To celebrate the launch of our latest release – which turns your website into a mobile version for mobile phones -we’ve launched a competition in association with Computer Active Magazine that gives you the chance to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab!
The 5 runners up will get a free subscription to our Website Builder Standard Package, worth £50 each!
You can enter the competition on ComputerActive’s website here.
We get all sorts of people building websites with WebEden.
Some have a hobby or an interest they want to share with the world. We have lots of clubs who want somewhere to show off team photos and results. Others are small businesses using the web to service customers and find new ones.
Last but not least are charities. Because the WebEden website builder is so easy to use (and so low cost), WebEden is a popular way for people in charities to build their own website.
We’re really happy to be able to serve this sector so well – so much so that we’re going to give away 100 Free Websites to charities.
We will pay for a year subscription to either WebEden Lite or Standard for any UK charity. This includes a free website, free website building tools, free hosting, a free domain name and up to 5 free email addresses. Free for a whole year.
All you need to be is a UK Charity registered with the Charity Commission. You need to use your free website for your charity. All we ask is that you add a link to your website indicating that this is a website provided by Website Builder WebEden.
To apply add the following details to the comments box below:
Your Name
Your Charity Name
Your Charity Number
What your Charity Does
Your Email Address
Your Phone Number
The first 100 genuine applicants will receive a free website for their charity.
Depending on how fast we receive applications, we hope to start notifying lucky recipients at the end of January.
We look forward to receiving your applications!
The World Cup may be over but there is a palpable sense of excitement in the WebEden office. Why is that, you may ask? Because this week we’re going to wow y’all with a new release of our website builder…
Giving you the Flex(ibility)
Our new release is all about Flex, aka ‘Flash Application Frameword’. This is background coding stuff that means that future developments (of which we have lots planned) will be much easier and quicker to roll out to you.
Right now, this means that the new version will give you:
• Scrolling Sidebar Panels (woo-hooo. Ahem.)
• Customised Toolbar Shortcuts
• Updated Services area for Google Analytics, Webmaster tools and Adsense
We’ve also got a few other changes, including:
• An eye dropper which lets you copy a colour you’re already using on the page
• Line spacing control, which lets you vary the line spacing on a paragraph by paragraph basis.
• Page load times have been cut thanks to image auto-resizing and asynchronous calls to Facebook
For the new control panel you’re going to make sure you have the latest stable version of the Flash Player – 10.1. You can get it here. Don’t worry, your visitors won’t have to upgrade – all they need is version 8.
What’s next?
With Flex, we’re shortly going to release these exiting new features
Blog: A long time in the coming, but our new blog tool will let you add blog articles, give them tags, accept & reject comments. Believe me, this will be a cool tool.
Ecommerce: I know, we’ve mentioned it before, but ecommerce for WebEden really is coming. We’ve got a product catalogue that will allow you to add thousands of products. It’ll be really powerful – but very easy to use
HTML: We’re working hard to improve our HTML rendering for mobile, particularly those handsets that don’t currently support Flash. This is a medium term project due in the next few months
That’s all for now – but watch this space
As soon as the new control panel is release you will be the first to know. Stay in touch with us here on the blog, on Twitter (twitter.com/webeden) and Facebook (facebook.com/webeden).
Due to popular demand we’ve added more templates into our website builder. These give you lots of new starting points for your website building journey!
Here are a few of my favourites
I don’t know about you but I find these new templates inspiring!
Don’t forget, you don’t need to use a template, you can always start with somethink blank.
Like the new designs? Any others out there that you’ve seen and you’d like us to have a go at? Leave us a comment below.
At the end of last year we contacted WebEden custom Laura Hood from RubyBoutique.co.uk to ask her about the experience of building and running a successful website.
Why did you decide to build a website?
Having always enjoyed making jewellery for friends and family, I wondered if there was room in the already crowded online jewellery market to sell what I make. I created the site because of genuine enthusiasm for making things rather than an expectation of making loads of money from it (although granted that would be nice, and will hopefully come in time!!).
Is this your first website?
I have always been interested in creating a website but it has taken until now to take the plunge. I literally did not have the first clue how to get started so (as with everything) I Googled it. That is how I came across Webeden. They have made this whole process possible and I still can’t believe how well priced the packages are. I chose the standard package so I pay only £5.39 per month, which included a free domain name (!!). [I honestly didn’t pay her to say that – Ken]
Like I said, I have no experience in web building or design and have been really pleased with the help WebEden have given me. The whole process is explained in basic terms on the Webeden website, giving helpful step by step instructions. I have also found it really helpful to ask questions on twitter as a friendly response is always given really quickly.
Are you going to sell anything?
Yes, Ruby Boutique is a fashion jewellery store selling reasonably priced jewellery, some of which is handmade. Postage is free and items come gift wrapped in lovely presentation bags. We have had a 100% positive feedback rate on our items, delivery and customer service which we’re really pleased about as our main aim is to provide well priced jewellery and excellent customer service.
How long did it take you to build your website?
Considering I started the process of building my site without any real knowledge, I have been pleasantly surprised by how quickly I learned how to build and design it and get it up and running.
I first looked into the idea in September, then purchased the standard WebEden package in October (after taking advantage of the two week trial period which was very useful).
The design process kind of developed as I went along so I was constantly tweaking and changing little bits (e.g. the font on the Newsletter page changed several times before I was pleased with it).
I would say, however, that if you are new to building websites to expect things to take a while. I spent pretty much every evening and weekend building the site from the beginning of October until the launch in December. It’s also an ongoing process as stock comes in and is sold – the site needs regular updates to ensure it remains interesting and up to date.
How did you decide on a design?
The background floral design of the website is the same as on our twitter page. We trialed the design on twitter before launching the site, and had great feedback about it.
The overall design of the site, i.e. which pages to include, came about as a result of looking at similar websites and also from our own experiences of shopping online (there’s nothing worse than a complicated, messy layout – it puts people off looking around the site).
Have you looked at competitor websites?
www.dollipops.co.uk (twitter @Miss_Dollipops)
www.funkyjunkjewellery.com (twitter @Funky_Junk)
www.finaltouchesjewellery.com (twitter @FTJewellery)
The girls who created the above websites are lovely – I follow them all on twitter (which is how I found out about their sites). The thing I’ve found most surprising is that although we are all technically ‘competitors’ there is a genuine friendly community on twitter and we are all happy to offer each other help and advice.
For example, I was given loads of advice from the lovely lady behind Funky Junk Jewellery about how to promote the site, and following her advice have built a Facebook fan page for Ruby Boutique.
How will you use Twitter to market your website?
I am still fairly new to twitter (only had my account since about October 2009). I have been so impressed by how helpful people are in promoting my site.
I hold a ‘Winning Wednesday’ Competition on Twitter each week on, you guessed it, Wednesday. This has proved to be a great way to promote the site, get new followers on twitter and increase sales (one lady bought 5 or 6 additional items after winning a necklace).
At the moment I am primarily promoting the site through twitter so most of my sales have been generated in this way. It is a fantastic way to let people know what you’re doing and what’s coming up – although I would recommend that you don’t overly plug your items and spend time just chatting with people as otherwise they will soon get sick of the overt advertising and will ‘unfollow’ you.
I like to think that people are following me to find out what I am personally up to as well as finding out about Ruby Boutique.
A little bit about Ruby Boutique
Ruby Boutique was founded in late 2009 and is based in North East England. The main range of fashion jewellery includes necklaces, rings, earrings and bracelets – many of which are handmade. Our costs are kept to an absolute minimum and this is reflected in the prices of our items. Postage is free* (no minimum spend).
Visit us www.RubyBoutique.co.uk
Follow us on Twitter @Ruby_Boutique
Email us Enquiries@RubyBoutique.co.uk
And that’s it.
If you’ve got any questions for Laura, or you’d like to share any of your website building experiences, please leave a comment below.
And if you’d like to be interviewed about time building a website then leave a comment too or contact WebEden on Twitter (@webeden).
A couple of months ago we revealed our brand new control panel.
You gave us lots of feedback about what you liked and what you didn’t. We took your advice, made some updates, and a few weeks later the control panel came out of Beta.
As with any other piece of software, it’s never quite finished. There’s always new stuff that we want to add, update or improve.
So we’ve listed to even more of your comments and we’ve made some further Tweaks.
Just to remind you, this is what the control panel looks like:
One thing that a lot of you asked for was the option to hide the Sidebar when you were editing your website. This means that you can use your whole screen to look at your website.
You can now do this – just click the ‘strip’ that runs all down the side of the Sidebar, on the outer edge. The other way is to click again on the selected icon in the Top bar. This is because icons now act like toggles for the Sidebar.
You can also increase the vertical height of the area that you’re editing by hiding the top icons.
Go to ‘Edit’ and then click on ‘Preferences’. Choose ‘Hide toolbar icons’.
Once you’ve got rid of the icons, this is what you’re left with.
That’s it. Thanks for your advice!
To give you fair warning, we’re going to be turning off the old toolbar on February the 1st – you won’t be able to use it after that. We’re doing this to make our code a lot simpler, and make it both easier and quicker to roll out new features.
Any more feedback about the new control panel? Please leave it below.
Well its been quite the week for Twitter posts. We started with a basic how to sign up to Twitter. Then we had tips to help you get to grips with Twitter. Yesterday of course we had 14 questions you need to answer when developing you social networking policy.
And now, the icing on the cake: How to put a Twitter Feed on your Website. Watch this to find out how to put all your Tweets onto your WebEden Website.
How did you get on? Leave us a comment below.
Last week we let you know that the new WebEden control panel and editing tools are now live, in beta.
Its a massive update to the edit environment, and future proofs our website building platform for when we add new features. If you’re not sure how to switch to the new control panel, watch the tutorial below.
Let us know what you think!
Wow-wee! As previewed last week, the new WebEden control panel and editing tools are now live, in Beta. Its an exciting time for us, and for you too (we hope!). This control panel is the result of months of hard work, and is the biggest update so far.
For those of you who missed the preview, this is what it looks like:
As we said, its the largest overhaul to the edit environment in the last 5 years, and sets up our website building platform for future development too. The long awaited HTML widget is now out of beta, works in all browsers (ooooohh), and opens up libraries of additional content. And you can now copy an entire site too…
New Toolbar (beta)
Some are calling it WebEden SiteMaker5, some call it WebEden+, all we know is we call it the New Toolbar. It’s been launched as an opt-in beta version, which means it’s fully functional, you can choose it, you can use it, but you’re not forced to. We’re looking for feedback – good and bad (constructive) – so that we can polish it off for a final release at a later stage. But it works and in our testing so far makes things far quicker and easier to do.
To get to it, login to your site and go to ‘View’ –> ‘New Toolbar (beta)’. Your site will reload in the new environment but you can revert to the old style toolbars at any time. The advantages of the new Toolbar are:
The major drive for this change was to better organise the features available and create the structure so that we can expand services further in the future. WebEden has grown to include so many features over the years, sometimes the most important ones get lost, so this is an opportunity to re-present them for how they are used today. When we started many years ago we built a ‘Page editor’ whereas today WebEden allows the management of your website over its whole lifecycle. From initial build -> monitoring traffic and performance -> developing community -> monetisation -> ongoing updates.
Copy/transfer site
Some new features in the ‘Admin’ section are the copy site and transfer site features. This allows you to create a copy of the design and structure of your site which you can use as the basis of a new site. Please note this isn’t a complete copy like backup, as some data is not copied, e.g. individual posts in comment feeds or forums. But the text, images, design, structure, etc., are all applied to the new site.
The transfer site feature allows you to transfer an existing site (or a new copy) to another user of WebEden.
Both features have been asked for many times, both by customers that want to build more sites themselves and by resellers who find they want to build similar sites for clients in similar industries over and over. These new features will help make that easier to achieve.
The HTML widget
You can’t add HTML to a Flash site, don’t be ridiculous! Or can you ;-) ? Some of you will have been using the Beta version of this widget for some time now, but for others this will be new. The HTML snippet widget allows you to paste in HTML code (or markup for the purists out there) that you might find elsewhere (Amazon affiliates, Youtube videos, Twitter feeds, etc.) into your WebEden website and use it seamlessly with our other features. The changes/improvements for this release are:
So this new feature makes available all Google Gadgets, all Widgetbox widgets, all Amazon widgets and more. Happy hunting!!
But remember, this still only works if you have the Flash 10 player!! Currently FP10 has around 86% penetration according to Adobe but growing by 3-4% per month.
Product selling page templates
There are now some new product selling page templates with suggested layouts for creating easy to use product pages on WebEden. You can do this in the ‘Add page’ option in the ‘pages’ menu.
For those of you waiting, these are not the long awaited e-commerce updates, so apologies about that, but we are still working towards that goal and the interface lays yet further foundations for the e-commerce tools that will require these new technologies to work as well as they can.
If you’re not sure how, you can watch a video tutorial on how to switch to the control panel.
Anyway, so that’s about it. We hope you enjoy it and let us know what you think! Enjoy!
