Mac SEO Blog

Building a website using a ‘no coding needed’ Windows app became easy with the introduction of EverWeb for Windows at the end of 2022. EverWeb for Windows released as version 3.9.1, using the same version numbering as its macOS counterpart.

From its launch date onwards, EverWeb’s Windows and Mac versions are usually released in synch with each other. That means there is no feature lag between the two versions – the new features and enhancements you get in one, you get in the other! Currently, EverWeb for Windows is on version 4.3, with a new 4.4 release almost ready to enter beta testing. The upcoming EverWeb 4.4 public releases expected in the next few months.

Try EverWeb for Windows Before You Buy!

One of the great things about EverWeb is that you are free to try the product for as long as possible before you purchase it. If you download the demo product from the EverWeb website, you get the latest version of the product, so you can try all of its features in full. The only caveat to this is that you cannot publish your site without purchasing an EverWeb license.

Taking a Second Look at EverWeb for Windows…

EverWeb for Windows launched at the end of EverWeb’s version 3 cycle, and a lot has happened with EverWeb version 4, so why not take another look? Here are some of the features that you may not yet know about…

• Fully redesigned Text Inspector.Now it is super easy to select fonts for the pages of your site. In addition to adding ease of use, you can now save font parameters in to Paragraph Styles that can be applied to any text, over and over again!
• All NEW PayPal Modern widget. As PayPal evolves, EverWeb keeps pace with the changes and new features PayPal adds.
• Text Justification so that you can now add justified text anywhere in EverWeb!
• Scrollable TextBoxes
• Copy Pages and Objects between EverWeb Projects
• Map and Video Fill Options for even more flexible page layouts
• Lazy Loading Images
• …and much more!

EverWeb For Windows System Requirements

Before getting started with EverWeb for Windows you will need to make sure that you are running either Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating system. If you are, then you can go ahead and download and install EverWeb for Windows.

Installing EverWeb for Windows

Once you have downloaded EverWeb for Windows from our website, installation is super easy. Just double click on the EverWebSetup.exe file. This will kick off the EverWeb for Windows Installation. Simply follow the steps of the Installation Wizard, then at the end choose if you want to add a desktop shortcut for EverWeb.

Updating EverWeb for Windows

Usually when there is a new version of EverWeb available, you will be automatically notified when you launch the product. You can control this feature by going to the Edit-> Options menu option. The Account tab is displayed. At the bottom of the dialog box you have an option to ‘Automatically Check for Updates’. By default this option is toggled on. If you do not want to use this feature, simply uncheck the option.

You can check for updates to EverWeb at any time using the Help-> Check for Updates… menu option.

Mac and Windows Version Licensing

If you run in a mixed OS environment, you can easily purchase a license to run both EverWeb for Windows and EverWeb for Mac. Start by going to your EverWeb Client Area. Once you have logged in to your Client Area, click on the Services menu, then select My Services. Next click on the down arrow to the right of the Spanner icon which itself is to the right of your current EverWeb purchase (e.g. EverWeb Standalone or with Hosting.) Select the Manage Product option. On the next screen choose the ‘Upgrade/Downgrade’ menu option then select the version of EverWeb – macOS or Windows – that you want to add to your current license.

EverWeb for Windows is a great way to build a website in Windows. There are also over 200 themes to choose from if you do not want to create your own layout! As EverWeb is drag and drop, it is easy to quickly customize and make any theme your own. And if you are more experienced, you can create more complex designs using Responsive Web Design and you can add your own code if you want as well.

EverWeb is great for both novices or experienced website designs! And if you need help at anytime, there is our 7×24 support service to answer your questions as well as our lively Discussion Forum!

Find out more about everything EverWeb at www.everwebapp.com.

EverWeb’s in-site search widgets debuted with the introduction of EverWeb 3.5. These widgets easily let your visitors search your website on specific, predefined keywords, displaying the results either on the same page of your site, or on a dedicated search results page.

Why In Site Search Benefits You and Your Business

Using EverWeb’s in-site search widgets can of benefit to your business:

1. A Better User Experience – your visitors can find what they want quickly, which is beneficial for visitors who know what they are looking for. This results in a satisfied rather than frustrated visitor. You benefit too as there is a high probability of selling goods and services to this type of visitor.

2. Higher Conversion Rate: Those who use in-site search are often high intent visitors, so the prospect of converting them from visitor to buyer is higher, up to 5 to 6 times higher than a non-intent visitor.

3. Reduced ‘Bounce Rate’ – You usually want to keep your visitors in your site as long as possible, but often if a visitor cannot find what they want quickly, they will ‘bounce’ out of your site to somewhere else. Having an in site search feature will help reduce this risk.

4. Great for Mobile Users – Having to work through menus on mobile devices is not fun to do, so having a search field instead can save mobile visitors time and frustration.

5. Using In Site Search may have an SEO Spin off – Though not directly tied to Google SEO, a search function helps visitors access SEO-optimized internal pages more easily. It may also help index and expose older or buried content that still holds value.

EverWeb’s Search Field and Search Results Widgets

EverWeb, from version 3.5 onwards, includes two widgets that are dedicated to providing in site search.

Search Field Widget – This is the main widget you use to facilitate in site search. Once added to the page, you will see a search box and search button that you can configure in a number of ways in the widget’s Widget Settings.

Search Results Widget – Use this widget when you want search results to be displayed on a separate page in your site.

In addition to these widgets, if you implement search in your site, you can customize which page to use the Search on. This is useful as you may not want all the pages on your site to be searchable. To toggle this feature on or off per page, click on the Inspector button, click on the Page Settings tab if it is not already selected, then go to the Site Search section. Toggle the ‘Use in Site Search’ checkbox on or off, depending on whether you want the current page to be included in your site search or not.

Should You Use Site Search in Your Site?

You should include EverWeb’s in site search in your site if:

• You have more than 15–20 products or pages.
• You publish blog posts, articles, or tutorials.
• You sell similar or customizable items e.g. different colors, different sizes etc.
• You want to track demand or improve your user experience over time.

Using the Search Field and Search Results Widgets

If adding in site search capabilities is for you, then add the Search Field widget to your site. Usually you will want all of your pages to be able to access the widget’s search box, sort is recommend to add the widget to your site’s Master page. For more information on using the Search Field widget, check out our previous post. If you prefer your search results to be displayed on a separate page in your site, then use the Search Results widget.

Creating and Maintaining Good Search Practices in Your Site

EverWeb will look at fields such as your page’s text as well as fields that you use for SEO. As such, it is a good idea to take an SEO approach to completing fields on pages where you are using search. Typically this will mean completing the Web Page Title, Navigation Menu Display Name and Web Page Descriptions fields in the Page Settings tab. Additionally add in relevant keywords to the Search Engine Optimization section of the Page Settings tab as these will also be picked up for the in site search.

If you have many products and/or pages in your site, adding and maintaining a current list of keywords may take time and organization. You will want your list of keywords to always be up to date when you have added, removed, or changed products within the pages of your site.

Using in site search can be a real boon to your business and can help your visitors quickly and easily find what they are looking for. So it should be a win-win for your business and your visitors!

If you are new to EverWeb, one of the first things you will do with it once you have installed the product is to create your first website. Easy enough to do, just click on the ”Create a new website” button!

Once you click on the ‘Create a new website button” you will see the Theme Template Chooser. This is where you can choose the page style that you want from over 200 predefined themes, or choose a blank theme, if you want to design your own website pages from scratch.

EverWeb’s Page Layout Types

Choosing a theme template implicitly chooses the page layout type for you. This can have a fundamental impact on the way in which you design your website, so before selecting a theme template, it is important to understand the implications of doing so.

EverWeb has three built in page layout types:

Left Aligned: This page layout type is one where the width of the page is fixed with the objects that it contains aligned left. This type of page layout is very rarely used and remains in EverWeb for legacy purposes. You will not find any predefined theme templates using this type of page layout within EverWeb. We recommend that you do not use this page layout type, but use either the Centered Layout or Responsive Layout, as described below.

Centered Layout: This type of page layout is the second type to use a fixed width page layout. Objects that you add to the page are aligned at their center. You can change the width of the page layout in EverWeb’s Inspector Window on the right hand side of its User Interface. Click on the Inspector button, then choose the Page Settings tab which is the first button on the left hand side under the Inspector button. You will see a list of Page Settings, including a section for Page Layout. Within this section, you can adjust the page width using Content Width field. By default, this is set to 1000 pixels for desktop type pages and 480 for mobile type pages.

Responsive: The Responsive Page Layout Type debuted back in EverWeb 2.8, replacing the Dynamic page layout type, which in itself was a pseudo-Responsive page layout type. The Responsive page layout is aptly named, as its layout will change, or respond, to match the device upon which it is being displayed upon. As such, you do not need to think about page width or about designing specific pages for desktop and mobile devices. The Responsive page layout makes this unnecessary.

Choosing The Right Page Layout Type….

Essentially you will be choosing between the fixed width Centered page layout type and the Responsive page layout type. Here are some things to be aware of to help you decide what is best for you and for your website.

The Advantages of EverWeb’s Centered Page Layout

1. Pixel-Perfect Design Control

You know exactly how your layout will appear within the defined width, so there will be no surprises from text wrapping or object shifts across screen sizes. This page layout type is great for when you  want tight control over object spacing, positioning, and visual hierarchy.

2. Easier to Build and Maintain Than Responsive

This page layout type is less complex compared to Responsive page design, and you do not need to account for differences in layout on different devices. As such, this page layout type is great for smaller projects, or single-device-targeted sites.

3. Works Well with EverWeb’s Mobile Pages

You can easily create a separate tailored mobile version of your site in EverWeb. whilst keeping your desktop fixed-width design in tact.

4. Allows For Fast Prototyping

Fixed width page layouts are often faster to build because you’re not managing breakpoints or fluid containers, so creating mockups for clients is quick and easy.

The Disadvantages of EverWeb’s Centered Page Layout

1. Poor Mobile Usability if you do not Include a Mobile Version

On mobile phones or smaller screens, fixed-width sites often cause horizontal scrolling or squashed views which Google may penalize your site for having poor mobile performance in search results.

2. Inflexible Across Screen Sizes

High-res desktops and large monitors may display a lot of white space on the sides, whilst users with smaller laptop screens may see cramped or overlapping content.

3. Not Future-Proof

As more users browse on mobile and tablets, fixed-width layouts can feel outdated and Responsive design is now seen as the standard and is expected by users.

4. Extra Maintenance for Separate Mobile Site

Maintaining two separate versions of your project, i.e. a desktop and a mobile version, doubles your workload for updates. Responsive layouts reduce this redundancy by using a single, adaptive design.

The Advantages of Using EverWeb’s Responsive Page Layout

1. Mobile-Friendly by Design

Responsive design automatically adjusts your content to fit all screen sizes—phones, tablets, desktops, and large monitors. There is no need to build and maintain a separate mobile version. In addition, this type of design automatically meets Google’s mobile-first indexing standards for better SEO.

2. One Site to Manage

Using Responsive design means that you only need to manage one version of your site instead of having to manage separate desktop and mobile pages. Updating content, layout, or style will be applied immediately across all devices, saving time and reducing errors.

3. Improved User Experience

Your site’s visitors will get a seamless experience on any device. Navigation, images, and text scale appropriately, reducing bounce rates and boosting engagement.

4. Modern Design Standards

Responsive sites feel more up-to-date and professional. They are automatically future-proofed as your site site will be able to automatically against to new device types and screen sizes.

5. Better SEO

Google favors mobile-friendly and responsive websites in search rankings. Also, hainvg one URL per page (instead of needing separate mobile URLs) improves indexing and reduces duplicate content issues.

6. Flexible Design Tools in EverWeb

EverWeb includes responsive features such as specifically designed widgets for responsive design. There is also “Show on Device” which helps manage object visibility across devices, as well as adjustable font sizes As such, you can effectively create complex responsive layouts without needing to code.

The Disadvantages of Using EverWeb’s Responsive Layout

1. Steeper Learning Curve

Responsive design introduces concepts such as breakpoints, containers, and device-based visibility that can be harder to grasp than fixed positioning, especially if you’re used to pixel-perfect layouts, or are new to website design.

2. Less Predictable Layout

As the page layout changes based on screen size, you do not have total control over how every element will appear, for example, text wrapping and spacing may vary more than in a fixed-width layout.

3. More Initial Setup Time

A responsive design typically requires thoughtful planning to ensure content looks good across all screen sizes. You will need to test on multiple devices or use preview frequently to check your design works correctly at all times.

4. Complex Element Positioning

Precision design is harder, especially for overlapping elements or absolute positioning.

Conclusions

If you are new to web design we would recommend starting out with a Centered Page Layout. In this way you can quickly get your website up and running whilst learning how to use EverWeb. Once you have mastered these skills, you can build a Responsive site at a later date using the skills you have already acquired.

In our previous posts about blogging in EverWeb we looked at how to prepare for starting your own blog, how to add a blog to your EverWeb project and how to take advantage of all of the features of the ‘posts‘ page to create the perfect post.

In this post we are going be looking at the two other pages that are contained in an EverWeb blog: The ‘blog’ page and the ‘archive’ page.

The Blog and Archive Pages

Historically, the blog page is used to list your most recent posts, with the most recent post at the top of the list, the second most recent listed next and so on. The blog page only contains your latest posts so that your visitor can see what is recent and new. The archive page, on the other hand, lists all of your blog posts. Structurally, the two pages are almost identical as both of their functions is to display a list of blog posts.

Looking Familiar…

The blog and archive pages share the same widget on their pages with the blog page having one extra option, the ability to link to the archive page. If you use EverWeb’s RSS Feed widget, you will also notice that it looks quite similar to the blog and archive pages widget. This is not a coincidence as the RSS Feed widget links to RSS Feeds that display article links in descending order, e.g. new articles, or blog posts! Indeed, you can also use the RSS Feed widget in your site e.g. on your home page, to show your visitors links to your latest blog posts.

Blog and Archive Page Features

As you may already know, you can add a blog to your site using either a fixed width, center aligned page layout, or as a Responsive page. Once you have added the blog to your site, click on the blog widget that is displayed on the page so access its Widget Settings.

The first option is a checkbox to toggle show/hide the posts published date. The second option is for the ‘Total Number of Posts’ that you want to see within the widget. The default is set to 10 but you might want to increase this to account for the actual number of posts that you think you will make over time, e.g. 100. This number should always be higher than the value you use in the ‘Posts per Page’ field as it does not make sense to have, for example, the total number of posts set at 10 whilst you want to display 25 posts per page.

The next field is ‘Article Length’, which allows you to set how many characters of the post that you want displayed within the widget. Setting this value may be important so that you give enough text of each post to catch your visitor’s attention. The same applies to making the post title interesting to entice your visitor to click on the blog post link!

The next field, ‘Style’, deals with image alignment within the widget. The image itself is used it taken from the blog post’s ‘Post Image’ field. You can choose to display ‘Just Text’ (so no image displayed), or have the image as either on ‘Top’ of the post, ‘Left Aligned’, ‘Right Aligned’ or as a ‘Cover’ which displays the image above the post and centered.

The last option in the first section of the Widget Settings is ‘Extra Space’ which allows you to choose how big a gap you want between each post that is displayed.

Pagination Options

The second section of the Widget Settings, Pagination Options, is where you set up the widget’s pagination. If, for example, you have 30 posts and have set up the widget to display five posts per page in the widget, you will have a total of 6 pages that can be accessed in the widget. Pagination options allow you to click on any of the 6 pages using buttons at the bottom of the blog widget. You can also step through the widget’s ‘pages’ or jump to the first or last page with just one click.

To activate this feature, check the ‘Show pagination buttons’ checkbox. Once you have done this, you will see buttons displayed at the bottom of the widget. Use the color swatch or color wheel to set the colors as you desire. Additional options allow you to specify corner border roundness and the spacing between buttons.

The last part of the Pagination Settings section is only available on the blog page. This is the option to show a link to the blog post archive page. If you check the ‘Show full archive link’ checkbox, you will see the link displayed above the pagination buttons. You can name the link as you desire and you can also set its position to be either Center, Left, or Right aligned.

Styling The Blog and Archive Pages

After setting up your blog and archive pages how you want, the final step in setting up the blog and archive pages is to style the widget on the page as desired. All you need to do here is to double click on what you want to style in the Editor Window. For example, if you want to style the Title, double click on any one of the titles in the widget. All titles will now be highlighted. Use the Fonts panel to choose the font style, font color and font size that you want to use. Repeat this operation for the Date and body text fields, as well as the pagination buttons, as desired.

EverWeb’s blog and archive pages are easy to set up and customize so that they fit in to the look of your website. When you have completed setting up your blog, preview or publish to see the results!

In our last post we looked at the basics of blogging and how to get started with your own blog in EverWeb. In this post, we will be looking more in depth at how you blog, and how to make the most of EverWeb’s blogging feature so you get the best out of your blogging investment!

The Blog Posts Page

EverWeb’s Blog Post page is where you create and manage your blog posts. In this way, the ‘posts’ page is unique. It is comprised of four sections:

The Blog Post List

When you click on the ‘posts’ page, in the Web Page List, you will enter the heart of EverWeb’s blogging environment. In the top section of the posts page is the Blog Post List. Here is where you can see listed all of the blog posts that you have created. It is also where you can create a new post, delete posts, as well as add in SEO to your posts and import blog posts from iWeb and WordPress using the Settings Cog icon.

Once you have created a blog, you can also set the date and time that you want time stamped on the post, or set the publish date and time to the same as your website publishing date/time.. Simply click on the blog post’s date field to set this up. If you do not want the blog post to be published yet, e.g. if you are still working on your post, then you can click in the Draft checkbox. Notice also on the far left hand side you have red and green traffic lights that indicate whether the post has been updated since it was last published.

The Blog Post Editor Window

The heart of your blog post is your text and the Blog Post Editor Window is where you create your content. You can use the Blog Post Toolbar to style your post. If you are using EverWeb 4.0 or higher, you can even use Paragraph Styles in your post. You can also include images within your post by drag and dropping them in to the Blog Post Editor. When you do this, you will see an Image Toolbar that allows you to add ALT Text to the image and set its alignment as In-line or break text. The Blog Post Editor Window also lets you add in video and audio files using the Video icon in the Toolbar.

The Blog Post Preview Window

When you add your content in to the Blog Post Editor Window, you will notice that it is also displayed as a preview in the Blog Post Preview Window which sits directly below the Blog Post Editor Window. You can think of the Blog Posts Preview Window as a kind of Master Page in which your content sits. When you create your first post, you will notice that the Preview Window contains a Header, date at the top of the Preview page and the EverWeb logo at the bottom. All these features will appear on all of your blog posts. You can add, delete and rearrange objects in the Preview Window as desired. For example, if you add your company logo to the Preview Window, it will appear on all of your posts. If e.g. you remove the EverWeb logo from the Preview Window, it will not appear on any of your posts. Therefore, use the Preview Window to format and customize the look of your blog itself if you want to. Alternatively, you can still use a Master Page instead if you prefer.

Blog Post Settings

In the Blog Posts Preview Window section above, we mentioned styling and customizing it to get the look that you want for your blog. Many of the customization settings can be found in the Blog Post Settings column that runs down the right hand side of the posts page. Here you can customize the fonts used for the posts header and date fields.. Additionally you can also add an image to the post and define the colors that you want to use for any hyperlinks. You can also create Navigation Links within the blog post to make it easy to navigate to the next or previous post as well as to the blog’s Index page. The last part of the Blog Posts Settings section is for adding a Comments Engine, such as Disqus or FaceBook Comments, if you want to allow your visitors to add comments about what you have posted.

SEO and Blog Posts

The last important part of the blog posts page it to remember that you can add in SEO to your posts. The post’s header will be used, and you should add keywords in to the first paragraph of your post if it is suitable to do so. If it is not, please just create good content instead. Google will prefer that to you adding keywords just for the sake of SEO.

In addition, you can also add keywords and summaries to your blog posts. Select the blog post that you want to apply SEO to in the Blog Posts List. Next, click on the left hand bottom side of the Blog Posts List. Choose the Post Options… menu option. You will now see a dialog box where you can add in a short summary description of your post, as well as Keywords relevant to your post. Once you have added these in, click on OK to finish.

Adding posts to your blog is super easy and super flexible! In our next post we will be looking at the blog page and the archive page.

Blogging has been a long standing feature of EverWeb since its EverWeb 2.0 debut back in 2016. Starting your own blog is easy to do. Just click on Add Page from the EverWeb Toolbar, then select either the ‘Blank’ or ‘Blank’ Responsive page in the list of themes down the left hand side of the dialog box. On the right hand side of the dial box click on the ‘blog’ page then click on ‘Select’ and you’ve got a ready made blog structure!

Should You Be Blogging?

The idea of having your own blog is often a tempting one, and there are a lot of advantages in doing so. There are also a lot of things that you should know before you start that may give you a better sense of perspective about blogging. Here are some of the good reasons to start a blog…

• Creative Expression – A blog allows you to share your thoughts, ideas, and expertise with the world.
• Potential Income – Through ads, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and digital products, blogging can generate revenue.
• Builds Authority – Establishes you as an expert in your niche, helping with career opportunities and networking.
• Improves Writing Skills – Regular blogging enhances writing, research, and communication abilities.
• Flexible & Low Cost – Can be started with minimal investment and managed on your own schedule.
• Community Building – Connect with like-minded individuals and engage in discussions.

And here are some things worth considering before you embark on your own blog…

• Time-Consuming – Requires consistent effort to research, write, and promote content.
• Slow Growth – Building an audience and monetizing a blog takes time and patience.
• Technical Challenges – May require some knowledge of SEO, web design, and digital marketing.
• Competition – Many blogs exist, so standing out requires unique and high-quality content.
• Content Fatigue – Constantly coming up with fresh ideas can be exhausting.

After weighing up the pro’s and con’s, if you have decided that blogging is beneficial to you or your business, read on!

Plan Ahead To Save Time and Effort…

One of the main things you will soon learn as a blogger is that planning ahead is going to pay dividends quickly. Planning your blog topics in advance, as well as deciding the publishing frequency of your posts are key to successful blogging.

When it comes to planning what you are going to post about, create a list of topics that you want to blog about. If you run out of ideas quickly, you may have to consider if blogging is right for you. Also remember that when planning your blog posts, to keep in mind your audience. You want your posts to be read, but if they are not relevant to your target audience, then you might be wasting your time!

When planning your content, remember that there is usually Evergreen content that you can use. Evergreen content is content such as anniversaries and other yearly, or seasonal events. This kind of content as well as subjects that you can always talk about e.g. starting your first website project in EverWeb, will always be topics that you can rely on year in year out.

The second point is to determine your blogging frequency. Decide what is a good frequency. Depending on your business, this could be anything from daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly… It is up to you to decide what is appropriate. Once you have decided what is a good publishing frequency, decide on the day of the week, and time of day if relevant, that you will publish on. Humans are creatures of habit and like regularity so choosing the same day of the week for example, to publish on will tune your audience in to be ready for your next post each week.

A Word About Commenting

Allowing the visitors to your blog to be allowed to comment on what you post is something that you may or may not want. This will probably be something that you already will know whether you want to do or not before you start blogging.

Allowing comments on your posts can be very useful, but it can also be time consuming and there’s always potential for spammers and abusive commenters. So if you choose to allow comments, you will have to moderate those comments.

If Commenting is for you, EverWeb allows you to set up with Disqus, or with Facebook Comments. The EverWeb User Manual has full details about how to create accounts for either of these Comment Engines and how to link them to your blog.

Now that the we have discussed why you would want to blog and how to prepare properly for blogging, let’s turn our attention to what exactly a blog is…

What Is a Blog?

A Blog is an acronym for web-log, a way to publish written content, often in an informal or conversational way. Since its initial inception, blogging has grown and changed, but at its heart has a few principles:

• A blog usually consists of a main summary page, blog posts an an archive page
• A blog is usually updated on a regular basis
• Blog posts are usually displayed in chronological order
• Blogs are often used as a way to interact with a community
• Blogs are typically, but not exclusively, used for long form written text, but can include images and other media.

How EverWeb’s Blog Is Structured

As you have just read, a blog is something different to the regular pages of your site, and you can see this when you create your own blog in EverWeb. The blog page is actually a directory, so when you add it to the Web Page List in your project, you will see the following:

• blog: This is the directory page that displays a summary of your most recent blog posts in chronological order, with the most recent post displayed first
• Posts: This page is where you create the posts for your blog. The Posts page is where you will probably spend most of your time when you are blogging.
• Archive: The last page in the blog is for your archive. This page is identical to the blog page (but without the ability to link back to the archive page), but is typically used to display all of your blog posts, not just the most recent ones.

You should now have everything in place to start your blog! In our next post, we will take a look at the blog posts page in detail, as well as covering the Main and Archive pages!

One of the best things about EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget is that it can be used for almost any type of contact form that you could imagine. For example, you can create flexible, easy to use, survey forms which are great for finding out from your customers what they think of your current products or services, as well as they would like to see for future products and services.

In this post, we will be looking at how to design a survey form in EverWeb and what to look out for along the way…

Getting Started with Designing Your Survey…

When designing your own survey, there are a lot of things to consider. Here is a run down of the basics of how best to create your own survey.

1. Define The Purpose of The Survey

Before designing your survey, be clear about what you want to achieve, for example, are you looking for feedback on customer satisfaction, product preferences, or website usability? Having a clear objective will help you ask relevant questions and keep the survey focused.

2. Keep It Short and Simple

People are more likely to complete shorter surveys. Aim to ask only essential questions that directly relate to your survey’s goal. A survey with 5–10 questions is ideal for keeping users engaged without overwhelming them.

3. Ask the Right Questions

Your questions should clear, concise, and unambiguous. Use different types of questions depending on the information you need:

• Multiple Choice: Great for quick answers and quantifiable data.
• Rating Scales: Ideal for gauging satisfaction or the likelihood of taking action.
• Open-Ended: Useful for collecting detailed feedback. This type of question should be limited to avoid the form completer getting ‘survey fatigue’.

4. Use Logical Question Flow

Group similar questions together and use logical progression wherever possible. For example, start with broader questions, then move to more specific ones. Ensure that one question naturally leads to the next if you can as this creates a better user experience.

5. Personalize the Survey

Where possible, personalize questions based on user behavior or demographics. For example, if a user has made a purchase, ask questions related to their buying experience. Personalization makes the survey feel more relevant to the respondent.

6. Make It Visually Appealing

Design matters. A clean, simple, and visually appealing survey increases completion rates. Avoid clutter and use whitespace, clear fonts, and attractive color schemes. Make sure your survey is also mobile-friendly, as users may access it on a smartphone or tablet.

8. Test Your Survey

Before launching, test your survey on a small group of users or colleagues. Ensure that it flows smoothly, the questions are clear, and that there are no other issues. Gather feedback on how easy it is to complete.

9. Incentivize Completion

Offer an incentive for completing the survey, such as a discount, a give away, or other reward. Incentives can boost completion rates but ensure the value aligns with the effort required.

10. Place the Survey at Key Interaction Points

Run the survey at times when users are most likely to respond, such as after a purchase on your site.

11. Respect Privacy

Ensure your users know that their data is safe and that the survey complies with privacy regulations such as GDPR. Offer the option to remain anonymous, especially if the survey covers a sensitive subject.

Building Your Survey Form in EverWeb

Once you have designed your survey, you can now translate it in to a contact form in EverWeb. If you want to store the data that your form will collect in an easy manner, we recommend that you purchase EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon:

1. Start by going to the page in your site where you want to add the survey.
2. Click on the Widgets tab in the Inspector Window and drag and drop the Contact Form Advanced widget on to the page.
3. First complete the ‘Email Address to Send Form To’ field.
4. If you are using EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Addon, select it in the ‘Contact Forms Enhanced Add-on field.
5. Complete the remaining fields in the section until you get to the Form Submission Settings section.
6. Complete the fields inn the Form Submission Settings section, until you get to the Form Controls section.

Form Controls: The Key To Your Survey Form

The core to building your survey form lies in the Form Controls that you use in the form. Form controls allow you to define the fields of your form how you want them. For example, click on the Name field in the form control list, then click on the Control Type dropdown list. You will see all of the field types displayed for you to choose from.

For Multiple Choice or ratings questions, use either the Radio Button control, or a dropdown menu control, if you are asking a yes/no question, or when only one choice is allowed. If you want to offer your form filler the option to select more than one response option, use the Checkbox control type.

If you are asking an Open Question, use either a Textbox or Text area. When using the TextBox control type, you can limit the number of characters that the form filler can enter.

Giving Guidance…

When building your survey form in EverWeb, you may find it useful to provide guidance to help your form fillers complete the form correctly. Use the Placeholder and/or Control Instruction/Tip fields to provide help. As with the wording of your questions for the survey, make sure also that your help text is clear and unambiguous.

Fonts, Colors and Styles

Use the Fonts and Styles section of the widget to style your Survey Form appropriately. Typically you will style the survey form in the same way you would for the rest of your site. Again, bear in mind the advice in point 6 above regarding making your survey form visually appealing.

Once you have completed your form, and tested it for ease of use and completion, publish your survey when you need to activate it.

Conclusion

EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget gives you all of the tools that you need to make an effective survey form, as long as you prepare properly by using the survey design tips ioutlined above.

SEO is one subject that we often come back to with EverWeb. For some SEO may not be important, whilst for others it can be the key to a successful online presence, typically for business ventures. EverWeb makes adding SEO to your site easy. When you complete fields in the Page Settings tab of a page in your site, you are already adding information that will be used for SEO purposes when you publish your site..

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is used to improve your website’s visibility to search engines such as Google, Bing and Alexa. In turn this will drive more traffic organically to your site. Adding the right key words to the pages of your site optimizes them to help search engines better your ranking in search results.

The Benefits of Adding SEO To Your Site

1. Adding SEO To Your Site Increases Organic Traffic: Using SEO effectively should help your website rank higher in search engine results. This will make it easier for potential customers to find your site without the need to use paid for advertisements.
2. Gives Your Visitors a Better User Experience: When SEO is properly added to you site it should help improve your site’s speed, its mobile-friendliness, and navigation, all of which will enhance your visitors’ experience.
3. Better Perceived Credibility & Trust: Websites that rank on the first page of search engine results pages are perceived to be more reliable and authoritative which in turn increases trust among visitors.
4. Cost-Effective Marketing: Using SEO can help lead to more consistent traffic coming to your site over time without the ongoing costs that marketing may entail.
5. Build a Competitive Advantage: If you are not using SEO but your competitors are, they could be attracting more traffic, leads, and sales than you.
6. Targeted Audience & Higher Conversion Rate: SEO helps attract users who are actively searching for what you offer, increasing the chances of conversions (sales, sign-ups, etc.).
7. Localized SEO for Local Businesses: If your business operates in one country only, localizing SEO may help attract more local customers as your SEO is relevant to where you are based.
8. Long-Term Results: Unlike paid for advertising, where traffic will stop if you stop paying, SEO builds a foundation for long-term online success.

SEO and Your EverWeb Site…

As we mentioned at the start of this post, EverWeb has SEO baked in to it automatically. As you add information to the fields in the Page Settings tab of the inspector Window, EverWeb will use this for SEO purposes when your site is published. If SEO is important to your business there are three things that are important to bear in mind when starting to add SEO to your site’s pages :

1. Filling in the right fields for SEO
2. Adding quality information in SEO relevant fields
3. Using the right key words and/or phrases in SEO related fields

Effective SEO For Your EverWeb Site…

The best way to make sure that you are filling in the right fields with the best SEO keywords or phrases is to either follow the SEO for EverWeb Video Course, or check out chapter 12 – EverWeb & SEO – of the EverWeb User Manual which can be accessed either from the Projects Window or via the Help Menu. These tools will help you gain an understanding of SEO in clear, concise steps. There are lots of great tips as well that will help to boost your site’s search engine results page ranking.

Additional SEO Tools To Give You The Edge Over Your Competition

EverWeb gives you the basic tools that you need to set up SEO effectively for your site. This is usually sufficient for most users but if SEO is business critical, you can tailor your SEO more specifically through the use of the EverWeb SEO Power Up addon, which includes the very useful Check Page feature, making implementing SEO even easier!

Keeping Your Site’s SEO Up To Date

Once you have added the SEO that you want to the pages in your site that require it, remember to review these pages on a regular basis. There are two reasons why this is important to remember: firstly, your pages may change their content over time e.g. the home page or products page of your site. If this is the case then do you need to update the page’s SEO to reflect these changes? The second reason to check your SEO every so often is that search engines such as Google, may change their algorithms from time to time. These changes to the search engine algorithms may have a positive or negative effect on your search engine result page rankings. So you may need to realign your SEO to account for these changes.

Adding SEO to your site is a good way to boost page rankings in search engine results pages. It is also a no, or low, cost option to promote your site that usually only requires reviewing, or updating, on a regular basis.

The recent release of EverWeb 4.3 has some great new feature adds such as the all new PayPal Modern widget. As well the headline features, there are many other worthy, but less prominent, new and improved, EverWeb features to enjoy! Here is a round up of them…

Justified Text For TextBoxes

Justifying text within TextBoxes is one of the feature our customers have often asked for. Now, with EverWeb 4.3, a justified text button joins the left, centered and right margin aligned buttons in the Text Inspector, which itself got a major redesign in EverWeb version 4.0. The new feature means that you can now justify text anywhere in EverWeb as text justification was already available in the Styled Text Editor (which is used in some of EverWeb’s widgets) and in the Blog Post Editor.

TextBox justification can be applied to one or more paragraphs within a TextBox, and you can also mix and match text alignment styles within the TextBox if you want. Note that when you edit Text in a TextBox you will see the text displayed as left aligned, until you have finished editing the text. When you click away from the TextBox so that it is no longer selected, you will see the text displayed as justified.

Object Layout Buttons

We introduced layout buttons to objects in EverWeb 4.2 so you can directly access Widget Settings and other settings without moving away from the Editor Window. The number of Layout Buttons that you see depends on the type of object that you are working with and the page layout type you are using.

In EverWeb 4.3, you can now toggle the size of the Layout Buttons to be either normal size or small. To change this setting, go to the EverWeb-> Settings-> General menu on a Mac, or the Edit-> Options-> General menu in Windows. Check or uncheck the ‘Use small layout buttons’ to suit your personal preference.

Expanded Stock Photos Drag & Drop

Drag and dropping is, of course, one of the most common things we do when working in Windows or on macOS. Over the course of EverWeb’s development, we have enhanced this feature so that it is available in more places, especially in asset lists. In EverWeb 4.3 this capability has been expanded so that you can now drag and drop images from EverWeb’s Stock Photos window directly on to the Fill Slideshow Asset List in the Shape Options tab. This is a great way to save time and effort when creating slideshows!

Automatic AI Bot Defence

The advent of AI is bringing new and exciting tools for all of us to use. Unfortunately it can also bring new problems and issues. EverWeb 4.3 automatically blocks AI Bots from your site. For advanced users you can also edit the robots.txt file and the .htaccess file. When editing these files, remember to make sure to text your changes thoroughly. If you make a mistake you may find that your site comes up with ‘500 Internal Error’ type messages when published.

Use the File-> Edit Publishing Settings menu option to access this new feature. The Advanced Option section has the toggle to ‘Block AI Bots’ as well as the robots.txt and .htaccess file fields.

New Features For EverWeb Mac Users

For our macOS users, EverWeb 4.3 now officially supports macOS Sequioa, and for the eagle eyed, you may have noticed that you get live font previews in the Text Inspector Fonts menu dropdown list.

More EverWeb To Follow…

Our latest release has brought new features to EverWeb including the new PayPal Modern Widget, as well as adding user requested features such as justified text in TextBoxes. But there is more to come with lots of big updates coming soon that will make EverWeb even easier to use whilst delivering new features at the same time, so stay up to date with our blog posts to get all of the latest news!

Keeping in contact with your customers is a vital part of maintaining and growing your business. The classic approach is to use e-mailable newsletters to engage with new and existing customers. Signing up to such a newsletter can be facilitated in a number of different ways such as through your EverWeb made website. E-mailable newsletters are a great way to introduce existing, new, and potential customers, to your products and services. An E-mail newsletter will probably be just one of a number of methods you will use to maintain contact with your customers. Usually we recommend using a couple of contact methods such as such as blogs, vlogs, social media and so forth. Choose the methods that will give you the most coverage but take the least amount of your own effort.

In this blog, we are going to focus on creating an email newsletter sign up form in EverWeb. This is easy to do using EverWeb’s Contact Form Advanced widget. This widget is the most flexible way to create a contact form that blends in perfectly with the rest of your site, whilst giving you all the tools you need to create the form you want. You may also be aware of EverWeb’s Contact Form widget. This is a legacy widget that, whilst simple to use, does not have the features, or the security, that the Contact Form Advanced widget provides. As such, we recommend using the Contact Form Advanced widget in all instances.

Newsletter Sign Up Form Objectives

The main objective of a newsletter sign up form is to acquire the email address of your visitor so that you can market to them in the future. 

For your visitor, a newsletter sign up form should be quick, easy, and as simple as possible to complete. Contact forms that take too much time to complete, are too complex to fill in, ask for too much visitor information, and/or raise privacy concerns will probably scare your visitors away.

When creating your own newsletter sign up form, we recommend using the latest version of EverWeb if possible.

Adding a Newsletter Sign Up Form To Your Page

To create your own newsletter sign up form in EverWeb, start by creating the page on which you want to place the newsletter sign up form, if you have not done so already, or use an existing page. For example, you may want your sign up form to be highly visible, such as front and center on your Home page!

Wherever you decide to place your newsletter sign up form, the next step is to go to the Widgets tab, and drag and drop the Contact Form Advanced widget, on to your chosen page.

Contact Form Advanced Widget Settings

After you have added the Contact Form Advanced widget on to your page, you will now need to complete the following fields in the Widget Settings…

Start with the ‘Email Address to Send Form To’ which, as its name implies, is the email address your visitors will send their newsletter sign up forms to.

The next field should be completed if you have purchased EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced Add-on. Click on the dropdown and select the add on so that your form can use the add-on’s features.

The next step is to give your form a name, using the ‘Contact Form Name’ field. If you are only using one form in your site, this may not be important to do. If, however, you are using the Contact Forms Enhanced add-on it will become more important to specifically name your form. In this way you can more easily manage the data and email addresses that you collect from the different forms that you may create in your site.

The next field in the Widget Settings is the ‘Mail Sending’ field. This field tells EverWeb how you want to send emails, either using SMTP Details, PHP Mail, or via EverWeb, Typically the ‘SMTP Defails’ option is the preferred method unless you are using EverWeb’s Contact Forms Enhanced add-on, in which case you should use the ‘EverWeb’ option.

Setting SMTP Settings

Once you have completed the first section of the Widget Settings, the next to complete is the SMTP Settings section. Depending on your selection in the ‘Mail Sending’ field, you have different options available.

If Mail Sending is set to ‘SMTP Details’ you will need to complete all of the fields in the SMTP Settings section. If you need help filling out these fields, click on the ‘More Help’ button. If you have selected ‘PHP Mail’ you will not need to complete the STMP Settings and fields in this section will be greyed out. If you selected ‘EverWeb, again the SMTP Settings will be greyed out, but you will need to select a Contact Forms Enhanced add-on in the Contact Form Enhanced Add-On field.

Designing The Newsletter Sign Up Contact Form

After completing the contact form’s basic settings, you can now turn your attention to the design of the form. To do this, you will use the Form Submission Settings section. The first field in this section is ‘Email Subject’. As this is a newsletter sign up form, you will probably want to title it as such e.g. ‘Newsletter Sign Up Request’.  The next field to complete, ‘Email Sent Success Message’, can be left as is, or customized as you want.

The following field in the Widget Settings is the ‘Forward to Page’ field. This field is used to redirect the visitor to another page within your website, once they have signed up to your email newsletter. For example, you may want create a ‘Thank you for signing up’ page in your site. On this page, you can then direct the visitor as to where to go next in your site, for example, your home page, or sales page.

The next field, Form Style, lets you to choose the overall style of your form using one of its three different options: Classic, Modern, or Transparent. When you choose a style, the widget in the Editor Window will automatically update, so you can try each style before choosing the one that suits your needs best.

Using Form Controls

The next section of the Widget Settings is probably the most important one from a form design perspective. The Form Controls section is where you define the fields and field labels that you want to include in your contact form. As simplicity is our goal for this form, delete the ‘Name’ and ‘Message’ fields. To do this just click on the field in the list you want to remove, then hit the delete or backspace key.

The remaining field in the Form Controls list is ‘Email’, which we are going to rename so that its field label is easier to understand by anyone completing the form. Double click on the ‘Email’ Form Control and edit the label to be, for example, ‘Enter Your Email Address’. 

The next step is to place some help text in the field. This is optional, but adding ‘Placeholder Text’ will improve the chances of your visitors completing the field correctly. In this example, the help text will be ‘Fill in your email address here’.. We are not going to add any Control Instructions as the Placeholder Text help is sufficient for our purposes.. 

Moving on to the Control Section Options section, set the maximum content width of the field so that it display properly on any device. In this example, we are am going to set the width to 250 pixels. This is narrow enough for the field to fit on one line, even on a small mobile phone. Optionally, finish by setting ‘Alignment’ to center.

Setting Up Fonts and Styles

In the next section of the Widget Settings we can set up our form’s fonts and styles. Use the Control Label Style and Form Fields Fonts button to set the font style of the form as you want.

Configuring the Submit Button

After setting up our form’s appearance and the Email Form Control, the last step is to customize the , ‘Submit’ button in the Submit Button section. Instead of using the word ‘Submit’, we will change the text to ‘Send’ in the Submit Caption field. Additionally, the text within the button will be center aligned, using the Alignment field.

To complete the look of the button, check the Use Styled Button checkbox and set the font and color of the button as you want.

The Newsletter Sign Up Form is now complete. If you want, you can additionally set up a confirmation email. Note that if you do this, you will need to enable Spam protection as well.

Once you have finished your page design, publish your site, then test your form.