developers have been working hard to bring you even more customization options for your page header.

On Monday we released our new Edit Heading tool.  Now you can customize your page heading in new and exciting ways.  Experiment with adding bold, italic, or underlines.  Change the font size, the text alignment, or even accessorize your header text with colors.

For our advanced users out there, we have even added a way you can upload your own font.  Clicking on the upload button next to the font selector lets you upload your own True Type Font (.ttf) files.

Explore and find out what works best for your style and company’s image.

Just move your mouse over your page heading and click on the “Edit Heading” link.

Unfortunately, Microsoft Internet Explorer does not currently support uploaded fonts.  For the optimal experience, we recommend upgrading to Firefox or Chrome.

Labels: Product,Releases | 3 Comments »

Yola Roadmap

We often get asked, “what is Yola working on?” The answer is: tons!

We have a very exciting couple of quarters ahead of us and we wanted to share a piece of that excitement with you. Here is a sneak peek into what you can look forward to seeing:

Soon

• New container widget for adding borders, boxes and containers to your site. You can use the custom container widget to help spice up your layout and gain greater control over the presentation of things on the page. You will be able to easily customize the border, background, and drop-shadow of the container. Once you have styled it, you can easily drop other widgets inside!
• New Flash widget for displaying Flash files on your site.
• Better header editing! We will be giving you greater control over the way the header text displays. Soon you will be able to change the color, size and font of your page heading.
• Form widget improvement: adding a CAPTCHA field. Finally relief from spammers submitting bogus entries in your contact form. The CAPTCHA “human test” will help prevent robots from submitting things to your contact us form. If you like robots, you can always turn this off.

Next Several Months

• My Store & eCommerce! A new eCommerce package is coming. Included will be all the tools people need to create and manage an online store. You will get a full suite of tools including inventory management and a brand new online store widget. Selling things online will be as simple as 1-2-3.
• Better banner editing! We will be updating the banner editor to make it easier to crop and edit your banners images. This will include adding Picnik image editing, as well as new defaults and Fotolia integration.
• New styles!
• And what better way to show off these new styles, but with a quicker, sleeker style selection tool. Goodbye small preview window, hello instant, full-screen page preview!

Longer-term

• More form widget improvements including a new survey template and the ability to create mandatory fields.
• Google Docs integration! Soon adding Google Doc into your pages will be as easy as dragging a widget onto your page. It will let you embed text, spreadsheets, presentations, calendars and drawings!
• Mobile sites! Using optimized styles for smart phones and mobile devices, you will be able to publish mobile versions of your site. With no additional work, you can be sure your site looks as good on a smart phone as it does on your desktop.

And this is just a taste; there is so much more! Things are changing all the time and but these are just some of the great features we are excited to be able to bring to you. We will keep you posted!

Thanks everyone!

Labels: Product,Releases | 3 Comments »

Faster set up—more polished websites

As small business owners, we know there is never enough time in the day. Keeping that knowledge at the forefront of our thinking helped to inspire our new site set up. In just a couple simple steps you can create a more polished looking website than ever before.

Based on the “website category” you select, we generate pictures and content designed to align with your business needs. This means that even if you don’t have time to customize your website right away, there’s no need to delay in getting your business online. Simply add your company name and address—we’ll take care of the rest! Changing the pictures and text we have provided is quick and easy, so you can customize it a little or a lot.

Aside from improved content that better suits your business we have also introduced an updated default style and modernized the layout of the homepage. Instead of generating 4 or 5 pages based on your business needs, we have given you an attractive layout that allows you to put the most important aspects of your business on the homepage—front and center, where it belongs! Of course we still encourage you to add new pages and expand on your content as your visitors will surely want to learn more about all you have to offer.

Adding our social media widgets to every page we populate for your website enables your visitors to tell all their friends and colleagues about your website which in turn will drive more traffic to your business. Even if you don’t maintain a social media presence for your business, your site visitors can still spread the word on your behalf—who doesn’t love free marketing?

Finally we’ve added “instant help” to your Sitebuilder. This tool can answer nearly any question you may have while customizing your website without having to break your workflow. Head to “Help” in the upper right hand corner of your Sitebuilder and select “Instant Help” and remember, we’re here to help your business be a success!

Labels: Releases | No Comments »

3 new widgets make going social a cinch

We’ve made going social a cinch with 3 Social Media widgets in the Sitebuilder. You can add buttons to “Tweet this,” “Like” that and “Google +1″, all with the ease of the simple drag and drop you love about the Sitebuilder.

The Google +1 button lets people who love your content recommend it on Google search, and helps people discover relevant content—such as your website—from the people they already know and trust.

Content recommended by friends and family is generally more relevant than content from strangers. For example, your friends may have the same taste in music as you do, have their finger on the social pulse, or know where the best shopping bargains are to be had—and so you’ll visit websites that they +1. For more information about +1, and how it can improve your SEO, check out Google’s FAQ’s for the +1 button.

Here’s how to add the Google +1 button to your Yola site:

1. The Google +1 Widget is located in the “Social” folder in the Sidebar. Drag and drop it onto your page.
2. Click “Edit” on the top-left corner of the widget to edit the layout, margin, alignment and language of the button. You can also choose whether to display the number of people who have clicked the button, as well as the URL of the +1.
3. When you are finished, click “Save”.
4. Save your site, and then click on the green “Publish to the web” button to make your changes live.

The Twitter and Facebook widgets also allow you to choose from a few different button styles so you can select the one best suited to the design of your website. You can also edit other details to complete the customization.

To customize the Tweet This button click “Edit” on the top-left corner of the widget after you’ve added it to your website. You will see the following editing options:

• Button: In this menu, you can edit the layout, change the margin and change the alignment of the widget.
• Tweet Text: This is the text that will be included in your visitor’s tweet when they share content from your website.
• URL: This is the URL of the page you’d like to share. You can type in the URL of your site, or you can type in the URL of a specific page. Alternatively, you can set it to “Automatic”, and the widget will use the URL for the page it’s on.
• Language: You can choose the language that you’d like the Tweet This icon to display in on your site.

If you want to share your favorite Twitter accounts with your visitors, you can recommend up to two. These will display after users have shared content from your site. When you’re finished setting up your button, click “Save”.

To customize the Facebook “Like” button click “Edit” on the top-left corner of the widget after you’ve added it to your website. You will see the following editing options:

• Margin: This is the spacing around the widget.
• Alignment: You can align the widget to the left, to the center, or to the right.
• URL to Like: This defaults to the page you add the widget to, and you can change this URL to another page of your site.
• Layout style: You can choose how the number of likes your page has had is displayed.
• Width: The width of the widget, in pixels.
• Show faces: You can select whether to show the profile picture of the visitors who have liked your page.
• Font: You can choose the font of your “Like” button – there are six options to choose from.
• Color Scheme: Choose the color of the like count and button.

We hope you’ll enjoy the benefits of going social combined with the ease of the Sitebuilder. Now there’s no reason not to spread the word about your business or organization across all the major social networks!

Labels: Releases,Widget Wednesday | 11 Comments »

Try Out Yola’s New, Free Google Chrome App

For all you Google Chrome users out there, we’re excited to announce the rollout of our brand-new Chrome web app.

We designed the app to make it easier for you to get to your Yola site from Chrome, pronto – and we think you’re going to love it.

Once you download the Yola app from the Google Chrome store, the fun begins. You’ll always see your Yola app in Chrome – and when you click on it, you go straight to your MyYola page.

So if you’re using Chrome, get on over to the Google Chrome store and download the free Yola app today. Then rate our app in the store and tell us what you think!

Labels: Product,Releases,Small Business | 2 Comments »

10 New Premium Styles have arrived!

You asked, we listened and delivered. We just released 10 new Premium Styles in the Sitebuilder sure to help you keep your website looking fresh. All of our styles are customizable and can be altered to fit in with your small business needs. If getting your website published to the web quickly is your top priority, you just may find one that suits your needs as is.

You can play with these new styles by heading to “Style” then “Change Style” in the Sitebuilder. Select “New” in the upper left hand corner of the Style selector to filter to all the new styles from this release. Yola Silver Members have full access to all of these styles. If you haven’t opted to upgrade yet, you can still experiment with them, you just won’t be able to publish your site until you upgrade to Yola Silver.

To see if the style works for your business or organization we suggest you create a test site and play around with them a bit. To learn all about the ways you can make these styles tailored to suit your needs check out our Personalize your Style Tutorial and our blog post with tips to design it your way!

Labels: Releases | 4 Comments »

Widget Wednesday: Tumblr, Meet Yola

Great news! If you’re blogging on Tumblr, you can now integrate your Tumblr blog into your Yola site with our brand-new, easy-to-use widget.

If you haven’t started blogging on Tumblr, it’s a great reason to start—especially since research shows that a business blog can help you:

• Build community and expand your reach to current and new customers.
• Connect with a wider audience and share your expertise.
• Raise your SEO ranking so more potential customers see your site.

Pretty good stuff, right? And all great reasons to check out the new Tumblr widget. It couldn’t be easier. All you do is drag and drop the widget, and your Tumblr blog (every single post) will be seamlessly integrated into your website.

The new Tumblr widget makes it easy to add these great new features to your site:

• Visitors can page through every blog post you’ve ever written.
• Your site instantly updates each time you post to your Tumblr blog.
• Three design style choices to work with your site’s look and feel.
• Your Tumblr image and video sizes configured to fit the dimensions of your Yola site – automatically.

So go for it—if you’ve got a Tumblr blog, try out the new widget to get your followers to your Yola site and vice versa. Just go into edit mode on your site, and you can quickly access the Tumblr widget in the Widget Collections menu to the right of your page. If you don’t have a Tumblr blog yet, get one started now.

What do you think about the new Tumblr widget? Are you going to start your blog? We’d love to know. Please leave a comment right here on our blog and tell us all about it.

Labels: Releases,Widget Wednesday | 11 Comments »

Create A Full Photo Gallery On Your Site – In A Flash

You asked for it, and it’s here. Our new Picture Gallery widget is a smooth, easy path to creating a full photo gallery on your Yola site.

No more dragging and dropping individual photos and resizing them on your site, or using a third party application to create a photo gallery. With the Picture Gallery widget, you simply drag and drop the Picture Gallery widget onto your site, select the images you want included in your gallery from your uploaded images or upload new images and you’re done! You can click the “Edit” button to change your thumbnail style, add new pictures, or edit your margins.

The Yola Picture Gallery widget is a great way to quickly add larger collections of photos to your Yola site. You can use it to:

• Show off your work with depth and impact.
• Demonstrate your results with before-and-after image galleries.
• Share pictures of events you’ve hosted.

The possibilities are endless. The features are easy to use. The benefits are huge.

Our new Picture Gallery widget lets you:

• Create a simple, elegant photo gallery quickly.
• Automatically add large sets of photos to your site in batches, rather than dragging and dropping pictures individually.
• Allow visitors to see your images as easily as possible.
• Add hover caption text to your images to identify people, products, or processes (captions appear when your visitor’s cursor hovers over the photo).
• Edit, reorder, add or remove pictures from your gallery, quickly and easily.
• Choose from among four great styles to custom-fit your site’s design.

Want one more reason to try out the Picture Gallery widget? When you add fresh content to your site (like a new, easy-to-manage photo gallery), you can increase visitors and page views.

Check out the new Picture Gallery widget – and add even more impact to your site today!

Labels: Releases | 25 Comments »

Grow your customer lists with our new mailing list widget

Hi everyone,

We’re pleased to announce our new Constant Contact mailing list widget, which provides an easy and efficient way to collect your visitors’ emails directly from your website. Also included are the SafeSubscribe™ and SafeUnsubscribe™ features that encourage signups by assuring your customers they have complete control over their subscriptions.

Once you’ve started collecting emails and growing your list, you can take advantage of the email marketing Constant Contact features, like sending regular newsletters, promotional emails, and much more.

Check it out! Drag and drop the mailing list widget under our “Forms & Appointments” category in Sitebuilder, sign up or log in to Constant Contact from the widget, and begin growing your mailing list today.

Labels: Product,Releases | 1 Comment »