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As we put the finishing touches to EverWeb 4.0 before unleashing our new software on to the world, web are reminded that with each new EverWeb version there is always some new learning involved. EverWeb 4.0 has some totally new features such as Membership and Subscription sites – which is huge! There is also the overhauled Text Inspector which will make building your site even easier, giving you the flexibility with fonts and text both now and in the future.

These are just a couple of examples of what’s coming but no matter how much we craft EverWeb to be as easy and intuitive as possible, you may want to dig deeper to get the best and most out of its features. Here are some suggestions on getting a fast start on discovering and using new EverWeb features.

The EverWeb User Manual

The EverWeb User Manual is your most detailed resource for all of the features of EverWeb. The manual is designed for first time EverWeb users as well as for experienced users who just want to dip in for some specific information. The EverWeb User Manual is updated with every release of EverWeb, both on Windows and on Mac. The manual is in PDF file format so you can easily search its contents, save a copy locally, or even print it out if you want to.

You can find the EverWeb User Manual in two places in EverWeb: As a link in the bottom left hand corner of the Projects Window or from the Help-> EverWeb PDF Manual menu option.

EverWeb’s Help Icon

Context sensitive help is always at hand within EverWeb though the Help Icon. This icon is displayed as a question mark symbol within a circle. You will see this icon displayed beside many of EverWeb’s features and also in the Widget Settings of many of EverWeb’s widgets. When you click on the icon beside a feature, a pop-up window will display with an EverWeb website, or YouTube, video describing the feature that you asked for help on.

The EverWeb Website

Help is always available on EverWeb’s own website. If you are completely new to EverWeb and to building a website for yourself, there is a great beginners video series available for you. If you are a photographer, amateur or professional, there is also a series for you to help you get the best out displaying your photos on the web. This series is currently being updated, so check out our YouTube and Facebook pages to discover the latest videos! getting your website up and running quickly if you are new to EverWeb. If SEO is important to you, or your business, there is a special series on EverWeb and SEO that contains short, to the point, videos on all aspects of EverWeb and SEO.

The EverWeb website also has other resources to explore such as its own blog where you can keep up to date with the latest in the world of EverWeb. If you need third party theme templates or widgets, check out the EverWeb Third Party Vendor page. This page is also great to find add-on products to connect you with other vital internet resources.

EverWeb’s own site can also be used to tap in to Support resources such as knowledge bases and contact with support personnel. Check out the menu options to find the right kind of support that you need!

Videos and Blogs

We all have our preferred medium for accessing help and support resources. Many people prefer to help and instructional videos. We try to make our videos short and focused so that you get to the help and support that you need in a timely manner. We also aim to make any instructions clear and concise. You can find EverWeb videos on our own website, on YouTube or FaceBook. If there is a video topic that is not there for you, please do let us know so that we can include this for you.

We also try to update videos on a regular basis to take in to account of new EverWeb features and also new technologies that are constantly emerging. We also try to expand EverWeb world by connecting and integrating you with other products e.g. financial and commercial product, calendaring and scheduling products, event management products, internet marketplaces and so much more! Again, if there is a product or service that you want to integrate in to EverWeb that there is no video for, do let us know in the Comment section below.

If video is not for you then blog posts can offer a great experience for you. EverWeb includes many instructional videos where we try to bullet point the steps along the way to make it as easy as possible for you to get to where you need to be. As with the videos, if we do not have a blog post for what you need, let us know.

You can find blog posts related to EverWeb on EverWeb’s own website, Rage Software’s (the maker of EverWeb) site, All About iWeb, iWeb Unlimited and Everything EverWeb.

EverWeb on Social Media

You can also find help on EverWeb’s social media accounts. This is a good place for keeping up with all the latest EverWeb news, videos and blog posts. It is also a place where you can ask questions to us as well. At the bottom of this post you will find the links you need to keep updated with EverWeb!

The EverWeb Forum

Use the forum for any questions that you may have about EverWeb. The forum is also announces the availability of new beta test versions of EverWeb if you want to try them out, as well as notifying you of official new releases. The EverWeb Forum is a great place to connect with the EverWeb Community and its third party providers.

EverWeb has the complete range of resources to help you discover new and updated features and to get the most out of them, quickly and easily. If there is anything that you think is missing in our support for you or if you have an idea about how we can improve, please let us know in the Comments Section below.

Enjoy EverWeb 4.0! Coming Soon…

Starting your own business is an exciting time, turning your dreams and ideas in to reality. It’s also a time where you are likely to want to get your EverWeb website up and running to promote your business and sell your goods and services. Here are some suggestions as what tools you may want to use when starting out…

It Starts with a Name…

When you start a business, one of the most important things to decide is your business name. You may want a name that tells your potential customers or clients what your business is about. The problem new businesses have is trying to match their business name with their website domain name. More often than not, someone is already using the domain name you want. So be prepared. Make a list of four to six business names that you like, in order of preference. Then check with your Chamber of Commerce to see if any of these names are available.

You can look at choosing your business name in another way. Is the domain name for the business name I want available for purchase? Quite often, businesses choose the website name first, then check to see if the business name is available at the Chamber of Commerce. By getting the website name first, it is more likely that the business name will also be available for use. You can check if a domain name is free using EverWeb’s Domain Name Search feature.

When choosing a name you also will want to look at the scope of the name. This comes down to looking at the extension that is used in the website name e.g. everweb.com. Most websites aim for a ‘.com’ suffix but other extensions are available e.g. ‘,org’, ‘.gov’, ‘.edu’ or a country e.g. ‘.co.uk’. ‘.nl’, and even ‘.eu’ for the European Union. This may give you more flexibility when choosing a website name, but bear in mind that some extensions are designed to be used for a specific purpose.

Finally be careful of names that are very similar to other names or using hyphens to try to differentiate your name from someone else’s. For example, you want to call your company ‘abcd business’ but the website name ‘abcdbusiness.com’ is already in use. So you decide to make ‘abcd-business.com’ your business name. We would not recommend this. When potential customers search for your business, you may find that they actually click on your competitor’s site instead of yours.

Choosing Your EverWeb Version

Once you have your website name and have registered your business with your Chamber of Commerce, the next step is to build your site. The next decision to make is where to host your website? You can either host your website with your own Hosting Provider or with EverWeb. The choice is yours. You can still build your website in EverWeb and publish it to whichever Hosting Provider you have chosen. We usually recommend hosting with EverWeb as you get hosting features built directly in to EverWeb itself. You do not have to worry about the Hosting end of things at all as EverWeb takes care of this for you.

Also remember that EverWeb comes with a free stock image library of over 500,000 images to help you choose the perfect images for your site. Just click on the Media button in the Toolbar and select the ‘Free Stock Photos’ option. Enter in your search criteria, then drag and drop the image you want to use into the Editor Window.

SEO Matters…

As you are building your website, you may also be aware that you need to get your site’s pages as high up in search engine results pages as possible. So remember as you design your pages to add in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) key words and phrases to pages that you want to be relevant for SEO. You do not need to include SEO for pages such as Contact Us and About Us type pages. Check out our SEO for EverWeb Video Course for a full tour of SEO and how to easily and quickly apply it to your website.

If you are selling good and services online or your need to maximise your website’s potential, you may also want to consider EverWeb’s SEO PowerUp Addon. The Addon lets you refine your SEO allowing you to assign priority and frequency to your website’s pages, creates and SML Sitemap that can be crawled by web crawlers, optimises your site for search engines, submits your pages to Google, Bing, Yahoo and Alexa, and makes your pages load faster for your visitors using GZip Compression.

And keep an eye on this blog and the EverWeb User Forum for exciting news coming for SEO in the upcoming EverWeb 4.0 release!

Securing Your Website

Whilst SEO will help your page rankings improve, your site’s security is ever more an important issue to keep in mind, both for your site itself and also for your visitors. Most sites today are secure so you see a padlock next to your site’s name in the browser search bar. This indicates to your visitors that data transmitted to and from your site’s server is end to end encoded. The other plus point here is that search engines rank secure websites above non-secure websites. All of these features are available with EverWeb’s Site Shield Addon including Enhanced Security Settings for advanced website security. EverWeb Site Shield Addon is available for purchase through your EverWeb Client Area.

At the moment Site Shield Addon is available only to EverWeb+Hosting customers, but stay tuned as that is about to change in the new EverWeb 4.0 release which should make this addon available to everyone.

Contact Forms

Communication and interaction with your customers is vital to keep a thriving business, especially online. EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget enables you to create powerful, flexible forms to help you engage more effectively with your customer base. You can take your contact management one step further though with EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon. This addon is great when you want to store email addresses for later use and collect data from contact form submissions for analysis. You can design your contact forms for specific campaigns you want run through your website.

Contact Forms Enhanced also lets your visitors upload files to you through the contact formant mass emailing features are also available. For details about purchasing this addon, check out EverWeb’s Online Store. There will also be more features in EverWeb 4.0 to further revolutionize contact form design!

Membership Sites…

Our final consideration is to add a Membership Site to your website so that your visitors can access free and paid for content by signing up to your Membership Site. Easy to use. Easy to set up. Easy to administer and fully featured. It’s coming soon in EverWeb 4.0!

Setting up your website and adding in the features that you need to make your business safe and secure and profitable is easy with EverWeb. Our upcoming EverWeb 4.0 release is going to add great new features and enhancements to make your website building experience even better.

If you have a question about this post, 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.

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.

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!

Hyperlinking in the recently released EverWeb version 3.7 adds some great new, and expanded, capabilities to the stalwart feature that’s been around since the very first EverWeb release.

Hyperlinking is an essential, integral part of building your website as most website developers will want to add links to other pages in their site, to pages in an external site, to a file, or link to an email app. All these features debuted with EverWeb 1.0 and since then EverWeb’s added a number of other hyperlink related features which we will outline below as most features have been enhanced with the release of EverWeb 3.7. We begin, however, with a brand new hyperlinking feature: Force Download.

EverWeb’s New Force Download Option

Prior to EverWeb version 3.7, if you set up a link to a file, such as a PDF file, when you clicked on the associated link, the file would open in the browser window. If you wanted to save the file, you could do so at this time. In EverWeb 3.7, you now have the ‘Force Download’ option which automatically downloads the file to your visitor’s device when they click on the associated link. This is very useful as it saves the step of the visitor having to view and manually download the file. One thing of note if you use Force Download is that the feature depends on whether the browser in use allows for this function. Some browsers may not support the feature or allow you to customize the browser settings to stop such downloads.

To use Force Download, just tick its checkbox in the Hyperlinks Inspector or in any other hyperlinking dialog boxes within EverWeb.

‘Nofollow’ for Links You May Not Trust…

The ‘nofollow’ option was introduced in to EverWeb with version 1.9 and instructs search engines NOT to visit the site, or rather, not to ascribe credit to boost the ranking of the destination site based on the link. Check the ‘nofollow’ checkbox when you need to have the link but want to exclude it from SEO crawls as you do not have confidence or trust in the linked site.

The ‘Nofollow’ checkbox appears in the Hyperlinks Inspector and In EverWeb 3.7 is now included in all hyperlinking dialog boxes.

Choosing Your Link Behavior

Since EverWeb 1.9 you have been able to open a hyperlink in the current browser window, a new browser window or in a popup window. These features are now available in all hyperlinking dialog boxes within EverWeb.

Easier Scroll Position Linking

The last hyperlinking feature is Scroll Position where you can create two types of links for on your page. The first is where you ‘Insert Fixed Scroll Position‘ on the page which should only be used for Center or Left Aligned Page Layouts. The second type of Scroll Position, ‘Set Selected Shape as Scroll Position‘ allows you to link to an object on a page such as a TextBox or shape. This type of Scroll Position can be used on both fixed width page layouts and Responsive Page Layouts.

Prior to EverWeb 3.7, if you wanted to add a link in a widget using the ‘Link’ button, or via the Styled Text Editor within a widget, you would need to ‘hardwire’ the link using the URL field in the hyperlinking dialog box. In EverWeb 3.7, you no longer need to do this, as the hyperlinking dialog boxes now all include a ‘Position’ field which will display the Scroll Position names for the page you have selected. This makes linking a lot easier when using Scroll Position.

Hyperlinking Dialog Boxes

All of the above mentioned features are available in the Hyperlinks Inspector tab of the Inspector Window. Depending on the context of what you are linking to e.g. a page, a file or an email, some options may, or may not, be available for you to use.

Where EverWeb 3.7 differs from previous versions is that the features of the Hyperlinks Inspector are now available when you click on the ‘Link’ button within widgets, or when you click on the Hyperlink button in the Styled Text Editor within a widget that includes e.g. the FlexBox or PayPal Widget.

If you are creating a link in a blog post, you can use the hyperlink button in the Blog Post Editor Window’s Toolbar, although this will only give you options to quickly set up a hyperlink. If you need to use any of the above options in a Blog Post, highlight the text or image you want to link to, then go to the Hyperlink Inspector and check the ‘Enable as Hyperlink’ box to make all of the hyperlinking options available for use.

…and There’s More to Come!

EverWeb’s 3.7’s new Force Download feature and improved hyperlinking throughout the app will make linking much easier and more flexible for all EverWeb users. But stay tuned as we are planning more updates for hyperlinking in an upcoming EverWeb release!

if you have any questions about Hyperlinking in EverWeb, or any EverWeb related questions, please let us know in the Comments Section below. We’re happy to have you comments and feedback and to answer any questions you may have.

We are incredibly excited to announce the release of EverWeb 3.6! Two big new features are the highlights of this release! Fill: Slide Show gives you the ability to add a slide show to a TextBox, rectangle shape, image and the Responsive Row widget! It’s an incredibly powerful new feature!

Our second new feature also brings ups the power of EverWeb, in this case with enhanced security features added to EverWeb Site Shield Addon! Your website’s security can be taken to a new level with EverWeb’s easy to implement settings! Click and go for the most secure website you can get!

These features and more are available now! Check out the full feature list below and let us know if you have any questions, issues or wishes!

Which Version of EverWeb is For You?

EverWeb is available in the following versions:

• If you are running an Intel Mac running OS X 10.10, macOS Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur or Monterey EverWeb version 3.6 is available for you.
• If you are running an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS Monterey or Big Sur, EverWeb version 3.6 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.

EverWeb 3.6 Includes…

[NEW] New Security Features for EverWeb Site Shield Addon.

[NEW] The Shape Options Tab gains a new Fill: Side Show feature.

[NEW] Blog Post Cover Image includes Alt Text.

[IMPROVED] Improved speed in the Editor Window.

[IMPROVED] Speed improvements for pages with lots of widgets on them.

[IMPROVED} English (British) and Dutch localization improvements

[IMPROVED] Adjustments made to the Site Publishing Settings screen 

[FIX] Improved stability of Blog Post Editor.

[FIX] Blog posts in some instances were not updating properly.

[FIX] Fixed adjusting popup window dimensions for links in blog posts.

[FIX] Improved error checking for FTP publishing.

[FIX] Borders on full width object when exporting websites.

[FIX] Issue with selecting a file for a link in the Inspector’s Styled Text Editor.

[FIX] Fixed possible layout issue with Text Section widget.

[FIX] Facebook Like Widget improvements.

[FIX] Images get properly exported as transparent PNGs when using rotation.

[FIX] Vertical alignment of text in shapes with borders (now align middle and bottom properly.)

[FIX] Some CSS issues with blog posts and blog post images when the images are very large.

[FIX] Image Slider widget did not fade properly.

[FIX]The RSS Feed widget Hyperlink Widget Settings for Rollover and Visited did not work.

[FIX] When used together, the Image Gallery Widget and Blog Main widget would create issues when previewed or published.

[FIX] Fixed issues with full width shapes on fixed width layouts that use margins.

[FIX] Fixed alignment of vertical text in shapes with borders which now align to middle and bottom properly.

[FIX] Fixed transparency, shadows and flip settings for shapes.

[FIX] Fixed reflection of rotated shapes.

[FIX] Inspector not being able to scroll properly when you scroll with one shape then select another shape.

[FIX] Changing blog post settings in Inspector will update it properly.

[FIX] A potential crash when dropping an image on a shape set to image fill.

[FIX] Fixed an issue with RSS feeds exporting blog post content.

[FIX] Fixed an issue with RSS feeds not having the correct path to post image.

[FIX] Fixed previewing of very large blog posts.

[FIX] Fixed issues with blogs that had an image file and were full width being set to fixed width when publishing.

[FIX] Popup window links in blog posts.

[FIX] Full width navigation bars in FlexBox will work when using Parallax Scrolling.

[FIX] Facebook Like Widget fixes.

[FIX] Alignment of search button in search widget when using borders.

How To Update To EverWeb 3.6

You can easily update EverWeb 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 EverWeb disk on the desktop by dragging it to the Trashcan.

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 Standalone free update period from EverWeb’s Preferences window 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 it’s new blogging section
• New EverWeb videos on YouTube
• The EverWeb User Manual in EverWeb’s Help-> User Manual menu
• The EverWeb Discussion Forum

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

EverWeb on Social Media

You can also find EverWeb on the following social media platforms:

Facebook

Flipboard

YouTube

Twitter

Instagram

You may have noticed when using EverWeb, that there are quite a few places where you see the words ‘Alt Text’ displayed in the Inspector Window. You may also see that some widgets also include ‘Alt Text’ in their options. But what is Alt Text, what does it do, should you be using it in your site and if so, how can you get the best out of using it? Let’s find out…

What Is Alt Text?

Alt Text stands for Alternative Text. It is the ‘alternative’ to using an image. Alt Text replaces an image when the image itself cannot be loaded and viewed on screen. In addition, the other original intention of Alt Text was for it to be used to help visually impaired people who used special equipment that would read the contents of the screen back to them.

Alt Text and SEO

Adding Alt Text to an image in your EverWeb Project can also benefit to your site’s SEO as Alt Text allows search engines to better crawl and rank your website. All in all, adding Alt Text to the images in your website will make for a positive experience for your potential and existing visitors.

Adding Alt Text To An Image

There are a few places in EverWeb where you add Alt Text to your images. If you have standalone images anywhere on your page, just select the image you want then go to the Shape Options tab. In the ‘Fill’ section you will see there is an Alt Text field. Just enter in the text that you want to use. It’s that simple. If you use an image more than once in your site from the Assets List in the Assets Tab, you will need to add Alt Text to the image each time you use it. If you copy the image whilst it is on the Editor Window, using Copy and Paste, the Alt Text attribute will be preserved.

Remember that when adding Alt Text that it should be a brief description of what the image is, in less than 125 characters. A brief description is important because of the points made earlier in this post about the Alt Text being used for the visually impaired and also its role in replacing the image if it cannot be loaded in to the browser.

Many of EverWeb’s widgets also contain Alt Text fields e.g. the FlexBox and Text Section widgets. For the Image Gallery widgets, you can use a Caption to inform the visitor of what the image is if it cannot be displayed on screen.

Using Alt Text To Its Best Advantage

When you add a Alt Text description to an image, remember two things: First, be descriptive and do not use just a collection of keywords as your description, and second, bring out the detail and specifics of the image wherever you can e.g. if you have an image of a boat you might want to say, ‘The new 30 meter yacht, Princeton, launching from Dover Harbour, England.’ A third point is to remember the context of the photo in your site. In the example just sited, the context is easy as there is reference to both an event and a place. If your image is a generic one, for example, from a stock photo site, you should add Alt Text for the image that applies context to it within the page. As an example, I may want to use a stock photo with the word ‘SEO’ in it on my page. For the image’s Alt Text I could add some context relevant to my site by using this description: ‘EverWeb’s SEO Video Course is available on YouTube.’

Images in Your Project File

When using images in your Project file, it is always a good idea to name the image file descriptively before you grand and drop the file in to your EverWeb Project. This method is the best way for website crawlers to discover your image and use it when ranking your site. If you have already imported your image with a non-descriptive file name, you can still rename it in EverWeb. Just double click on the image in the Assets List and rename the file. In terms of SEO, this is OK, but is second best to renaming the file before importing it into EverWeb.

Alt Text is a great way to add accessibility to your site, it creates a more positive experience for your visitors and it can help boost your SEO. Use it only on the images that are important to your site. As with everything SEO, you do not need to add Alt Text to images that do not need it. Focus on what is important in terms of your site’s SEO.

More information on EverWeb and SEO can be found on the EverWeb website.

If Search Engine Optimization is important to you, then EverWeb’s SEO Power Up could be a great addition to your EverWeb purchase. SEO Power Up Addon extends the range of EverWeb’s already built in capabilities by submitting your website to search engines from Google, Bing, Yahoo and Alexa.

EverWeb SEO Power Up also contains a variety of features so that you can more specifically optimize your website’s pages to get the best advantage when search engines crawl your site. You can change the priority of the page and the frequency in which the page is crawled by search engines.

Whilst EverWeb’s new add on debuted in version 3.4, it’s been improved in EverWeb 3.5 with the addition of Open Graph Tags.

What are Open Graph Tags?

The Open Graph Tag Protocol was originally developed by Facebook. Open Graph Tags are code snippets that determine how URL’s will be displayed in Social Media. What the Open Graph Tag does is to create the best feature rich preview of the URL possible.

How Does The Open Graph Tag Work?

The Open Graph Tag will look at the data and information that comes with the URL and will build a preview based on this e.g. the page title, page description and so on. Whilst apps generally try to create the best preview possible on their own, the Open Graphs Tag helps to provide richer previews so that your content stands out more in Social Media.

What are the Advantages of the Open Graph Tag?

The advantages of Open Graph Tags are that they:

1. Create the best feature rich previews for shared media links.
2. Help your content to stand out amongst other content.
3. EverWeb’s SEO Power Up addon adds Open Graph tags automatically.
4. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter are some examples of apps that take advantage of Open Graph Tags.

What Do I Need To Do in EverWeb?

As Open Graph Tags are part of the EverWeb SEO Power Up addon, there’s nothing you need to do as EverWeb will apply the tags to URLs automatically for your website. If you share URL’s on Social Media, they will be automatically used if the app takes advantage of the Open Graph Tags Protocol.

What About Open Graph Tags and SEO?

Open Graph Tags are meta tags and so will have an indirect influence and impact on your SEO. The advantage of Open Graph Tags is that they should improve the performance of your links in Social Media, which is a plus in itself. You may like to think of the Open Graph Tag as an optimization for the URL link when used in Social Media.

As always, we aim to make life easier for you when developing your website! And now with Open Graph Tags in EverWeb SEO Power Up, you get better, richer Social Media previews for your website URL’s without having to do anything!

When using EverWeb you pretty much have everything to hand that you need to build a website but sometimes you may want something extra for your site. Perhaps you want better security, or you want to sharpen your site’s SEO, or you want to use the data gathered from your contact forms. EverWeb’s Addons are here to help you get even more out of EverWeb!

Site Shield Addon

EverWeb’s Site Shield Addon is designed for EverWeb + hosting customers who want a secure to transmit data across the internet to all of the devices your website visitors may be using. The ‘end to end’ data encryption of data is provided through the use of HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) in place of HTTP.

WhyEverWeb Site Shield Addon Is Important

There are a number of reasons why EverWeb Site Shield Addon might be important to your website:

1. Your data is end to end encrypted across the Internet protecting you from ‘Man in the Middle’ attacks;
2. Sensitive data, such as financial data, confidential data, web shopping carts or medical data, is safely and securely transmitted;
3. Site Shield Addon will help improve your SEO rankings. For example, Google prioritizes HTTPS sites over non-secure HTTP sites;
4. Using Site Shield Addon also makes Google Analytics more effective as Referrer data is saved which is not the case if you only use HTTP;
5. Site Shield Addon builds trust with your potential and existing customers. The Padlock symbol that appears beside your URL in a visitor’s browser search box indicates that the site has secure end to end data encryption enabled. This visual symbol is a great way to let your visitors know that you take data security seriously;
6. Installing EverWeb Site Shield Addon is really easy, you just tick a checkbox in EverWeb’s Site Publishing Settings screen! There is no configuration needed. Just publish your entire site once you have checked the ‘Use HTTPS Secure URLs’ checkbox.

To purchase EverWeb Site Shield Addon, just check the Use HTTPS Secure URLs’ checkbox. A dialog box will appear which will guide you through the purchase process.

Contact Forms Enhanced Addon

EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget debuted in EverWeb 2.0 as a replacement for the original Contact Form widget. Whilst you can still use either widget in your site, the Contact Form Advanced widget is:

1. More Secure than the Contact Form widget through the use of SMTP Settings in the Widget Settings.
2. Has 17 different Form Control types so you can control and customize data input in to the form just as you want.
3. Improved SPAM protection. The use of forms in a website is one way in which SPAMmers can infiltrate your email box with SPAM. EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget uses Google’s reCAPTCHA to help reduce this attack vector.
4. Enhanced Form Confirmation and Submission Settings are included so that you can highly customize your form. You can even forward your visitor to a different page in your site once they have clicked on the form’s submit button.
5. Advanced Form Error Validation helps guide visitors if they have not filled out the form correctly and try to send it to you.

The EverWeb Contact Forms Enhanced Addon Advantage

These above features make the Contact Form Advanced widget the perfect tool for form creation in EverWeb. The Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, introduced in EverWeb 3.0, seamlessly integrates with the widget and offers the following advanced features:

1. Easily manage your Contact Form data from within your EverWeb Client Area.
2. Reporting on your Contact Form data is also easy and customizable.
3. Contact Form data can form the basis of mail shot campaigns by exporting the data out in to CSV format.
4. Contact Form data is securely stored on EverWeb’s Servers.
5. Use ‘Calendar’ and ‘Select Time’ Form Controls to create your own in-form calendar which can be used as the basis of a booking system.
6. Your customers can upload files to you from within the form using the ‘File Upload’ Form Control.

To purchase EverWeb Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, add the Contact Forms Advanced widget to your page then click on the ‘Contact Form Enhanced Add-on’ field then click on the ‘Add Contact Form Enhanced Features’ menu option. You will then be guided through the purchase process.

EverWeb SEO Power Up Addon

The most recent addition to EverWeb’s collection of add-ons is SEO Power Up, which debuted in EverWeb 3.4. The new add-on builds upon EverWeb’s existing built in SEO features to giving you more customization options to fine tune and focus your SEO.

EverWeb SEO Power Up lets you add your own keywords to individual pages, set the priority of your pages for SEO purposes and the frequency in which web crawlers crawl your pages. You can even designate pages in your site that you do not want to be included in SEO.

To purchase EverWeb SEO Power Up, just go to our secure online store.

More features will be added to SEO Power Up in the upcoming EverWeb 3.5, as well as a host of new features including site wide search, so check back on our blog or go to the EverWeb Forum for the latest news!