What is it?

Yola is an online website builder. It allows you to build a free website online.

How does it work?

You set up an account (very easy process) and then select one of the templates in the next screen. You have a choice of basic styles (which are indeed very basic) and premium styles (which are a little nicer but still not anything to get real excited about). In the next screen you will need to select your website address. You can choose to point to your own domain or use a Yola address.

Editing the site is very easy with drag and drop functionality and Yola allows you to add html, image galleries and other goodies. For some of these (like the Wufoo form) you will need to sign up for additonal services but many of these are free.

It also allows you to add products for your online store through paypal.

Another nice feature is that you can download the whole site to your own computer.

Pros

• Easy editing
• Free hosting
• Download of website

Cons

• Very basic templates

Showcase

http://www.yola.com/featured_sites

Video

Conclusion

Overall a nice system although the templates are very basic. It can serve as a good start for a new website and with a little effort or help from a professional your website can look really good.

No time?

If you don’t have any time to create your Yola website then let us create a Yola website for you:

• One-on-one online consultation to determine your requirements
• Professionally-designed 5-page website – with unlimited expandability
• Free hosting included
• 24/7 online Yola support
• Like every Yola site, you can quickly update the site yourself
• One-time fee: US 475.00

What is it?

Webs is an online website creation tool which allows you to create websites quickly.

How does it work?

The home page looks promising, but after signing up I had to go through a series of adverts and ‘offers’ (ignore them and click continue) before I could finally start with the website.

Building a website is easy. Choose one of the templates and then use the WYSIWYG editor create your site. You can add calendars, photo gallery software, and can integrate it with third party services like Google checkout and PayPal. It also includes a mailing list which can be a very valuable sales tool.

Pros

• Easy to create a website
• Create forums, blogs, websites, photo galleries and many other types of site.
• WYSIWYG Editor
• Calendar
• Mailing list

Cons

• Ads
• Quality of templates

What’s free?

Webs is free to use but you will have to deal with adverts. Premium services can be bought to remove the adverts and add functionality and start from $4.16 / month.

Conclusion

It’s a quick and easy website builder but the final result isn’t great and an ugly advert is added to the page. The templates are not of a very high quality.

No time?

If you don’t have any time to create your Webs website then let us create a website for you

What is it?

Pronta CMS is a high quality content management system that allows you edit your own website. It comes with free templates that you can edit yourself.

How does it work?

You select the template that best suits your needs and you request a free website setup. Once your website is setup you will be able to edit the content, add images, forms and calendars.

Pros

• High quality templates that have a very web 2.0 feel.
• Easy onsite editing
• Can be compatible with any design
• Blog can easily be added
• Lots of functionality like forms, image galleries and calendars all included

Cons

• No ability to change the design
• Only 3 page website + blog is free

Conclusion

ProntaCMS is a really good option if you want to have a high qualtiy website quickly. Adding lots of functionality is easy and full support is available.

One of the services that many of my customers appreciated a lot when I was still conducting my business from Australia were my web training sessions. I taught customers how to create their own website or update their existing website. However, due to me moving overseas I have tended to focus more on web strategy and publishing and my web training sessions came to an end. Read more »

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is essential for your website if you want to be found on the web. Yet it seems to be a factor often overlooked by many websites. Although SEO is not important for everyone (A company like Nike is already known and people will know to just type in the website address) for many businesses search engine searches are a key method to generate new leads. It is basically free advertising. Read more »

This is a short video from anthropology prefessor Wesch on how the web changes the world and how we think. It is a brief history of how web 2.0 came about. I love the back ground music and the way this little movie was made!

Following an earlier article on this topic I thought it would be very useful to publish the follow-up article for this topic on this site. These are exactly the kind of techniques I wish to communicate to customers of Escala. Read more »

Designing and marketing your website in such a way that visitors will actually convert is the most important thing to consider when you are creating your website for business purposes. I thought I would share with you the below article  which will show you 8 useful ways to help your website reach this goal of converting visitors into (paid) customers. Read more »

In my previous article “Why I think that template based websites are a good idea” I discussed the possibility of creating a website from a well constructed template or wordpress theme. Using a template (or a theme as it is called in WordPress) is especially useful when you choose to build a dynamic site with WordPress.  Read more »

People may be surprised that I also promote templates on this website. Would that not cause less business for me? Well, in some cases yes, but let me first go into more detail on why I think templates can be helpful for businesses. Read more »