You make a website. You settle on fonts, colours, images, layout, pages. You test it. You tweak it. You make it perfect. It takes time. It takes effort.

And now you want to make another similar website. Oh no! All that design effort! You’ve got to go through it all again haven’t you?

Not any more you don’t! With the new WebEden control panel you can copy a website, in its entirety, at the click of your mouse button. Design heaven eh? This feature has been a long time coming and we’re so happy its finally ready. Find out how to copy your website using the tutorial below.

Love it eh? Leave us a comment below

If you sell products to teenagers, or have a website that is aimed at 12-15 year olds, then a new report from Ofcom indicates that its success depends on getting to the top of the search engines.

According to the report, 37% of 12 to 15 year olds believe that search engines rank results according to relevance. Another 32% think that the Search Engine Results Page is ‘truthful’. They believe that those websites ranking highly are truly the most relevant appropriate for the search query.

Just 14% think that companies pay money to get to the top.

Here’s the full graph.

It’s nice to think that at that age kids have not yet grown cynical about how the search engine results are ranked. It’s a shame there’s no corresponding research for an older age bracket, which I feel sure would be more aware of the manipulation of the SERPs by companies vying to get to number 1.

Of course, just because you want to boost your website up the search engine results page, and carry out a program of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to do so, doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong or ‘manipulative’.

At the end of the day, Google wants to deliver the most relevant results for search queries, so if your SEO efforts prove to them that your website deserves to rank highly, then there’s no harm done.

Have you had any success or otherwise with SEO? Can you share your experience? Leave us a comment below.

Of all the websites that you regularly visit, which one has the least information? Which one has no images, almost no text, and just two buttons?

Well even though Google tops the league of zero content home pages, their designers have started experimenting with a version that has even less stuff on it.

Here’s a screen grab of the ultra-minimalist look that Google is trying out:

Google is testing out what happens when they hide everything except for the logo and the search box.

Everything else that usually sits on the page, including the options to search for images; maps; videos; plus a sign in for a Google account; is hidden. Those features are restored if the cursor is moved, and then fade back to invisible if you don’t do anything else.

This isn’t the only ‘new’ version that Google is trying out. They are also testing varieties that include the ‘I feel lucky’ button and other bits and pieces on the page.

“We test hundreds of things everyday on the homepage and nothing should be read into it in terms of product change”, said a Google spokesman, playing the change down.

In the past, the Google homepage has followed a strict rule which demanded that no more than 28 words should be on the homepage. Even this has been broken recently with up to 30 words making an appearance.

This experimentation comes at time when the landing pages of other big Internet brands are trying to include more content, not less. But it is perhaps no coincidence that the world’s most successful Internet company is also the one which has the least content on their landing page.

At the end of the day Google’s number 1 aim is to get you to search for something, since it’s only when you do that that they start making money. Any content or information on the page that diverts the user from carrying out this task is potentially lost revenue for Google.

There is a take-away point here if you are building a website with WebEden.

It’s worth spending some time deciding what the point of your website is. Are you trying to sell something? Are you trying to get people to give you a call? Are you trying to make it easy for them to find information about an event?

If you run a B&B your main priority of having a website is to make more bookings. And that probably means that you want as many website visitors as possible to phone you, or send you their contact details so that you can phone them.

Therefore, make sure your phone number and the contact form is on as many pages as possible. Don’t take people down blind alleys – make sure that every journey they make across your website leaves them in a place where they can find your number or get in touch.

Have you tried changing your homepage to make it simpler, or less cluttered? What effect did that have? Leave us a comment below.

Almost every status update on Facebook can be interpreted as an indication of happiness (or otherwise) of the user. Since Facebook has over 300 million users and 40 million status updates, there’s a whole load of data about people’s wellbeing.

As part of a new prototype application called Gross National Happiness, Facebook engineers have tried to aggregate this data in order to gauge national happiness in the US.

As reported over on TechCrunch, here’s how the application’s developers describe it:

“…Grouped together, the status updates of millions of Facebook users from every demographic in the nation can work together to say something about how we as a nation are doing. Measuring how well-off, happy or satisfied with life the citizens of a nation are is part of the Gross National Happiness movement. This graph represents how “happy” the nation is doing from day to day, by looking at how many positive and negative words people are using when they update their status: When people are using more positive words (or fewer negative words) in their status updates than usual, that day is happier than usual!”

Here’s a screen grab from the graph that shows the peaks and troughs of happiness.

It’s possible to alter the view by using the slide bar along the bottom, By dragging it sideways you can see how happiness changes from hour to hour.

So what’s the big takeaway? Well perhaps unsurprisingly, happiness is lowest on Mondays and it then climbs throughout the week, peaking at the end of the weekend. Public holidays also generate large peaks.

For this year there is a drop around the start of June, which TechCrunch interprets as being associated with the death of Michael Jackson. Well, I know it almost took down the Internet, but that seems a bit extreme!

Have a look at the Gross National Happiness and let us know what you think!

In our ‘Google the innovator‘ series earlier this year, we showcased the new search options that Google was in the process of rolling out. This included a side panel that lets you filter your search results to those from specific types of websites (such as reviews sites), or even results added in a specific time frame.

You can reach this side panel by clicking ’show options’ just above the search results.

This is what it looks like:

Google have now added many more ways for you to refine your search results. These include:

• past hour

• specific date range

• more / fewer shopping sites

• visited / not visited pages

• blogs

• news

The past hour and specific date ranges can be very useful to find the latest information posted on a particular subject. This is all part of the search engines’ battle to deliver the best ‘real time’ results.

The shopping sites option lets you show additional pages from shopping sites, and display prices from those pages on the actual search results. This is going to save lots of time when hunting for a bargain online. Alternatively, if you’re just researching a topic and aren’t in the buying frame of mind, you can exclude shopping sites from the results.

The visited pages option usefully allows you to identify sites you’ve been on before, which you may be trying to find again. To use this option you need to be signed in to your Google Account and also have ‘Web History’ enabled.

Have a go with the new options and let us know what you find!

Links eh? Where would we be without ‘em! Watch the tutorial to find out how to change the colour of your links when you hover over them.

Its been a few months since we talked about Phorm. The online advertising firm has raised controversy due to its technology which allows advertisers to target users based on their online behaviour.

Unsurprisingly, Phorm has met considerable resistance from online privacy campaigners, including the ‘father of the Internet’ Tim Berners-Lee. Big name websites such as Amazon and Wikipedia have also pledged to block Phorm from gather user data from them.

Whilst Phorm has to a certain extent faced down legal threats to its operation, the biggest challenge has been to convince an ISP partner to get involved. For the system to work, Phorm needs to install its equipment into the ISP data centre. No ISP, no Phorm.

Although Phorm convinced BT to run an early trial, it has since lost support from previously willing ISP partners. BT pulled the Phorm contract earlier this year, and TalkTalk has cut ties with the company. Virgin “continues to evaluate” the system.

For this reason, Phorm says that the UK was now just a “medium to long-term prospect”, adding that it will “deploy in other markets first”. The country which has been most open to this form of behavioural targeting is Korea, where Phorm is partnering with the largest ISP ‘KT’.

Nevertheless, Phorm has said that they will keep their UK operation running despite the challenges it faces here.

“Phorm remains fully committed to its operations in the UK. We continue to be active in the market and are confident of the opportunities domestically. Meanwhile, Phorm is also making substantial operational progress internationally”, it said in a statement.

Back in September Phorm released an update to its trading figures, which show that its had incurred a pre-tax loss of $15m for the first half of this year. This is a big drop in the same period last year, when it lost $24.7m.

What do you think of behavioural targeting? Are you willing to give up some privacy in order to get tailored advertising messages? Have we heard the last of Phorm? Leave us a comment below.

Thanks for all the emails and comments you’ve left about the new control panel, released in Beta a few weeks ago.  We’ve used those to help get rid of any bugs and problems. And the good news is: the updated version is  now live!

Here’s what it looks like:

You might want to know what has changed! Y’ere tis:

• CTRL key now works!
• Keyboard shortcuts function normally again
• backspace and @ symbol now work in Google Chrome
• ‘-1′ error (and ‘404′ on Macs) for large file uploads is all fixed
• In Firefox the keyboard nudge, enter, tab keys and cursor will work normally again
• ‘Delete this page’ option has been restored to the ‘Pages’ menu
• Domains module now loads in the edit environment (doesn’t go back to webeden.co.uk)
• Loading has been optimised for quicker download and more feedback
• Sidebar panels now animate to add a bit of fuhzazz!

You can navigated to the new Toolbar in the same way (’View’ -> ‘New Toolbar’), or if you’re already using it you get the updates automatically.

These are the best bits about the new Toolbar (we think)
The main reason to make these changes were to reorganise all the features into a more logical order, and to build a structure that meant it was easier to add new stuff in the future. Previously when we added new features we placed them where we could find space. Now the most important stuff is the easiest to find.

This is what we like:

• Use the full screen browser for editing - you can move edit tools outside the boundary of your site
• Zoom in/out while editing - you make your site bigger/smaller to help you ’see’ it in full glory
• Sticky edit tools - the Toolbar remains at the top and the Editor will remain on screen as you scroll up and down
• Show off-screen objects - if you drag something off your site (outside the boundary), you can choose to hide or display off screen objects while in Edit mode (new under ‘view’)
• Detailed insert menu - more objects can be added in one click, including some new HTML snippets (’Insert’ menu)
• Quick pages menu - includes quicker ways to add pages, copy pages and change page length, plus edit meta data (for search engines) more quickly (see ‘Pages’ menu)
• Links to other services - Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, AdSense can all be viewed without leaving your site (new ‘Services’ menu)
• Copy site/transfer site feature - allows you to create copies of your site as the basis for a new site (not for backup)
• HTML widget - add any HTML snippet to your site using our HTML widget snippet (e.g. Google Gadgets, all Widgetbox widgets, all Amazon widgets and more).

That’s about it. What do you think? Leave us a comment below.

Today we’re lucky enough to have another Guest Blog by Alison Cross from AlisonCross4Webs.co.uk. Its all about getting more from websites by using RSS.

What is RSS?

You may have noticed a little orange radio symbol on your journeys through the various plains and jungles of the internet. Usually on a blog or news site it winks at you from the corner of the page, inviting you to click it.

But what is it?

It’s an RSS feed link, that’s what it is.

‘What in the tarnation is RSS?’ I hear you ask! Truthfully, I didn’t actually know what RSS stood for, but I am reliably informed that it’s short for ‘really simple syndication’. And it is just that - a really simple way to share information.

Let’s look at a normal working day. Do you log on in the morning and visit your usual sites - perhaps the BBC for news, maybe WebEden’s blog to see what Ken’s telling us about today, maybe a couple of sites to do with your business? Twitter?!

What often happens is that you go out looking for those new links. With RSS, you tell the sites to send the new stuff in to you.

Sounds Good! So how do I use RSS?

What you need to get your hands on first of all is an RSS Reader.  This acts as your central gathering point for the RSS information that you want to read.

It will not surprise you in the least that I’m about to point you in the direction of the Google Reader. You can sign up to Google Reader here. You’ll need a Google account for this, which you will already have if you use their Analytics or Webmaster Tools. There are load of alternative RSS readers – just search for ‘RSS Reader’ on Google.

Google Reader

Once you’ve activated your Google Reader, you can add feeds to it in two ways.

The first way is within Reader itself. In the top left hand corner of the Reader screen you’ll see a box that allows you to add a new subscription. Here’s what it looks like:

You can either type in the actual URL of the website you want to subscribe to, or you can type in a search term and browse about until you find one that you really like the look of and then subscribe.

The second way is to click on that little orange radio button (like the image at the top of this post) while you are on the site that you want to subscribe too.

When you click on that button, you’ll probably find that you are offered several Reader subscription buttons - and Google is usually one of them. Click on that feed button and next time you log in to your Reader page, there will be the fascinating feed!

Get a Bundle

Subscribing to RSS feeds can save you a lot of time. In fact, Google has even bundled together lots of different RSS feeds for people who haven’t got time to go hunting for relevant feeds.

As of today’s date, there are 449 different bundles available to you - from news feeds..coffee ..crochet…surfing…yoga…everything! If you can’t find a bundle that interests you, why not create a bundle of YOUR niche favourites and submit them to Google for other people to subscribe to?!

Finally

Why you should use RSS? Because it brings your internet world to YOU, you don’t need to go rootling about to find it and best of all, you’ll never miss an update from your favourite site again.

About Alison Cross
Alison Cross lives on the Isle of Bute where she has built over a dozen websites using our software. She also helps people use Twitter to market their business. For more info or advice about social media or web design, visit her website alisoncross4webs.co.uk.

Have you ever reached a particular website and found it really hard to find the information you were looking for? Have you ever needed a bit of help from friends to work the checkout on a website? What about letting others know how great you think a site is – did you want share your feedback with other visitors?

Thanks to the Google Sidewiki, you can now do all of these, and much more besides. And you can also read the notes and comments left by other visitors to a website.

Launched a few weeks ago, the Sidewiki lets you add helpful information alongside any webpage. The Sidewiki looks like a browser sidebar, where you can read what others have said, and also write your own entries.

If a webpage has lots of entries they are ranked according to lots of ’signals’ which mean that those considered most useful stay at the top. The ranking system takes into account feedback that you and other users have given, and previous entries you’ve made. The entries are ranked in real time. You can read more about how they’re ranked on the Google Research Blog.

If you make a comment about a particular web page, the Google sidewiki will also display those comments against webpages that contain the same snippet of text.

Let’s say you were leaving comments about Gordon Brown’s party conference speech, on a webpage that actually included the text of the speech: your comments made on one website could also be visible on other websites displaying the same bit of Brown’s speech.

The sidewiki also pulls in posts from blogs and other websites that discuss the particular webpage, so you can see what other people are saying about it even if their comments reside elsewhere.

At the moment the Sidewiki is a feature on the Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

If you’re interested you start using the Sidewiki by visiting google.com/sidewiki to download Google Toolbar with Sidewiki.

If you’re a website builder, this feedback is a potential goldmine of information. We’re going to be able to get live feedback from our website visitors about what they think of our website. They will hopefully point out where they think we’re going wrong, and what we need to do to fix it.

Do you think it’s a good idea to allow anyone to comment on any webpage? Would you be happy to read the feedback on your site? As an experienced web user, are you happy to share your feedback? Leave a comment below!