Mac SEO Blog

In our last post we looked at the basics of blogging and how to get started with your own blog in EverWeb. In this post, we will be looking more in depth at how you blog, and how to make the most of EverWeb’s blogging feature so you get the best out of your blogging investment!

The Blog Posts Page

EverWeb’s Blog Post page is where you create and manage your blog posts. In this way, the ‘posts’ page is unique. It is comprised of four sections:

The Blog Post List

When you click on the ‘posts’ page, in the Web Page List, you will enter the heart of EverWeb’s blogging environment. In the top section of the posts page is the Blog Post List. Here is where you can see listed all of the blog posts that you have created. It is also where you can create a new post, delete posts, as well as add in SEO to your posts and import blog posts from iWeb and WordPress using the Settings Cog icon.

Once you have created a blog, you can also set the date and time that you want time stamped on the post, or set the publish date and time to the same as your website publishing date/time.. Simply click on the blog post’s date field to set this up. If you do not want the blog post to be published yet, e.g. if you are still working on your post, then you can click in the Draft checkbox. Notice also on the far left hand side you have red and green traffic lights that indicate whether the post has been updated since it was last published.

The Blog Post Editor Window

The heart of your blog post is your text and the Blog Post Editor Window is where you create your content. You can use the Blog Post Toolbar to style your post. If you are using EverWeb 4.0 or higher, you can even use Paragraph Styles in your post. You can also include images within your post by drag and dropping them in to the Blog Post Editor. When you do this, you will see an Image Toolbar that allows you to add ALT Text to the image and set its alignment as In-line or break text. The Blog Post Editor Window also lets you add in video and audio files using the Video icon in the Toolbar.

The Blog Post Preview Window

When you add your content in to the Blog Post Editor Window, you will notice that it is also displayed as a preview in the Blog Post Preview Window which sits directly below the Blog Post Editor Window. You can think of the Blog Posts Preview Window as a kind of Master Page in which your content sits. When you create your first post, you will notice that the Preview Window contains a Header, date at the top of the Preview page and the EverWeb logo at the bottom. All these features will appear on all of your blog posts. You can add, delete and rearrange objects in the Preview Window as desired. For example, if you add your company logo to the Preview Window, it will appear on all of your posts. If e.g. you remove the EverWeb logo from the Preview Window, it will not appear on any of your posts. Therefore, use the Preview Window to format and customize the look of your blog itself if you want to. Alternatively, you can still use a Master Page instead if you prefer.

Blog Post Settings

In the Blog Posts Preview Window section above, we mentioned styling and customizing it to get the look that you want for your blog. Many of the customization settings can be found in the Blog Post Settings column that runs down the right hand side of the posts page. Here you can customize the fonts used for the posts header and date fields.. Additionally you can also add an image to the post and define the colors that you want to use for any hyperlinks. You can also create Navigation Links within the blog post to make it easy to navigate to the next or previous post as well as to the blog’s Index page. The last part of the Blog Posts Settings section is for adding a Comments Engine, such as Disqus or FaceBook Comments, if you want to allow your visitors to add comments about what you have posted.

SEO and Blog Posts

The last important part of the blog posts page it to remember that you can add in SEO to your posts. The post’s header will be used, and you should add keywords in to the first paragraph of your post if it is suitable to do so. If it is not, please just create good content instead. Google will prefer that to you adding keywords just for the sake of SEO.

In addition, you can also add keywords and summaries to your blog posts. Select the blog post that you want to apply SEO to in the Blog Posts List. Next, click on the left hand bottom side of the Blog Posts List. Choose the Post Options… menu option. You will now see a dialog box where you can add in a short summary description of your post, as well as Keywords relevant to your post. Once you have added these in, click on OK to finish.

Adding posts to your blog is super easy and super flexible! In our next post we will be looking at the blog page and the archive page.

Blogging has been a long standing feature of EverWeb since its EverWeb 2.0 debut back in 2016. Starting your own blog is easy to do. Just click on Add Page from the EverWeb Toolbar, then select either the ‘Blank’ or ‘Blank’ Responsive page in the list of themes down the left hand side of the dialog box. On the right hand side of the dial box click on the ‘blog’ page then click on ‘Select’ and you’ve got a ready made blog structure!

Should You Be Blogging?

The idea of having your own blog is often a tempting one, and there are a lot of advantages in doing so. There are also a lot of things that you should know before you start that may give you a better sense of perspective about blogging. Here are some of the good reasons to start a blog…

• Creative Expression – A blog allows you to share your thoughts, ideas, and expertise with the world.
• Potential Income – Through ads, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and digital products, blogging can generate revenue.
• Builds Authority – Establishes you as an expert in your niche, helping with career opportunities and networking.
• Improves Writing Skills – Regular blogging enhances writing, research, and communication abilities.
• Flexible & Low Cost – Can be started with minimal investment and managed on your own schedule.
• Community Building – Connect with like-minded individuals and engage in discussions.

And here are some things worth considering before you embark on your own blog…

• Time-Consuming – Requires consistent effort to research, write, and promote content.
• Slow Growth – Building an audience and monetizing a blog takes time and patience.
• Technical Challenges – May require some knowledge of SEO, web design, and digital marketing.
• Competition – Many blogs exist, so standing out requires unique and high-quality content.
• Content Fatigue – Constantly coming up with fresh ideas can be exhausting.

After weighing up the pro’s and con’s, if you have decided that blogging is beneficial to you or your business, read on!

Plan Ahead To Save Time and Effort…

One of the main things you will soon learn as a blogger is that planning ahead is going to pay dividends quickly. Planning your blog topics in advance, as well as deciding the publishing frequency of your posts are key to successful blogging.

When it comes to planning what you are going to post about, create a list of topics that you want to blog about. If you run out of ideas quickly, you may have to consider if blogging is right for you. Also remember that when planning your blog posts, to keep in mind your audience. You want your posts to be read, but if they are not relevant to your target audience, then you might be wasting your time!

When planning your content, remember that there is usually Evergreen content that you can use. Evergreen content is content such as anniversaries and other yearly, or seasonal events. This kind of content as well as subjects that you can always talk about e.g. starting your first website project in EverWeb, will always be topics that you can rely on year in year out.

The second point is to determine your blogging frequency. Decide what is a good frequency. Depending on your business, this could be anything from daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly… It is up to you to decide what is appropriate. Once you have decided what is a good publishing frequency, decide on the day of the week, and time of day if relevant, that you will publish on. Humans are creatures of habit and like regularity so choosing the same day of the week for example, to publish on will tune your audience in to be ready for your next post each week.

A Word About Commenting

Allowing the visitors to your blog to be allowed to comment on what you post is something that you may or may not want. This will probably be something that you already will know whether you want to do or not before you start blogging.

Allowing comments on your posts can be very useful, but it can also be time consuming and there’s always potential for spammers and abusive commenters. So if you choose to allow comments, you will have to moderate those comments.

If Commenting is for you, EverWeb allows you to set up with Disqus, or with Facebook Comments. The EverWeb User Manual has full details about how to create accounts for either of these Comment Engines and how to link them to your blog.

Now that the we have discussed why you would want to blog and how to prepare properly for blogging, let’s turn our attention to what exactly a blog is…

What Is a Blog?

A Blog is an acronym for web-log, a way to publish written content, often in an informal or conversational way. Since its initial inception, blogging has grown and changed, but at its heart has a few principles:

• A blog usually consists of a main summary page, blog posts an an archive page
• A blog is usually updated on a regular basis
• Blog posts are usually displayed in chronological order
• Blogs are often used as a way to interact with a community
• Blogs are typically, but not exclusively, used for long form written text, but can include images and other media.

How EverWeb’s Blog Is Structured

As you have just read, a blog is something different to the regular pages of your site, and you can see this when you create your own blog in EverWeb. The blog page is actually a directory, so when you add it to the Web Page List in your project, you will see the following:

• blog: This is the directory page that displays a summary of your most recent blog posts in chronological order, with the most recent post displayed first
• Posts: This page is where you create the posts for your blog. The Posts page is where you will probably spend most of your time when you are blogging.
• Archive: The last page in the blog is for your archive. This page is identical to the blog page (but without the ability to link back to the archive page), but is typically used to display all of your blog posts, not just the most recent ones.

You should now have everything in place to start your blog! In our next post, we will take a look at the blog posts page in detail, as well as covering the Main and Archive pages!

One of the best things about EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget is that it can be used for almost any type of contact form that you could imagine. For example, you can create flexible, easy to use, survey forms which are great for finding out from your customers what they think of your current products or services, as well as they would like to see for future products and services.

In this post, we will be looking at how to design a survey form in EverWeb and what to look out for along the way…

Getting Started with Designing Your Survey…

When designing your own survey, there are a lot of things to consider. Here is a run down of the basics of how best to create your own survey.

1. Define The Purpose of The Survey

Before designing your survey, be clear about what you want to achieve, for example, are you looking for feedback on customer satisfaction, product preferences, or website usability? Having a clear objective will help you ask relevant questions and keep the survey focused.

2. Keep It Short and Simple

People are more likely to complete shorter surveys. Aim to ask only essential questions that directly relate to your survey’s goal. A survey with 5–10 questions is ideal for keeping users engaged without overwhelming them.

3. Ask the Right Questions

Your questions should clear, concise, and unambiguous. Use different types of questions depending on the information you need:

• Multiple Choice: Great for quick answers and quantifiable data.
• Rating Scales: Ideal for gauging satisfaction or the likelihood of taking action.
• Open-Ended: Useful for collecting detailed feedback. This type of question should be limited to avoid the form completer getting ‘survey fatigue’.

4. Use Logical Question Flow

Group similar questions together and use logical progression wherever possible. For example, start with broader questions, then move to more specific ones. Ensure that one question naturally leads to the next if you can as this creates a better user experience.

5. Personalize the Survey

Where possible, personalize questions based on user behavior or demographics. For example, if a user has made a purchase, ask questions related to their buying experience. Personalization makes the survey feel more relevant to the respondent.

6. Make It Visually Appealing

Design matters. A clean, simple, and visually appealing survey increases completion rates. Avoid clutter and use whitespace, clear fonts, and attractive color schemes. Make sure your survey is also mobile-friendly, as users may access it on a smartphone or tablet.

8. Test Your Survey

Before launching, test your survey on a small group of users or colleagues. Ensure that it flows smoothly, the questions are clear, and that there are no other issues. Gather feedback on how easy it is to complete.

9. Incentivize Completion

Offer an incentive for completing the survey, such as a discount, a give away, or other reward. Incentives can boost completion rates but ensure the value aligns with the effort required.

10. Place the Survey at Key Interaction Points

Run the survey at times when users are most likely to respond, such as after a purchase on your site.

11. Respect Privacy

Ensure your users know that their data is safe and that the survey complies with privacy regulations such as GDPR. Offer the option to remain anonymous, especially if the survey covers a sensitive subject.

Building Your Survey Form in EverWeb

Once you have designed your survey, you can now translate it in to a contact form in EverWeb. If you want to store the data that your form will collect in an easy manner, we recommend that you purchase EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon:

1. Start by going to the page in your site where you want to add the survey.
2. Click on the Widgets tab in the Inspector Window and drag and drop the Contact Form Advanced widget on to the page.
3. First complete the ‘Email Address to Send Form To’ field.
4. If you are using EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, select it in the ‘Contact Forms Enhanced Add-on field.
5. Complete the remaining fields in the section until you get to the Form Submission Settings section.
6. Complete the fields inn the Form Submission Settings section, until you get to the Form Controls section.

Form Controls: The Key To Your Survey Form

The core to building your survey form lies in the Form Controls that you use in the form. Form controls allow you to define the fields of your form how you want them. For example, click on the Name field in the form control list, then click on the Control Type dropdown list. You will see all of the field types displayed for you to choose from.

For Multiple Choice or ratings questions, use either the Radio Button control, or a dropdown menu control, if you are asking a yes/no question, or when only one choice is allowed. If you want to offer your form filler the option to select more than one response option, use the Checkbox control type.

If you are asking an Open Question, use either a Textbox or Text area. When using the TextBox control type, you can limit the number of characters that the form filler can enter.

Giving Guidance…

When building your survey form in EverWeb, you may find it useful to provide guidance to help your form fillers complete the form correctly. Use the Placeholder and/or Control Instruction/Tip fields to provide help. As with the wording of your questions for the survey, make sure also that your help text is clear and unambiguous.

Fonts, Colors and Styles

Use the Fonts and Styles section of the widget to style your Survey Form appropriately. Typically you will style the survey form in the same way you would for the rest of your site. Again, bear in mind the advice in point 6 above regarding making your survey form visually appealing.

Once you have completed your form, and tested it for ease of use and completion, publish your survey when you need to activate it.

Conclusion

EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget gives you all of the tools that you need to make an effective survey form, as long as you prepare properly by using the survey design tips ioutlined above.

SEO is one subject that we often come back to with EverWeb. For some SEO may not be important, whilst for others it can be the key to a successful online presence, typically for business ventures. EverWeb makes adding SEO to your site easy. When you complete fields in the Page Settings tab of a page in your site, you are already adding information that will be used for SEO purposes when you publish your site..

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is used to improve your website’s visibility to search engines such as Google, Bing and Alexa. In turn this will drive more traffic organically to your site. Adding the right key words to the pages of your site optimizes them to help search engines better your ranking in search results.

The Benefits of Adding SEO To Your Site

1. Adding SEO To Your Site Increases Organic Traffic: Using SEO effectively should help your website rank higher in search engine results. This will make it easier for potential customers to find your site without the need to use paid for advertisements.
2. Gives Your Visitors a Better User Experience: When SEO is properly added to you site it should help improve your site’s speed, its mobile-friendliness, and navigation, all of which will enhance your visitors’ experience.
3. Better Perceived Credibility & Trust: Websites that rank on the first page of search engine results pages are perceived to be more reliable and authoritative which in turn increases trust among visitors.
4. Cost-Effective Marketing: Using SEO can help lead to more consistent traffic coming to your site over time without the ongoing costs that marketing may entail.
5. Build a Competitive Advantage: If you are not using SEO but your competitors are, they could be attracting more traffic, leads, and sales than you.
6. Targeted Audience & Higher Conversion Rate: SEO helps attract users who are actively searching for what you offer, increasing the chances of conversions (sales, sign-ups, etc.).
7. Localized SEO for Local Businesses: If your business operates in one country only, localizing SEO may help attract more local customers as your SEO is relevant to where you are based.
8. Long-Term Results: Unlike paid for advertising, where traffic will stop if you stop paying, SEO builds a foundation for long-term online success.

SEO and Your EverWeb Site…

As we mentioned at the start of this post, EverWeb has SEO baked in to it automatically. As you add information to the fields in the Page Settings tab of the inspector Window, EverWeb will use this for SEO purposes when your site is published. If SEO is important to your business there are three things that are important to bear in mind when starting to add SEO to your site’s pages :

1. Filling in the right fields for SEO
2. Adding quality information in SEO relevant fields
3. Using the right key words and/or phrases in SEO related fields

Effective SEO For Your EverWeb Site…

The best way to make sure that you are filling in the right fields with the best SEO keywords or phrases is to either follow the SEO for EverWeb Video Course, or check out chapter 12 – EverWeb & SEO – of the EverWeb User Manual which can be accessed either from the Projects Window or via the Help Menu. These tools will help you gain an understanding of SEO in clear, concise steps. There are lots of great tips as well that will help to boost your site’s search engine results page ranking.

Additional SEO Tools To Give You The Edge Over Your Competition

EverWeb gives you the basic tools that you need to set up SEO effectively for your site. This is usually sufficient for most users but if SEO is business critical, you can tailor your SEO more specifically through the use of the EverWeb SEO Power Up addon, which includes the very useful Check Page feature, making implementing SEO even easier!

Keeping Your Site’s SEO Up To Date

Once you have added the SEO that you want to the pages in your site that require it, remember to review these pages on a regular basis. There are two reasons why this is important to remember: firstly, your pages may change their content over time e.g. the home page or products page of your site. If this is the case then do you need to update the page’s SEO to reflect these changes? The second reason to check your SEO every so often is that search engines such as Google, may change their algorithms from time to time. These changes to the search engine algorithms may have a positive or negative effect on your search engine result page rankings. So you may need to realign your SEO to account for these changes.

Adding SEO to your site is a good way to boost page rankings in search engine results pages. It is also a no, or low, cost option to promote your site that usually only requires reviewing, or updating, on a regular basis.

The recent release of EverWeb 4.3 has some great new feature adds such as the all new PayPal Modern widget. As well the headline features, there are many other worthy, but less prominent, new and improved, EverWeb features to enjoy! Here is a round up of them…

Justified Text For TextBoxes

Justifying text within TextBoxes is one of the feature our customers have often asked for. Now, with EverWeb 4.3, a justified text button joins the left, centered and right margin aligned buttons in the Text Inspector, which itself got a major redesign in EverWeb version 4.0. The new feature means that you can now justify text anywhere in EverWeb as text justification was already available in the Styled Text Editor (which is used in some of EverWeb’s widgets) and in the Blog Post Editor.

TextBox justification can be applied to one or more paragraphs within a TextBox, and you can also mix and match text alignment styles within the TextBox if you want. Note that when you edit Text in a TextBox you will see the text displayed as left aligned, until you have finished editing the text. When you click away from the TextBox so that it is no longer selected, you will see the text displayed as justified.

Object Layout Buttons

We introduced layout buttons to objects in EverWeb 4.2 so you can directly access Widget Settings and other settings without moving away from the Editor Window. The number of Layout Buttons that you see depends on the type of object that you are working with and the page layout type you are using.

In EverWeb 4.3, you can now toggle the size of the Layout Buttons to be either normal size or small. To change this setting, go to the EverWeb-> Settings-> General menu on a Mac, or the Edit-> Options-> General menu in Windows. Check or uncheck the ‘Use small layout buttons’ to suit your personal preference.

Expanded Stock Photos Drag & Drop

Drag and dropping is, of course, one of the most common things we do when working in Windows or on macOS. Over the course of EverWeb’s development, we have enhanced this feature so that it is available in more places, especially in asset lists. In EverWeb 4.3 this capability has been expanded so that you can now drag and drop images from EverWeb’s Stock Photos window directly on to the Fill Slideshow Asset List in the Shape Options tab. This is a great way to save time and effort when creating slideshows!

Automatic AI Bot Defence

The advent of AI is bringing new and exciting tools for all of us to use. Unfortunately it can also bring new problems and issues. EverWeb 4.3 automatically blocks AI Bots from your site. For advanced users you can also edit the robots.txt file and the .htaccess file. When editing these files, remember to make sure to text your changes thoroughly. If you make a mistake you may find that your site comes up with ‘500 Internal Error’ type messages when published.

Use the File-> Edit Publishing Settings menu option to access this new feature. The Advanced Option section has the toggle to ‘Block AI Bots’ as well as the robots.txt and .htaccess file fields.

New Features For EverWeb Mac Users

For our macOS users, EverWeb 4.3 now officially supports macOS Sequioa, and for the eagle eyed, you may have noticed that you get live font previews in the Text Inspector Fonts menu dropdown list.

More EverWeb To Follow…

Our latest release has brought new features to EverWeb including the new PayPal Modern Widget, as well as adding user requested features such as justified text in TextBoxes. But there is more to come with lots of big updates coming soon that will make EverWeb even easier to use whilst delivering new features at the same time, so stay up to date with our blog posts to get all of the latest news!

Keeping in contact with your customers is a vital part of maintaining and growing your business. The classic approach is to use e-mailable newsletters to engage with new and existing customers. Signing up to such a newsletter can be facilitated in a number of different ways such as through your EverWeb made website. E-mailable newsletters are a great way to introduce existing, new, and potential customers, to your products and services. An E-mail newsletter will probably be just one of a number of methods you will use to maintain contact with your customers. Usually we recommend using a couple of contact methods such as such as blogs, vlogs, social media and so forth. Choose the methods that will give you the most coverage but take the least amount of your own effort.

In this blog, we are going to focus on creating an email newsletter sign up form in EverWeb. This is easy to do using EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget. This widget is the most flexible way to create a contact form that blends in perfectly with the rest of your site, whilst giving you all the tools you need to create the form you want. You may also be aware of EverWeb’s Contact Form widget. This is a legacy widget that, whilst simple to use, does not have the features, or the security, that the Contact Form Advanced widget provides. As such, we recommend using the Contact Form Advanced widget in all instances.

Newsletter Sign Up Form Objectives

The main objective of a newsletter sign up form is to acquire the email address of your visitor so that you can market to them in the future. 

For your visitor, a newsletter sign up form should be quick, easy, and as simple as possible to complete. Contact forms that take too much time to complete, are too complex to fill in, ask for too much visitor information, and/or raise privacy concerns will probably scare your visitors away.

When creating your own newsletter sign up form, we recommend using the latest version of EverWeb if possible.

Adding a Newsletter Sign Up Form To Your Page

To create your own newsletter sign up form in EverWeb, start by creating the page on which you want to place the newsletter sign up form, if you have not done so already, or use an existing page. For example, you may want your sign up form to be highly visible, such as front and center on your Home page!

Wherever you decide to place your newsletter sign up form, the next step is to go to the Widgets tab, and drag and drop the Contact Form Advanced widget, on to your chosen page.

Contact Form Advanced Widget Settings

After you have added the Contact Form Advanced widget on to your page, you will now need to complete the following fields in the Widget Settings…

Start with the ‘Email Address to Send Form To’ which, as its name implies, is the email address your visitors will send their newsletter sign up forms to.

The next field should be completed if you have purchased EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Add-on. Click on the dropdown and select the add on so that your form can use the add-on’s features.

The next step is to give your form a name, using the ‘Contact Form Name’ field. If you are only using one form in your site, this may not be important to do. If, however, you are using the Contact Forms Enhanced add-on it will become more important to specifically name your form. In this way you can more easily manage the data and email addresses that you collect from the different forms that you may create in your site.

The next field in the Widget Settings is the ‘Mail Sending’ field. This field tells EverWeb how you want to send emails, either using SMTP Details, PHP Mail, or via EverWeb, Typically the ‘SMTP Defails’ option is the preferred method unless you are using EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced add-on, in which case you should use the ‘EverWeb’ option.

Setting SMTP Settings

Once you have completed the first section of the Widget Settings, the next to complete is the SMTP Settings section. Depending on your selection in the ‘Mail Sending’ field, you have different options available.

If Mail Sending is set to ‘SMTP Details’ you will need to complete all of the fields in the SMTP Settings section. If you need help filling out these fields, click on the ‘More Help’ button. If you have selected ‘PHP Mail’ you will not need to complete the STMP Settings and fields in this section will be greyed out. If you selected ‘EverWeb, again the SMTP Settings will be greyed out, but you will need to select a Contact Forms Enhanced add-on in the Contact Form Enhanced Add-On field.

Designing The Newsletter Sign Up Contact Form

After completing the contact form’s basic settings, you can now turn your attention to the design of the form. To do this, you will use the Form Submission Settings section. The first field in this section is ‘Email Subject’. As this is a newsletter sign up form, you will probably want to title it as such e.g. ‘Newsletter Sign Up Request’.  The next field to complete, ‘Email Sent Success Message’, can be left as is, or customized as you want.

The following field in the Widget Settings is the ‘Forward to Page’ field. This field is used to redirect the visitor to another page within your website, once they have signed up to your email newsletter. For example, you may want create a ‘Thank you for signing up’ page in your site. On this page, you can then direct the visitor as to where to go next in your site, for example, your home page, or sales page.

The next field, Form Style, lets you to choose the overall style of your form using one of its three different options: Classic, Modern, or Transparent. When you choose a style, the widget in the Editor Window will automatically update, so you can try each style before choosing the one that suits your needs best.

Using Form Controls

The next section of the Widget Settings is probably the most important one from a form design perspective. The Form Controls section is where you define the fields and field labels that you want to include in your contact form. As simplicity is our goal for this form, delete the ‘Name’ and ‘Message’ fields. To do this just click on the field in the list you want to remove, then hit the delete or backspace key.

The remaining field in the Form Controls list is ‘Email’, which we are going to rename so that its field label is easier to understand by anyone completing the form. Double click on the ‘Email’ Form Control and edit the label to be, for example, ‘Enter Your Email Address’. 

The next step is to place some help text in the field. This is optional, but adding ‘Placeholder Text’ will improve the chances of your visitors completing the field correctly. In this example, the help text will be ‘Fill in your email address here’.. We are not going to add any Control Instructions as the Placeholder Text help is sufficient for our purposes.. 

Moving on to the Control Section Options section, set the maximum content width of the field so that it display properly on any device. In this example, we are am going to set the width to 250 pixels. This is narrow enough for the field to fit on one line, even on a small mobile phone. Optionally, finish by setting ‘Alignment’ to center.

Setting Up Fonts and Styles

In the next section of the Widget Settings we can set up our form’s fonts and styles. Use the Control Label Style and Form Fields Fonts button to set the font style of the form as you want.

Configuring the Submit Button

After setting up our form’s appearance and the Email Form Control, the last step is to customize the , ‘Submit’ button in the Submit Button section. Instead of using the word ‘Submit’, we will change the text to ‘Send’ in the Submit Caption field. Additionally, the text within the button will be center aligned, using the Alignment field.

To complete the look of the button, check the Use Styled Button checkbox and set the font and color of the button as you want.

The Newsletter Sign Up Form is now complete. If you want, you can additionally set up a confirmation email. Note that if you do this, you will need to enable Spam protection as well.

Once you have finished your page design, publish your site, then test your form.

Testing your EverWeb made website before you publish it to the Internet is one of the most important tasks you may have to do in your website building journey! The main reason for testing your site before publishing it is so that it is polished, reliable and user friendly. The best way to get all of those three aims checked off is through good design and thorough testing.

In EverWeb you have its Preview feature in the Toolbar which allows you to preview your site to popular web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. This is all fine if you are working on your site on a desktop. As most people access web browsers from their phones, this is now probably the most important device type that you will want to preview your site on.

EverWeb 4.3 for macOS and Windows, now gives you an easy way to test your site on a mobile device with its new Preview QR Code feature. Although this is ideal for testing on a phone, it is also just as useful on a tablet device as well. And as you would expect, it is EverWeb easy to use!

Using Preview QR Code

All you need to get started with using Preview QR Code is EverWeb 4.3, or higher, for macOS or Microsoft Windows, an app that can scan QR Codes and of course, browser software on your phone or tablet. On your phone or tablet, Preview QR Code will support your default browser.

Now all you need to do in EverWeb is to go to the page in your website’s project that you want to preview and click on the Preview button in the Toolbar. From the dropdown list of browsers, choose the Preview QR Code option. EverWeb will generate a QR code on screen for you. With your phone or tablet, scan the code with your QR Code Reader.

You will now see a preview of the page as to how it will look on a mobile device.

Testing Your Site Using Preview QR Code

When testing your website on a mobile phone before publishing, you should ensure it provides a seamless and functional experience for mobile users. Here’s what to look out for:

1. Mobile Responsiveness

Confirm that your site adjusts correctly to different screen sizes and orientations (portrait and landscape). If you are site uses a Centered Layout, make sure that you have both desktop and mobile page counterparts set up and linked together before previewing.

If you are using a Responsive page, you may find that the page is too wide for the phone. If this is the case, check out our video on ‘Horizontal Page Drift‘.

In addition, check that elements like images, buttons, and text scale properly without overlapping or cutting off and also make sure that you have left enough left and right margins. If you need to add these in to your page, change the left and right margin values in the Metrics Inspector.

2. Navigation Usability

Test menus and drop down menus to ensure they are intuitive and easy to use on smaller screens. Also do not forget to verify that touch targets such as buttons and links are large enough to tap comfortably without accidental clicks, and that the links work correctly.

3. Page Load Speed

Ensure pages load quickly on mobile devices, even with slower internet connections. If you have a problem with page loading speed, optimize your images, and use Lazy Loading on them in the Metrics Inspector.

4. Text and Font Readability

Check that the font sizes, colors, and spacing you have used allow the text to be easily readable without the need for the visitor to have to zoom in. As such avoid small fonts and remember that the text should contrast well with the page background background.

5. Media and Content Behavior

All of your images, videos, and other media should display correctly and do not overflow or appear distorted. As you are testing on a mobile device, remember to test interactive elements such as sliders, and carousels to make sure they work properly on touch devices.

6. Form and Input Fields

Test your forms, such as those you can create with EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget for usability, ensuring that any input field is easy to access and fill out. Also check that any validation that you built in to your fields works as you expect.

7. Compatibility Across Devices and Browsers

Although it may seem tedious it is important to remember to test your site on different mobile operating systems (iOS, Android) and on a variety of browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.). You should find that all core features of your site are consistent across all platforms.

8. Touch Gestures and Interactivity

Test swipe, scroll, pinch-to-zoom, and other touch gestures for proper functionality. Check whether interactive elements like accordions, tabs, and modals work well with touch input.

Using EverWeb’s new Preview QR Code feature together with a proper testing plan will guarantee you a polished, user friendly site that loads quickly!

As we start the new year, for many of us it is a time to look towards new challenges or to update and refresh things in our lives. When it comes to your website, the holiday period can also be a time to inspire you to update your own site for the new year. If you have not kept up with the updates to EverWeb in 2024, check out our EverWeb’s 11th Anniversary post and also our post on the recently released EverWeb version 4.3!

One of the new features in EverWeb may be something that you would want to add to your own site – scrollable Textboxes! This is a great new feature that can help you save space on your page, giving your page a cleaner appearance rather than been cluttered with text.

Before You Begin…

You can add Scrollable TextBoxes to either fixed width or responsive pages in your site. The only other requirement is that you are using EverWeb 4.3, or higher, for macOS or Microsoft Windows.

Creating a Scrollable TextBox For A Fixed Width Page

First let’s look at adding a TextBox to a fixed width page, typically this will use the Centered Layout page layout type. You can find out what type of Page Layout you are currently using in the Page Layout section of the Page Settings tab in the Inspector Window.

Add a TextBox to your page using the TextBox button in the Toolbar. Next, either type in the text that you want in to the TextBox, or copy and paste the text you want in from another source.

To make the Textbox scrollable, you will need to size the TextBox so that some of the text within it is no longer visible. By default, when you add text to a TextBox it will always resize itself so that all text is displayed. Usually this is what we would want, but in this case we do not want this as we want to hide some of the text so our visitor has to scroll the TextBox.

To achieve this, first make sure that the TextBox is selected. You can see if it is already selected if there are grab handles displayed around its edges. If not, simply click once inside the TextBox.

With the TextBox selected, go to the Inspector Window and click on the Text Inspector icon. At the bottom of the Text inspector, you will see the Export Options section. In this section check the option for Scrollable Text.

After setting the Scrollable Text option, go back to the TextBox and take one of the grab handles and resize the Textbox so that some of its text is no longer visible. That is all you have to do! Once you have resized the TextBox, you can try out the scaling by previewing the page. When using Preview, place the mouse cursor over the TextBox and use the mouse to do the scrolling action.

Adding a Scrollable TextBox to a Responsive Page

The basics of creating a scrollable TextBox are the same for both fixed width and responsive page layouts, but with a responsive page layout there are a couple of things that you may need to bear in mind.

If you add a Textbox to your page as a full width object, you can resize the height of the TextBox using the grab handle at the top center or bottom center of the TextBox. If you want to reduce the width of the TextBox, go to the Metrics Inspector and use the Maximum Width and Margin settings to constrain the TextBox width.

Alternatively, you may have placed the TextBox within a Responsive Row widget. In this case, you may want the TextBox to be of a fixed width. In this case, you will have to make sure that the Full Width option is not checked. This will allow you to use the Width field instead so that you can fix the width of the TextBox within the Responsive Row. For best results in this case, you would probably fix the width of the TextBox to about 320 pixels so that the TextBox will be able to display on any mobile device.

Test out your Scrollable TextBox page using Preview. If you are using Fixed Width TextBoxes within a Responsive Row widget, you might want to use EverWeb’s new Preview QR Code Mobile feature to make sure that the fixed width, scrollable TextBox looks correct on a mobile device.

Scrollable TextBoxes are super easy to create and their versatility can help you save space on your site’s pages and make it easier for visitors to scroll text on mobile devices.

With the Christmas holiday season just in the rear view mirror, our attention quickly swings in to preparing for the new year! So now may be a great time to review your EverWeb made website to prepare it for 2025!

Reviewing Your Website’s Performance

It can be very difficult to critique your own website objectively. Perhaps the best way to start is to think about whether your site has met its objectives over the last year. You may want to measure this by the number of visits people have made to your home page in the last year, or by sales generated from your site, enquiries received from your contact form, newsletter signups and so on.

Once you have reviewed the metric, or metrics, that mean the most to you, or your business, you can decide whether you need to make any changes to your website or not to improve it for 2025.

What Works, What Doesn’t…

Once you have finished reviewing your site, make a list of what’s good about it and what you want to improve upon. This may also be a good time to get feedback from family, friends or colleagues as well, but make sure that this kind of feedback is honest and constructively critical. You may also have had some feedback over the last year from your customers or clients that can be added in to the mix as well.

After collecting your feedback and some self reflection, you will hopefully have an idea of what is good about your site and what needs to be updated, changed, removed or added! For example, if you are selling products or services, do you need to remove some products, update your product descriptions or images, or add in new products or services?

Getting Ready For Change!

Now that you have listed the things that you want to change in your site, it is time to get to work. This may be a simple task, for example, you may just need to collect together images and product descriptions then work through your site’s pages to update them all properly. You may also want to review your text too. If your existing text is time sensitive (e.g. includes event dates, time stamped blog posts etc.) you should update the text. There’s nothing worse than a site that looks like it has not been updated for a long time.

If you are adding new features, or wanting to revamp the look of your site you may need to look at your websites that inspire you, or to EverWeb third party widget providers to give your site a fresh look and better interaction with your site’s visitors. if you want to improve your site’s SEO you may want to look at EverWeb’s SEO Power Up Addon. To improve your site’s security checkout EverWeb Site Shield Addon and if you are looking to start a membership or subscription service, there is also EverWeb Membership Sites which you can start at no cost.

If you want to revamp your site look, consider changing the fonts and/or colors the site uses or update the images that your site uses e.g. check out EverWeb Free Stock Photo Library on the Media button in the EverWeb Toolbar for new images to use in your site.

When preparing to update your website, we recommend that you make sure that you are using the most up to date version of EverWeb. In this way, you will get all of its latest features (Check out our EverWeb’s 11th Anniversary feature for more on this!) Finally, do not forget to back up your EverWeb Project file at regular intervals and before you make any changes to your site.

Implementing Your Changes

Now is the time to implement your updates and changes! When doing so, we recommend that you implement EverWeb’s Paragraph Styles feature to your existing text. This will help save you a lot of time in the future. When you apply a Paragraph Style to your text, if you change the paragraph style at a later date, any text that uses the style will automatically update.

When adding new or updated images to your site remember that they should be optimized so as not to drag down your page load speed.

If you have updated your version of EverWeb, you may also want to check the built in widgets for any updates that may add new or updated features. In addition, check out newly introduced features to the product as well such as video backgrounds and new shape fill options such as Map Fill, Video Fill and Slideshow Fill. All such features may help you streamline your site whilst updating it for the new year!

Questions, Problems, Issues? We Are Here To Help!

When updating your website, it is possible that you may get stuck implementing some of your changes or you may have a question about how to achieve something in EverWeb. If you need help it is here for you! For a start there is the EverWeb User Manual that is updated for every release of EverWeb, both on Mac and Windows. Just go to the Help Menu in EverWeb, then choose the ‘EverWeb PDF Manual’ option. If you need more help. than the User Manual can give, you can always post your problem or question on the EverWeb Discussion Forum. There are also plenty of EverWeb video tutorials available on a wide range of subjects, but if you still need help, our Support Team is happy to help as well.

Final Steps! Publishing and Testing!

Once you have finished your changes and updates, we recommend that you preview your site before you publish it to the Internet. Don’t forget to run EverWeb’s spell checker through your site’s text before you publish to catch any possible typo’s!

Once you have finished checking your updated site with Preview, publish your site and go through its pages to check that everything has published properly, that your pages load speedily and that all of your page links work properly.

… oh, and don’t forget to update your copyright year to 2025 on the first day of the new year!

Updating you site for the new year helps keeps it fresh for you and your visitors and will hopefully generate new interest in your business in 2025!

Happy New Year!

The recently introduced EverWeb 4.3 for macOS, or Windows brings a host of new and updated features to the product, with the headline feature being the introduction of the new PayPal Modern Widget!

Our new widget uses the latest PayPal button API, adding more options for how your customers can pay you. This means you have more control and flexibility to offer different payment methods, making it easier for visitors to purchase products and services from your website. You can now offer Venmo payments in the US and local European and Australian payment methods including PayPal’s pay later options.

The new widget also enables you to sell subscription services as well as products, from your site.

Before we get started with the PayPal Modern widget, remember that EverWeb also includes the PayPal Widget. We recommend that you check out this widget as well in case it is more appropriate for you to use our original widget rather than the new PayPal Modern widget which we will be exploring below..

Getting Started With The PayPal Modern Widget

To use PayPal Modern widget, make sure that you have signed up for a PayPal account, if you do not have one already. Once you have a Paypal account set up you can add the widget to your page in EverWeb. If you are using a Center Aligned page layout, you can just drag and drop the widget on to the page and size and position it where you want. If you are using a Responsive page layout, you will need to add the widget in to a Responsive Row widget. To do this, drag and drop a Responsive Row widget on to the page, then drag and drop the PayPal Modern Widget in to the Responsive Row that you just added, or in to an existing Responsive Row.

Once you have placed the widget on your page, choose the button type from the dropdown menu. You can choose either Purchase for goods and services, or Subscription if you are offering a subscription service. 

The PayPal Client ID

After selecting the button type that you want to use, the next step is to enter your PayPal Client ID in to the PayPal Client ID field. If you do not have a PayPal Client ID, click on the “Get Client ID” button. This will take you to PayPal’s Developer website. Although the developer’s website has a lot of tools to use, we are only interested in generating a PayPal Client ID that can be used in the PayPal Modern widget.

At certain times, you may be required to log in to your PayPal account e.g. when first accessing the developer website. Once you have logged in, you will be taken to the PayPal Developer Dashboard.

Click on the Create App button, then enter a name for the app in the App field. it does not matter what name you choose here, so you could call it e.g. ‘My first app’. After entering a name for your app, click on the Create App button to finish.

The next screen you will be taken to is where you will see the Client ID which has been automatically generated for you. All you need to do here is to click on the Copy icon to copy the Client ID to the Clipboard. 

After copying your Client ID to the Clipboard, you can logout of the PayPal Developer app and go back to EverWeb. Paste the Client ID in to the PayPal Client ID field. If you are not going to use the widget to add a Subscription Plan, you can skip the next section and go to the section ‘Completing the Widget Settings’ below.

Creating a Subscription Plan

If you are going to be using the PayPal Modern widget to create a subscription service, you will need to first create a subscription plan in PayPal itself. When you create a subscription plan, it will have its own PayPal Subscription Plan ID.

In the PayPal Modern widget, remember to set the Button Type in the Widget Settings to Subscription before you start. Next click on the click on the Create Subscription Plan ID button. If asked to, login to your PayPal account. You will then be taken to the Subscriptions home page. 

Begin by clicking on the Getting Started button. if this is the first time that you are accessing the Subscriptions page you may see a short slideshow first before being taken to the Manage Subscriptions page.

PayPal will guide you step by step to create your subscription service plan. Once the plan has been set up, you can either save the plan you have created as a draft, or you can turn the plan on. After creating your plan, copy the Plan ID to the clipboard, then return to EverWeb and paste the Plan ID in to the widget’s Plan ID field.

Completing the Widget Settings

After entering your PayPal Client ID and, optionally, your Subscription Plan ID, you can now complete the rest of the Widget Settings…

Product Name

Use this field to enter the name of the product or subscription service that you are adding to the page. When you update the Product Name field, the widget updates automatically in the Editor Window. If you want to change the font of the Product Name (and the font of the Product Pricing and Currency fields), click on the Fonts button in the Toolbar and select the font that you require. The font size is automatically set for you.

Product Details

The Product Details section of the widget is where you add a detailed description of the product, or subscription service, that you are selling. The description is added using the Styled Text Editor so you can use predefined Paragraph Styles to automatically style your descriptive text.

At this point, you probably will want to add an image of the product, or subscription. To do this, scroll down to the Appearance section of the Widget Settings. Click on the Product Image field’s ‘Choose…’ button to select the image that you want to use.

Product Pricing

Enter the price of the product or subscription service, the currency used, and the country in which you operate your business in. Note that you can only use one currency per page so make sure all PayPal Modern widgets that you add to the page use the same currency.

EverWeb also lets you specify which Payment Sources you would like to use, by checking the appropriate payment sources in the Payment Sources list box. 

If a tax rate is applicable to your product or service, enter the Tax Rate in as a percentage.

If the product or subscription is something that buyers can purchase multiples of, check the ‘Allow Multiple Quantity’ field,

The Quantity label by default will display ‘Quantity’, but you can change this if you want. In addition, you can also set a maximum quantity a buyer can purchase in the Max Quantity field.

Options

The Options section of the Widget Settings is used when you are selling items that have different options available. In my example, I am selling a standard lawnmower model, and also a deluxe version, so I can list both as options to buy. Start by clicking on the ‘Add Options with Price’ button. Enter the option that you want, in my example this is the standard lawnmower model. Next, enter the price of the product. Now click on the ‘Add Options with Price’ button again, and add the deluxe lawnmower model and its price.

The second option allows you to do the same thing as just described, but without the price difference. So for example, in this case I could add different color choices as my options.

Shipping Options

If you want to add a shipping cost to the product check the ‘Enable Shipping’ checkbox. Click on the ‘Add Shipping Method’ button to add a shipping cost option. For example, you could add a standard shipping and express shipping options.

In addition, you can allow shipping outside of your own country by checking the ‘Allow International Shipping’ checkbox. You can also allow shipping by quantity, by clicking on the ‘Calculate Shipping Per Quantity’ checkbox. Furthermore, you can add a Handling fee to the customer’s purchase using the ‘Handling Fee’ option. The fee can also be calculated by quantity if you want. To set up International shipping, or handling, based on quantity you will need to do this in PayPal itself.

Discounts

If you want to add discount possibilities you can do so in the Discounts section. A discount can be applied as a percentage of the product price, or as a fixed amount.

Directing and Redirecting Your Customers

Use the Actions section of the widget, to redirect your customers to a ‘Thank You Page’ or to a ‘Cancelled Page’ that you have created in your site. This is useful to do as it will keep your customers within your website after their purchase.

If your customers are not redirected automatically back to your website after their purchase, you may need to set up in PayPal the redirect back to your website after the customer purchase. To activate this, log in to PayPal then go to your PayPal Account Settings. 

Under the Website Payments option, make sure that your Website Preferences are set to ‘bring customers back to my website after they pay with PayPal’. 

One you have completed your settings, preview or publish your site to test that the features you have added work properly.

The new PayPal Modern Widget opens up a new world of possibilities to PayPal users by allowing subscription services for your customers to purchase in addition to product sales. The new widget also gives you more control over the different payment methods that you may want to offer your customers.