When you create your Yola account you are taken through the steps of creating your first website. We know you are going to want to create lots of great sites, but let's take it easy for now and just get started on one!
Creating a Yola website is done in two easy steps, and a homepage template is created for you as a general guideline to help you get started. We include popular widgets that will help you create an exciting, vibrant site (such as the Gallery widget and Text widget), as well as some content that you might find useful.
The homepage is the first page you should create for your website, and is also the page your site will open up to. Your homepage is like the "welcome mat" to the rest of your site.
Keep in mind that your homepage should catch the attention of your visitors, and give them a good idea about the rest of the content on your site, and a clear way to navigate to this content. Beware of having too much information or general "clutter" on your homepage. The idea is to get your visitors to dig deeper into your site by navigating through the different pages you will be adding.
Get started by creating a Yola account
Select your template
Enter your website's name
The name you enter here will be the title of your website. It should be clear and simple and, if not your business name, it should be a good description of your site. Don't worry - it isn't set in stone! You can change it whenever you want.
Set Up Your Website
Enter some contact information that will be added to your Contact page and click Finish Setup, or click No thanks, I'll do this later if you want to add in the contact information down the road.
That's it! Your site is ready for you to edit, tweak and publish!
Templates
Your site will use the template you selected when starting your site, but you can change it at any time. There are a wide variety of templates to choose from. To change your template, click Style > Change Template and browse our full selection of Responsive, Premium, and Free designs. It's easy to change your template, so don't worry if you aren't sure which one to use.
Pages
You'll also notice that your site only has one or two pages to get you started. You can start adding pages by clicking Page. Click on the yellow + and name your new page. Click OK and the page will be added to your site's menu.
* Yola Free has a 3 page limit.
When you're happy with your site and are ready to explore more advanced features you can upgrade to one of our paid packages and start adding additional pages, second-level submenus, editing your site CSS and more!
Start building!
We have pre-populated your website with a layout and some widgets based on the template you've selected. Keep in mind these are suggestions to help you get started and can all be easily changed!
You can begin populating your website by clicking into the widgets already on your page to add text or other content. In addition to this, the Widget menu is where you will find all the tools to add content to your site. Ranging from YouTube, to Picture Galleries, and Social Media widgets - there are plenty to choose from!
Page layout options
If you do not like the page layout we have selected, you have the option of one of nine layouts. Click Page > Page Layout to view the options.
You can start with a blank page, or use a preset layout with drop zones to give you greater control over your content.
Drag and drop widgets vertically or horizontally to easily achieve the best look and feel. You can use the same layout for your whole site, or a different one on each page.
You can also change the banner image, background color and background picture on a lot of the templates. For more information, view this tutorial: Personalize your Style.
Adding text
Drag and drop a Text widget onto your page (Click Widgets and select Popular from the drop-down menu).
Click inside the Text widget that you have just added to your page to start adding text. Just type in a few short paragraphs or, if you like, copy and paste some text you would like to add to your page.
However, please remember not to paste directly from MS Word or any other external sources!
Copying and pasting directly from a program like MS Word, email, or other webpages is one of the easiest ways to destroy your site. When you copy and paste directly from these sources, there is hidden formatting in the text that can cause the page to break. Here are some things that may happen to your site as a result of pasting text directly:
- Your page will not load in the Sitebuilder. This might not happen initially but your page will break at some point.
- Content on the page might not be editable.
- Inconsistent appearance of your text in different browsers.
- Text and images appear "jumbled" and do not display the way you laid them out.
- Inability to format your text as you would like.
- Other elements of the style may break, such as the menu links.
- You may be unable to access various Sitebuilder functions, such as saving or publishing.
When you are editing your text, you will notice that a Text Editing Toolbar opens up at the top of your page. It looks very similar to the toolbar on other word processing software you might have used.
Let's use the Text Editing Toolbar to change the formatting of some of our copy. Try doing any or all of the following:
- Make some text bold, underline or italicize it.
- Type in a heading at the top of your text and change the font format to "Heading 2".
- Change the alignment of your text. Made a mistake? Just use the Undo left arrow icon on the Text Editing Toolbar to undo. Deleted something by accident? Use the right arrow icon to redo.
- Click on the palette on the right to access the Style Designer to format your text such as the font-family, color, size, and more!
Here are a few more things you might want to try, if you are feeling really energetic:
- Create a bulleted list.
- Indent some text.
- Center or left align it.
- Add a link to another website.
- Add an image.
Well done! You are now an expert at text editing in Yola! Remember these options when you add more text.
Remember to save your page frequently to avoid losing your hard work. Yola will prompt you to save if you navigate to a different page. However, you should save after every significant change. If you try to publish your site with unsaved changes, you will be prompted to save your site.
