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In our previous post we looked at how to use EverWeb‘s Show on Device feature so that you could use one page in your website to create content that is tailored to the device it is being displayed upon. In this post, we will look at some of the useful tools built in to EverWeb to make designing your page as easy as possible.

When to Design a Page Using Show On Device

The Show on Device feature is designed to be used on responsive pages. Whilst you can use Show on Device on a center aligned page, there is not much milage ion doing so. As the center aligned page is fixed in width,. for this type of design style you would create a mobile page version of the desktop page and then link them together in the Inspector Window using the Mobile Settings section of the Page Settings tab.

Responsive pages are typically more suitable for using Show on Device, as the page type is designed to scale at any width. Designing responsive pages using Show on Device can, however, become quite complex, both visually and technically. If your page uses Show on Device for each page device type on a page, you could have four times the objects than if you did not use Show on Device at all.

For most website designers, using Show on Device will be on a ‘case by case’ basis. Typically the widgets that you use on the page, such as the Responsive Row, FlexBox and Text Section widgets will cater for most website designers needs. If you do think that you need to use Show on Device for specific needs then here are some hints and tips to help you develop our website’s pages more easily…

EverWeb’s Scaleable Editor Window

It is easy to forget that if you change the size of the EverWeb app on your computer, you will also affect the size of the Editor Window. This is the simplest and quickest way in which to view how your page will look at different pixel widths.

Use EverWeb’s Rulers To Assist in Your Page Design

If you are using EverWeb 2.9 or later, you turn on the option to show a ruler along the top and down the left hand side of the Editor Window. Use the Window_> Show Rulers menu option to toggle this feature on or off. Using rulers can help you guide the width of your objects as you design you page. In this way you can better see how the page will look at any pixel width

Use ‘Show Breakpoints’ to See Device Widths

In addition to seeing how your objects can look at different device widths within the Editor Window, you may also find it useful to use the Window-> Show Breakpoints menu option to see the demarcation line between different device types.

Decluttering Your View

The most probable cause of most frustration when using Show on Device is that your Editor Window can be come very cluttered. This can make editing a more difficult task. However there are some things that you can do to help…

1. Use Pick Layer to Choose the Object You Want: When using Show on Device, you may find that you have objects appearing on top of other objects as your design now has more ‘layers’. If you find that you now have difficulty in selecting the right object, you will find Pick Layer indispensable. Just right or secondary mouse click on the object you want to select. You should now see a submenu from which you can choose ‘Pick Layer’. Select the object that you want to select.
2. Where to Embed Your Objects: When adding objects to suit all the different device types, you may find that sometimes you have added an object to the wrong Responsive Row. You can move misplaced objects by first using Pick Layer to select the object you want to move. Then right click again on the selected object and use the ‘Embed In’ menu option and place the object in the correct Responsive Row widget.
3. Name Your Responsive Rows: This is another simple, but useful, tip. When you are designing for up to four different device types all on the same page, naming each Responsive Row widget properly so you can easily see whether it relates to a Large Desktop, Desktop, Tablet or Mobile becomes becomes more important. To do this, just select the Responsive Row that you want to name, then go to its Widget Settings and enter an appropriate name in the ‘Responsive Row Name’ field.
4. Use Show Hidden Objects: When using the ‘Show on Device’ feature, when an object is not viewable at the pixel width the EverWeb app is currently set to, the object will be greyed out with an ‘X’ through it. Only when the Editor Window is at the right pixel width will the object be visible. To be able to see the contents of objects that are not currently visible, use the Window-> Show Hidden Objects menu option. The object contents will appear under the greyed out object. This menu option can be toggled on or off as required.
5. Using Show Layout: There may be times where you want to view the contents of the Editor Window without seeing the layout. This is useful when you want to get an idea of how your page will look without having to preview. use the Window-> Hide Layout menu option. Again you can toggle this command to show the layout again as needed. If your hidden objects are still visible, toggle the Window-> Show Hidden Objects menu option.

Working with Show on Device can really make your website more dynamic. Once you get used to how the feature can be applied, and by using the tips above, you will be able to take your website to a new level!

Building a Responsive website in EverWeb takes away the hassle of having to design both desktop and mobile versions of the pages in your site. Whilst responsive website design means that you only have one page design to deal with, it does mean that you have to be more aware of the state of the page at every pixel width. This can mean that pages are inherently more complex to design than the traditional desktop-mobile design paradigm.

Designing responsive pages may also mean that you want to display different content at different pixel widths. For example, you may want super detailed text content when viewing a page on a desktop or large desktop device, but on a mobile device you may want more images and a text summary instead. At any point inbetween these two devices types you might want the content to ‘scale’ accordingly…

Structuring a responsive page to suit all device type typically relies on just a few of EverWeb’s widgets. Typically you will be working a lot with the Responsive Row, Text Section and FlexBox widgets as these help you to scale your page easily at all pixel widths. You may also want to use TextBoxes, images, shapes and perhaps video or audio as well in your page design.

Things get complex, however, when you want to change the content as the page width changes. Whilst the aforementioned widgets enable you to structure your content at any pixel width, they won’t add or remove content along the way. So how can you achieve this? The answer lies with EverWeb’s ‘Show on Device’ feature.

Show On Device

The concept of EverWeb’s Show on Device feature is a simple one: to display an object only for the selected device type(s). Usually an object is displayed on all device types, but Show on Device, located in the Responsive section of the Metrics Inspector, allows you to display the selected object on any combination of mobile, tablet, desktop and large desktop device. This feature is used in a Responsive website design using fixed width objects within a Responsive Row widget.

To use Show on Device, place the objects you want to use in to a Responsive Row widget. This widget is used as a container for the widgets placed within it. Also make sure that the objects that you place in the Responsive Row widget are set as fixed width objects i.e. the ‘Full Width’ checkbox in the Metrics Inspector is unchecked for objects inside of the Responsive Row widget.

You may want to start creating your device specific Responsive Row using a large desktop scenario. This is perhaps easiest to start with as you can put all of the content (text, images, video, shapes etc.) that you want in to your objects within the Responsive Row. You can later duplicate this and remove content for other device types later.

When creating the first Responsive Row set the title of the Responsive Row in the Widget Settings to something along the lines of ‘Large Desktop Row’ so you can easily identify the row. If using widgets, such as the FlexBox or Text Section widget, check the Widget Settings to make sure that they conform to settings appropriate with a large desktop e.g. image size, maximum width settings, objects width settings within the Responsive Row widget. If you are using TextBoxes, shapes or images, check in the Metrics Inspector that the width of these objects is, again, suitable for being displayed on large desktop devices.

Once you have completed filling the Responsive Row widget with the content you want, uncheck the Show on Desktop, Tablet and Mobile options in the Responsive section of the Metrics Inspector for the all of the objects within the Responsive Row. To test that the Responsive Row works properly, you can use the Preview button and then reduce the width of your browser until the objects disappear. You can also do this in EverWeb. As you reduce the width of the app, you will see the objects in the Responsive Row being replaced with boxes with an ‘X’ through them. This denotes that the object would no longer be visible at that screen width when previewed or published.

Once you have tested that all works properly, duplicate the Responsive Row widget and its contents so you have two copies of the Responsive Row and the objects it contains. In the Metrics Inspector, check ‘Show on Desktop’. Uncheck ‘Show on Large Desktop’ for all the objects in the duplicated Responsive Row.

You can now use the duplicated version of the Responsive Row to build a version for desktop devices. For this version, first change the title of the Responsive Row to e.g. ‘Desktop Row’. You may want to trim some of the text content from the objects or even remove some objects altogether from the Responsive Row. You may also need to adjust the maximum width of objects within the Responsive Row to suit the maximum width of a desktop device. Once you have completed your work on the desktop version of the Responsive Row, again test. After testing is completed, duplicate the Destop Row and its contents, this time for use on a tablet. Repeat the process and once complete do the same procedure for Mobile devices.

At the end you should have four Responsive Rows, one for each device type. As you expand or reduce the width of the EverWeb app or browser window, you should see each version of the Responsive Row displayed. You may find that you may not need some device types or that you can use on Responsive Row for two device types e.g. the Desktop Responsive Row may be fine to sue for both Desktop and Large Desktop device types. In this example, you would delete the Large Desktop Responsive Row and check ‘Show on Large Desktop’ and ‘Show on Desktop’ for the Desktop Responsive Row instead.

Show on Device is a very useful design feature, but can require some thought and finesse when using it.

Using this feature will complicate your page design when editing your page in EverWeb, so take it slowly and test your page design regularly. Check out our video walkthrough above for extra information on this useful EverWeb feature!

In our next blog we will look at some hints and tips for getting the most out of Show on Device! If you have a question about this feature, or anything about EverWeb, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

Google has recently announced the rollout of its Core Algorithm update which has already started earlier in March 2023. If SEO is key for your EverWeb made website, this Google update should be of interest to you. The rollout of the new Core Algorithm may affect your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which in turn may affect your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings.

When Google rolls out such updates, it is never certain how much it will impact a site’s SEO page rankings, so if SEO is key to your business, you may need to monitor the impact of this update on your site over the coming few weeks. The rollout of the Core Algorithm update itself can take weeks to complete as it has to replicate around the globe, be reindexed and re-crawled, so you may find that your SEO rankings may fluctuate over this period.

Why Google Updates Its Core Algorithm

Google periodically updates the Core Algorithm that it uses so that it can better understand the content of web pages. Armed with this knowledge, Google should be able to rank web pages more intelligently and accurately when a person initiates a search in their browser. Google’s ultimate aim, therefore, is to give its users better quality results sets when performing searches on the Internet.

What You Can Do For Your EverWeb Website

This is a tough question to answer as everyone’s situation is different. Some may benefit from the update, some may see no difference and some may see worsening rankings. Here are some pointers to help you:

1. Keep abreast of the Core Algorithm update situation over the next few weeks. Until the rollout of the update is complete SEO rankings may be in flux. It will not be until a while after the update is compete, when things settle down and reindexing is complete, that you will be able to see if the rollout impacts your site’s traffic or not. So for the moment, watch, wait and monitor your site traffic to see if there is any potential positive or negative impact.
2. Keep producing high quality content! No matter what happens with the update, your site should always be producing high quality content on its pages and in its blogs. This lead SEO concept is at the heart of Google’s strategy with Core Algorithm updates and its SEO strategy in general. High quality, creative, unique content is the formula you should be aiming to make with your site.
3. Review your SEO in EverWeb. When doing this, remember that Google has a ‘mobile first’ strategy to SEO so make sure your site is either responsive or includes mobile designed pages if you are using a fixed width (centre aligned) page layout. Also check your page loading speeds as performance is also something Google will take in to account. Finally, review your SEO keywords and key terms that you use in your pages and in fields such as the Web Page Title and Web Page Description. Are these keywords and key terms still valid? Should they be updated or changed? For more information, check out our SEO for EverWeb Video Course. It’s a time effective way to help you get started with SEO in EverWeb or to refresh your knowledge if you have already applied SEO techniques to your site.
4. Consider using EverWeb SEO PowerUp Addon if SEO is important to your site and business. Whilst EverWeb comes with SEO ‘baked in’ to the product, there are lots of additional extra features that EverWeb SEO PowerUp addon includes that can help you focus your SEO and audience targeting. Check out our SEO Power Up video for a walkthrough of how EverWeb SEO PowerUp can help your business stay SEO competitive.

Conclusion

Google periodically updates its Core Algorithm so this should be something all those concerned with SEO should be aware of. It is also a call to action to maintain and update your site with quality content. Remember to keep an eye on your site’s stats to act upon any changes that may lower your rankings. SEO is an ever changing game, but keeping core concepts of quality content putting your website’s audience front and center at all times should keep you on target whenever Google updates its Core Algorithm.

If you have been keeping up with our blog posts you will know that we have released three inline updates to EverWeb since version 3.9. Inline releases are usually released for stability and maintenance purposes only, but with EverWeb 3.9.1, 3.9.2 and 3.9.5 we also managed to add in some nice minor new features to make designing your website even easier.

One of the new features that we added to EverWeb is the ability to easily add video or audio files to your blog posts. This was a much requested feature from our user community and will save you both time and effort. The new feature also means that you do not need to have to do any coding to be able to add videos or audio to your blog posts. The new feature debuted with the release of EverWeb version 3.9.1.

Adding Video or Audio Files In To Your Blog Posts

Here is a step by step guide to adding video or audio to your blog posts. If you prefer a video walkthrough of this feature, just click on the video link at the top of this post.

1. Start by adding the video, or audio, file(s) that you want to use in your blog post in to your EverWeb Project if you have not done so already.
2. Open your Project file if it is not already open, then click on the ‘Assets’ tab.
3. With the Assets List now visible, drag and drop your video or audio files on top of the assets. EverWeb will add the files to the Assets List as ‘External’ files at the bottom of the Assets List.
4. Next right, or secondary click on the video or audio file you have just added. A menu will appear.
5. Choose the option ‘Copy Relative File Path’. This will copy the path to your operating system’s clipboard.
6. After copying the path to the clipboard, go to the ‘Posts’ page in your blog.
7. In the Blog Posts List, select the post that you want to add the video or audio file to.
8. Move the cursor to where you want to insert your video or audio file.
9. Next click on the Video button in the Blog Post Editor Toolbar. Use this button to add either video or audio files.
10. Paste in the ‘Relative File Path’ from the Clipboard. Click on ‘Insert’ to finish.

Once you have added your video, or audio, files to the Assets List they will be available for use throughout your project. You do not need to add the files more than once to the Assets List. Your video and audio files can then be used on regular pages in your Project file using e.g. the Video, FlexBox or Audio widget. If you did add the same video or audio files more than once to the Assets List, this will just increase the Project file’s size which may slow down loading and editing of your Project.

If you have any questions or comments about this post, or anything about EverWeb, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of EverWeb 3.9.5 for macOS and MS Windows. This is a maintenance and support release focusing mainly on fixes and improvements for EverWeb for Windows. The update is, however, recommended for both Windows and macOS EverWeb users.

EverWeb 3.9.5 is a free update for EverWeb + Hosting users and users with an active EverWeb Standalone Update & Support plan. 

Which Version of EverWeb Is For You?

EverWeb is available in the following versions:

• If you are running Microsoft Windows 10 or 11, EverWeb 3.9.5 is available for you.
• If you are running an Intel Mac running OS X 10.10, macOS Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura, EverWeb version 3.9.5 is available for you.
• If you are running an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS Ventura, Monterey or Big Sur, EverWeb version 3.9.5 is available for you as a Universal Binary. EverWeb will run natively without the need to use Rosetta 2.
• If you are running OS X 10.7 – 10.9 (Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks) EverWeb version 2.9.1 is available for you.
• If you are running OS X 10.6 EverWeb version 2.5.2 is available for you.

When updating to the latest version of EverWeb, the update process will automatically download the correct version of EverWeb for your operating system.

New and Fixed In EverWeb 3.9.5

EverWeb version 3.9.5 includes the following:

[NEW] Many widgets will now accept an image dragged on to them including the PayPal Widget, Text Section Widget and more.
[FIX] Stripe Widget fixes including being able to have multiple Stripe widgets in your site.
[FIX] Fixed some fonts not appearing as bold as they should when published.
[FIX] Line shapes now export properly when using rotation.
[FIX] Using local server preview you can now properly preview directories with no child items.
[FIX] When you delete a project in EverWeb for Windows from the Projects window it is moved to the Recycling Bin.
[FIX] Scrolling issues the Inspector Window in EverWeb for Windows have been fixed.
[FIX] Responsive message displays correctly on Windows in the Editor Window’s Design Canvas.
[FIX] Flashing for some widgets when updating has been removed.
[FIX] Blog pagination would sometimes not appear.
[FIX] Fixes for the Image Slider Widget’s ‘Fill’ option.
[FIX] The Image Slider Widget could cause an error message when published for some users.
[FIX] The Styled Text Editor used in some widgets has been improved on Windows.
[FIX] Fix some crashes when there are thousands of assets and using certain widgets on Windows.
[FIX] Some adjustments and fixes for importing iWeb Photo Galleries.
[FIX] Lots of minor fixes and improvements. 

Since the release of EverWeb 3.9, EverWeb versions 3.9.1 and 3.9.2 have also been released prior to the release of EverWeb 3.9.5. The following is a summary of the new features and fixes that each of these releases includes.

New and Fixed in EverWeb 3.9.2

EverWeb version 3.9.2 was released on December 23, 2022 and includes the following new features and fixes:

[NEW] You can now embed videos and audio from the Assets List in a blog post by right (secondary) clicking on the file then select ‘Copy File Path’. Paste from the clipboard into the Video button in the Blog Post Editor (for both video and audio).
[NEW] A new way to import Sandvox image galleries automatically into EverWeb.
[FIX] Improvements for EverWeb on Windows.
[FIX] Contact Form Enhanced issue with sending emails using EverWeb Mail Sending now works properly for non English forms.
[FIX] Fixed crash on Windows when cancelling the New Website window.
[FIX] Fixed issue with the Widgets list and their captions overlapping the Widget Icon on Windows.
[FIX] Header/Footer code under Site Publishing Settings now saves properly when changing their content.
[FIX] Fixed some potential crashes when publishing websites and using the Search Website feature

New and Fixed in EverWeb 3.9.1

EverWeb version 3.9.1 was released on December 1, 2022 and includes the following new features and fixes:

[NEW] EverWeb for Windows is now available on our website.
[NEW] Improvements to EverWeb on macOS Ventura.
[FIX] Fixed a crash on computers set to Japanese language.
[FIX] Fixed some issues with the new Dividers feature.
[FIX] Issue with Image Slider and Image ALT Tags.
[FIX] Various minor bug fixes and enhancements.

How To Update To EverWeb for Windows

You can easily update EverWeb for Windows by either:

1. Launching EverWeb then opening a project file. From the Help menu at the top of the screen select ‘Check for Update’ or by
2. Downloading EverWeb from the EverWeb website.

After downloading EverWeb, double click on the EverWebSetup.exe file. Note that the file name may have the version number appended to it and that you may need to initially trust the file to be able to download it.

Follow the instructions in the Installation Wizard until the installation is finished. You can delete the EverWebSetup.exe file afterwards by dragging it to the Recycle Bin.

How To Update To EverWeb for macOS

You can easily update EverWeb for macOS by either:

1. Launching EverWeb then going to the EverWeb menu at the top of the screen and selecting ‘Check for Update’ or by
2. Downloading EverWeb from the EverWeb website.

After downloading EverWeb, double click on the EVERWEB.DMG file. A window will open. Drag the EverWeb icon on to the Applications folder icon.

Once the file has been copied, you can close the installation window, delete the .DMG file and eject the

About Your EverWeb Update

Remember, you won’t lose any previous data when updating as your website project files are stored elsewhere on your computer.

The update is free for EverWeb + Hosting users and EverWeb Standalone users who are within their 1 year of free upgrades and support period.

You can easily check your EverWeb update period from your EverWeb-> Preferences… window on macOS, your Edit-> Options menu on Windows or from your client area.

If you have passed your one year of free EverWeb updates, you can purchase 1 more year of upgrades and support from your client area.

You can easily re-download earlier versions of EverWeb from your client area if you are not ready to purchase an additional year of updates and support.

Login to your client area and go to the ‘Manage Product’ page. On the left of this page, select ‘Downloads’ and choose the version of EverWeb that you need.

More Information About EverWeb

For more information about the new version of EverWeb, please check out the following resources:

• The EverWeb website which has up to the moment information in its blogging section
• New EverWeb videos on YouTube
• The EverWeb User Manual in EverWeb’s Help-> User Manual menu on macOS or Help-> User Manual menu on MS Windows
• The EverWeb Discussion Forum

If you can’t find what you need, or have any other questions, comments or feedback please let us know.

In addition to Styling Dividers and Inline HTML Tags, our latest EverWeb release, version 3.9, introduces the brand new Stripe Payment widget. If you are already a Stripe user, or want an alternative payments provider to PayPal, the Stripe widget will be just for you.

Stripe can be used by any business, whether you are working as a one person entrepreneur, small business or even a multinational corporate. Stripe will scale to your needs at all levels. As you would expect, payments can be managed on both desktop and mobile environments. In terms of reach, Stripe supports millions of customer interactions per day throughout the world.

Getting Started with The Stripe Payments Widget

To use the new Stripe Payments widget, you will need EverWeb 3.9 or later. We do, however, recommend using EverWeb version 3.9.5, or higher, which contains important improvements and fixes to the widget. If you are using a version of EverWeb before version 3.9, you can get the latest version of EverWeb by using the EverWeb-> Check for Update… menu on macOS, or the Help-> Check for Update… menu infusing EverWeb for Windows.

If you do not already have a Stripe account, you can sign up on their website and add in your products and subscriptions straight away. You may also want to add in any shipping rules that you want to use in Stripe at the same time. For convenience, you can also use the ‘Create Stripe Account…’ button in the widget itself which will take you to directly to Stripe to create your Stripe account. To add the widget to your page in EverWeb, just click on the Widgets tab, then drag and drop the Stripe Payments Widget on to your page. You can use the widget in either a fixed width or responsive page and as a full or fixed width object.

Working with the Stripe Payments Widget

One you have added the Stripe Payments widget to your page in EverWeb, use the Widget’s Widget Settings tab to link to your Stripe products and subscriptions to the Stripe Payments widget. This is easily done by entering in your Stripe Secret Key in to the widget’s ‘Stripe Secret Key’ field. If you have forgotten your ‘key’ or if the key has expired, Stripe can generate a new one for you.

Apart from the Stripe Secret Key, the other important things that you need to collect together are all related to the product, or subscriptions, that you have added in to your Stripe account. For the product or subscription you want to add in to the Stripe Payments widget, you will need its API Code. This is a unique identifier generated by Stripe that you plug in to the ‘Product Price ID’ field in the Widget Settings.

After entering in your Product Price ID and setting the Product Type to either ‘Product’ or ‘Subscription’, the rest of the information that you gather from Stripe to enter in to the Widget Settings is straightforward: Price, Currency, product image if needed and your product’s description.

After entering in all of your product details, the last piece of information to add in (if applicable) is the ‘Shipping Rate ID’. You may have set up your shipping rules when you first started adding your products in to Stripe, but if you have not done this yet, just click in the ‘Create Shipping Rule…’ button to create a new rule that you can then add in to the Widget Settings later on.

The next section of the Widget Settings let you style the ‘Buy’ button. You can use your own caption and colors to suit your site. If you want, you can also set up pages in your EverWeb Project file for Successful Payment, Cancelled Payment and any instances where there is an Error. Creating your own pages for these functions helps continuity during the payment process, so the person purchasing always knows they are still in your site, or have been returned to your site after the payment process has been completed.

Rounding off the settings, you can choose the payment type as either Purchase, Book or Donate. You can also require a billing address and allow for changes in quantity to be possible.

EverWeb’s new Stripe Payments widget is a great way to easily add products and subscriptions to your site!

One of the most useful tools to use to improve your site’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is Heading Tags. These ‘tags’ help search engines find titles and subheadings on your pages that you want them to crawl. Before EverWeb 3.9, you would use the Headings Tag widget to define the headings and subheadings in your pages that you wanted crawlers to look for. The introduction of EverWeb 3.9 makes this task easier by including the widget’s feature within the Text Inspector.

More Than Just Headings Tags…

If you are familiar with the Headings Tag widget, you may also know that Headings tags are sometimes known as ‘Header’ tags. Either way, the function of these ‘tags’ are the same. In EverWeb 3.9, or later, you can find these tags listed under the heading ‘HTML Tag’ in the Text inspector. The heading encompasses the existing Headings Tags as well as adding in a paragraph tag. We wil look at these definitions and in detail below.

So What Are Headings Tags and How Do They Work?

The Headings Tag widget and the Text Inspector’s new HTML Tags both allow you to specify up to six levels of heading from ‘h1’ down to ‘h6’. The ‘h1’ tag is the most important with the ‘h6’ tag being the least important. Typically you will probably only need to use tags ‘h1’ to ‘h3’, and possibly ‘h4’ on occasion.

Using headings tags is straightforward. You will typically apply the h1 tag to the most important heading on your page, usually the page;’s title or main heading. Next in the hierarchy, h2, is usually applied to sub-headings on your page and h3 tags to sub-sub headings and so on down. to h6.

When applying heading tags to your page, just highlight the text that you want to ‘tag’ then use the HTML Tags dropdown to select the tag that you want to apply.. That is all you need to do!

If you currently use the Headings Tag widget, you can replace the widget with the inline tagging instead.

Web crawlers will now be able to target the text that you want them too more easily to help improve your SEO page rankings when people search the web for your business or products and services that you sell. Remember here, though, that SEO is run by search engines such as Google and Microsoft and involves many factors.

When To Use, and Not Use, HTML Tags

When you use headings tags on your pages, there are some general rules which website developers usually follow:

• Use only one h1 headings tag per page. If possible, try to include your primary SEO keyword or phrase but only if it is appropriate to do so. As usual, prioritize making good content over the desire for better SEO rankings.
• Use one or more h2 tags in your page if you are using subheadings that you want web crawlers to take notice of. If possible try to include your secondary SEO keyword or phase if it is appropriate to do so.
• It is possible that your secondary keyword or phrase is in you page title. If this is the case then make this your h1 heading. Always remember that the quality of your content is more important than SEO rankings.
• You can format the text that you are using for heading tags in the same was as you would any other text on the page. Using the inline HTML tags should be easier to style and format then using the Headings Tag widget.
• You do not have to use heading tags on all of your pages. Focus your efforts on to the pages where you want your SEO to count. such as your site’s landing page. You do not have to apply heading tags to pages such as Contact and About pages. Most sites have these types of pages so it does not win you anything by apply heading tags or SEO techniques to these such pages.
• If you previously used EverWeb’s Headings Tag widget you can keep them in the pages where you added them, or replace them with the new inline tags.
• Headings tags are only one part of your SEO strategy. There are a number of other tools that can be used to help improve your page ranking results. Check out the SEO for EverWeb Video Course for full details.

Additional Features of the HTML Tags Feature

Whilst EverWeb’s Headings Tag widget allows you to set six heading levels (h1 – h6), the HTML Tag dropdown menu in the Text Inspector has a couple of additional features:

• Auto: As the name suggests, this setting leaves it up to EverWeb to decide the importance of the text for website crawlers when you publish your site. Generally, most of your text will not need to be included in a heading tag at all.
• p for Paragraph: The other new setting is ‘<p>’ for paragraph. Use this option when you explicitly want to let web crawlers know that this is an important paragraph on your page. Typically, you would use this for introductory paragraphs or summary paragraphs in your page. These paragraphs are usually important as they either tell your visitors what the rest of the page is about or provide a conclusion or summary of the content at the end of the page. Again this should be used sparingly and only when appropriate.

Heading tags are an incredibly useful tool to help improve your sites SEO and should be best used in conjunction with the other SEO tools that are available in EverWeb.

If you have a question or comment about this post, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

One of the main goals of EverWeb is to help you build beautiful websites easily, simply and without having to code. It’s also our goal to bring you tools that help you to build the site you want in a user friendly way. Typically, this means making traditionally complex website building tasks simple for our users to use and understand.

In our latest EverWeb release, version 3.9, we introduced a new design tool – Dividers! As the name suggests, Dividers are great to use when you want to visually split up content into sections on your page. You can, of course, do this already but Dividers give you sixteen different, fully customizable, styles to help you visually transition from one section of your page to the next. This is especially useful for mobile devices where your visitors may have to scroll the page a lot for discover more content.

More About Dividers

A Divider is, in fact, a scalable vector graphic (SVG) file so the styles you use in your pages will always look great at any page width. All Dividers are fully customizable so you can create exactly the look that you want. You can change the color, opacity, height and width of a Divider. You can also set the Divider to be inside or outside the object it is attached to, as well as being able to invert the Divider horizontally or vertically. There are a myriad of customisation options. Note that when you use certain styling options, this may automatically disable other options.

Dividers can be used on both fixed width and responsive pages. They can also be applied to almost any object you want. Typically, though, you will find that they are used mostly on full width objects as they can only be applied to the top and/or bottom of these such objects.

Adding a Divider to an Object

Adding a divider to your page is easy:

1. First select the object that you want to add a divider to, for example, a shape, or widget, such as the Responsive Row widget.
2. Go to the Shape Options tab in the Inspector Window.
3. In the Fill section, if the dropdown menu is set to ‘None’, change this to ‘Color Fill’. You do not have to change the color from the default shown.
4. If the Fill section is anything other than ‘None’ already, leave the setting as it is.
5. Towards the bottom of the Shape Options, you will see a section called ‘Dividers’. If this section is closed, click on the triangle to the left of the word ‘Dividers’ to open the section.
6. Click on either the ‘Top’ or ‘Bottom’ button to select the type of Divider that you want to add or customize.
7. To activate the Top or Bottom divider, click on the ‘Use Top/Bottom Divider’ checkbox.
8. To select the Divider that you want to use, click in the ‘Select’ box.
9. You can now scroll the Dividers to find the one you want to use. Double click on the divider of your choice to select it.
10. Now use the options below the Divider to customize its look. You will see the changes you make reflected in the Editor Window.

Customising a Divider

Changing the look of a divider is easy. Just select the object that uses the Divider then change the options you want to alter. If you want to change the Divider style itself, just click on the Divider style and select a different one. When you change the Divider style, the new Divider style will inherit the options that you selected for the previous Divider.

Removing a Divider

If you decide that you do not what to use a Divider anymore, all you need to do to remove it from the object is to uncheck the ‘Use Top/Bottom Divider’ checkbox.

Dividers are a great, easy and flexible addition to EverWeb, giving you more flexibility in design than ever! Let us know what you think of our new features of if there are other design features that you would like to see in EverWeb in the Comments Section below.

If you work on both Windows and macOS platforms, the recent introduction of EverWeb for Windows now makes it easy to use EverWeb on whichever platform you are currently using.

Both versions of EverWeb work in the same way as each other as you would expect, but there are a few things that are good to know if you are going to work in mixed operating system environments…

1. Do I Need to Purchase EverWeb Twice?

If you already have an EverWeb + Hosting plan EverWeb for Windows is free! There is no need to purchase a copy of EverWeb for Windows.

If you have an EverWeb Standalone license, you will need to purchase a Multi-Platform License for EverWeb. This is a one time payment that can be made through your EverWeb Client Area.

2. How to Install EverWeb for Windows

To start using EverWeb for Windows, just go to the EverWeb website’s Downloads page then click on the link to ‘Download NOW for Windows’. EverWeb for Windows uses an Installation Wizard to guide you though the process, so process is simple and easy.

3. Opening Project Files in EverWeb For Windows

When you launch EverWeb, the first screen you see is the Projects Window which lists all of your projects on the right hand side of the window. The name that you give to your project file(s) is in fact an alias. You can see the real unique filename by clicking on the Settings Button or Down Arrow to the right of your Project name in the Projects Window. Select ‘Show on Disk’ and you will see what lies beneath the ‘alias’ name…

When you use ‘Show on Disk’ you will see the project files stored in their default location. If you move a project file to another location, such as an iCloud or Dropbox location, you will no longer see the file in the Projects Window when you launch EverWeb. When you look at a project file on a Mac it will appear to be different to what you see in Windows. To start with, on both operating systems you will see the real name of the Project file. This is a uniquely generated name consisting of randomized letters and numbers.

When you see the project file on a Mac computer, you will see that it has a ‘everweb’ file extension. When looking at the same file on a Windows computer you will see the file name, including the .everweb extension as a folder. In reality this is the same ‘project’ as on the Mac, just that the two operating systems view the project in two different ways. On a Mac, if you right clicked on the Project file and selected show package contents you would see the same file listing as you do in Windows. Essentially the Mac lets you neatly ‘package’ the contents in to a convent ‘one file’ for ease of use, where as Windows does not.

The only time where this may have an effect is when you open a project file in EverWeb for Windows. If you use File-> Open just click once on the project file folder that you want then click on the ‘Open Project’ button. If you did the same operation on a Mac, you would just double click on the project file name.

If you see a file with the extension ‘ewwinproj’ you can double click on it to open your project.

One more thing to remember… please do not edit, move, delete or add to, the contents of the files in the project folder. If you do this will invariably cause problems for you when you use the project file in EverWeb.

4. Transferring Files Between macOS and Windows

When using EverWeb on a Mac. you can easily move a project file just by copy and pasting it from one location to another. When using Windows remember to copy the project file’s Folder as it contains all the subfolders that make up the project itself.

Also remember that the fonts used on Mac and Windows quite often differ so you may need to install third party fonts from your Mac on to Windows to maintain project file compatibility. See the section on Fonts below for more information.

5. Project Files on Shared Drives

You can transfer your project files to a shared location such as iCloud or Dropbox. This makes it convenient to access your project e.g. if you use both a desktop and laptop computer. Please be aware that EverWeb is not a network product so you should only have your project file open on one computer at any one time. You can install EverWeb for personal use on more than one machine e.g. on your desktop and laptop. For more information about licensing for more users please contact EverWeb Support.

6. Project Files and Fonts on The Mac and Windows

One of the main differences between Mac and Windows is their use of fonts. Some font styles are ‘web safe’ so can be used on both Mac and Windows systems without issue, but often these fonts are not going to be the ones you will be using in your website anyway. Our recommendation is to use Google Fonts as these fonts are also cross-platform friendly.

If you use other third party fonts, you may need to copy all of these over from one operating system to the other.

Furthermore, if you are using third party widgets in your EverWeb project file, do not forget that these should also be copied over from your Mac on to your Windows System. Third party widgets on a Mac are stored in the following directory on the local hard disk:

User Name/Library/Application Support/EverWeb/Widgets

Copy the contents of the directory in to the following folder on your Windows computer:

c:\user name\AppData\Roaming\EverWeb\Widgets

Alternatively if you have the original widgets you can also just drag and drop them on to the Widgets tab in the Windows version of EverWeb. The above method is for when you have lots of widgets to copy over all at once. Don’t forget that if newer versions of the widgets are published by your third party developer, you will need to install the updated version on both computers. If you want to check the version of the widget you have in use at any time in EverWeb, just go to the Widgets tab and secondary (right) click on the widget then select ‘About…’ from the sub menu.

7. Menu Option Differences

Generally the menu options in the Mac and Windows versions of EverWeb are the same. Of course there will be differences in using keyboard shortcuts between the two operating systems, but apart from that, everything else will be where you expect it to be. Here are the main differences in the menu options (macOS -> Windows) when working with your Project file:

• EverWeb-> Preferences becomes Edit-> Options
• EverWeb-> About EverWeb becomes Help-> About EverWeb
• EverWeb-> Check for Updates… becomes Help-> Check for Updates
• EverWeb-> Check for New Templates… becomes Help-> Check for New Templates
• EverWeb-> Quit becomes File-> Close

Also bear in mind that you will have a lot more menu options available in the macOS version of the Projects Window. However, the Windows version of the Projects Window has File-> Open and File-> Open Recents… options available.

Setting up EverWeb for use in both Mac and Windows environments just takes a few steps so you can be productive on both platforms in next to no time.

If you have any questions about this post, please let us know in the Comments Section below. We’re happy to help!

As 2022 comes to an end, it’s always a good time to take a final look at your EverWeb website for the year and to think about what you want to do with it for the next year. Here are some suggestions as to how you can retool your website for the year ahead!

1. Start by Changing Your Site’s Copyright Year!

The first thing that you should in 2023 is changing your site’s copyright notice year to 2023. Having a copyright notice on your site is a good idea in itself as it shows your visitors that you are the owner of the content of your pages. Although it is not usually necessary, or mandatory, to have a copyright notice, having one reduces infringement risk of your content and claims of “innocent infringement”. Having a Copyright Notice costs nothing and helps deter infringement, so if you don’t have one, add it to the pages of your site and to your blog. Remember, in EverWeb, this is quicker and easier to do if you use Master Pages in your site!

2. Aim For a More Secure Website in 2023!

Keeping your online presence as secure as practically possible should be a priority for any business that has a website. If your site is still using just HTTP, now may be the time to think about upgrading it to HTTPS. If you have an EverWeb+Hosting plan, you can easily secure your site using EverWeb’s Site Shield Addon. In just a few clicks you can secure your site. EverWeb Site Shield Addon has been engineered to make this potentially complex task a super simple one! If you want to maximize your site’s security, you can also take advantage of Site Shield’s new advanced security options! Again, we have simplified these options for you so advanced website security is available for you by just a few mouse clicks.

EverWeb Site Shield Addon is available for only $39.95 USD/Year if you have an EverWeb_Hosting 2GB plan and requires EverWeb 3.6 or higher.

3. Give Your Site’s SEO a Higher Priority

If you are running a business, having a website is one way in which you can expand and grow sales. If potential and existing customers find it hard to find your site, products or services on the Internet, then you probably need to improve your site’s Search Engine Optimization.

Adding and improving SEO in your site can take time and effort, and is something that you should review, maintain and update on a regular basis. EverWeb does help you with SEO by taking the contents of certain fields (e.g. the Web Page Description field in the Page Settings tab) and using it for SEO purposes. You can, however, refine your SEO to be more targeted to your needs easily and without extra cost. Our Free SEO for EverWeb Video Course will show you how!

If SEO is important, or critical, to your business, then using EverWeb’s SEO PowerUp Addon is the tool you need to use. The Addon can be purchased through your EverWeb Client Area ($29.95 USD/Year) and is free for EverWeb+Hosting 10GB or higher plans. The Addon give you the ability to prioritize and set the frequency of when your pages are crawled for SEO purposes, allows you to add in your own SEO keywords on a per page basis, and much more!

4. Spreading Your Word with a Blog

Adding a blog can be a great way to engage with your customers and potential customers. It also gives you an easy way to keep your customers informed about what your latest products and services. A blog is also a great way of providing in-depth information that you would not usually find, or have space for, in the regular pages of your site. You can even use EverWeb’s RSS Feed widget to link blog articles to e.g. the Home page of your site. And a blog also lets your customers know that your site and business are alive and kicking!

Blogging can take some time and planning but once you get in to he swing it can be incredibly rewarding. Checkout the chapter on Blogging in the EverWeb User Manual for more information on setting up your own blog and enabling discussion with your community by enabling Comment Engines.

5. Creative, Consistent Content!

Whatever type of website you have, one of the key things to bear in mind is keeping your site up to date. If you update or refresh your site on a regular basis, it is more likely that visitors will come back again. Keeping your site up to date also means that the information it contains also stays up to date. There’s nothing worse than e.g. visiting a site at the end of 2022 and seeing that its last update was in 2019! As discussed above, a blog can be a very useful tool, especially if most of your site’s content is relatively static.

You may find that refreshing the look of your site from time to time can help, but keeping your content up to date and original is of greater benefit as it will be better for your SEO.

6. Work Smarter, Not Harder…

Keeping your website up to date with fresh content and making sure that your pages are always ‘SEO ready’ may seem to be somewhat of a daunting prospect. But there are ways in which you can work efficiently and effectively. Here are some tips that may help you…

• Plan in Evergreen content for your website and its blog: We all have events in our calendars that repeat every year so why not make a note of these for your site or its blog so that you can have content ready in time for such events e.g. New Year, national holidays, festival days, your company’s anniversary and so on…
• SEO only pages that need it: When it comes to SEO, you do not need to use it on all of the pages in your site. Just pick the pages that are the most important ones in your site to add SEO to.
• When adding images in to your site, make sure the image’s filename is SEO worthy. Additionally, make sure that the size of your image files are not going to drag your page performance down and that you add in ALT Text whenever you can to an image.
• Keep up to date: Every year EverWeb adds new features and enhances existing features. You may find that a new feature replaces an old one, for example, this year we added in-line Heading Tags. You no longer need to use the Heading Tags widget to add in these tags. Now it is simpler and easier to add in these tags and style them, so you may want to replace the ‘old’ with the ‘new’ – it’s more efficient for you in the long run!

We hope that we have given you some food for thought about how you can retool your site for the new year. Got your own tip? Then why not share it? Let us know in the Comments Section below. And if you have any questions, please ask!

Happy New Year EverWebbers!