Typically our Nifty Website choices focus on the smaller, up and coming websites that are on the verge of success. Yola is a bit different in that they are already well established and for the most part successful. However, their website builder offers something that many don’t in the form of business tools and merchant integration options.

The Basics

Basic site building and hosting services are free although users will get the most from Yola by utilizing one of their monthly plans. Features such as custom domains and phone/email support are included in all three packages dubbed Bronze, Silver and Gold.

A Silver plan unlocks more customizable settings such as CSS editing along with Facebook and mobile publishing. The mobile site feature is especially useful because these days you can’t possibly move forward if your website isn’t viewable on mobile devices. The Gold plan adds SEO (search engine optimization) analysis to your site and is definitely worth the step up if you don’t have a clue what SEO is.

Beyond the Basics

Many of those basic features can be found on a number of other site builders. What strikes us as a successful step above many of them are the tools available for integration within the site.

Merchants can incorporate inventory management, payments systems, tracking detail and mobile sales directly into a Yola site. Typically a daunting task, Yola turns selling online into a more reasonable experience for merchants.

Business tools can be utilized as well. With standard features like contact forms and Google Maps, Yola sites are comparable to other expensively built websites. Advanced tools include mailing lists, site stats, appointment scheduling, Facebook commenting and more. Setting up mailing lists alone can be a source of frustration so having the option at your fingertips is a huge plus.

Behind the Scenes

As many already know, a website is merely the front face of a much larger machine. Yola employs cloud hosting with a claim of 99.9% uptime (we have no reason to doubt that figure) as well as DDoS protection. So although you’re paying a monthly fee to Yola, the built-in protection they provide is something you may not get going it alone, which makes the price more of a value point.

Yola does provide some basic tutorials to guide new users along and actually displays a phone number on the main page for anyone that needs assistance. Two things that a less established site builder might not offer.

Summary

Yola is well established with over 7 million users and counting. They have a simple system in place to get new users up and running with a basic template from which they can make the site their own.

Yola stands apart from some others with business tools and merchant features that normally require some additional coding or plug-ins. The features can help build a truly complete business website or organizational online presence.

Overall, users will need to invest in one of the premium packages to benefit from Yola, though we think it’s a wise investment if it’s a serious project. If you’ve been looking for an easy way to get a website off the ground and want a source that’s trusted and reliable, then Yola is a great place to get started.

Visit Yola

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A popular topic covered in the Nifty Websites Collection is website creation. We’re on a mission to make sure everyone who wants an easy way to create a website, knows the options. With that in mind, Flavors.me is another outstanding way to take advantage of point and click website creation.

Why Flavors?

For starters, creating a gorgeous web presence or personal space shouldn’t take less than 10 minutes, with Flavors it does. Combine that with zero coding, personalized domain, content inclusion from 35 services, mobile view, statistics tracking and an unbelievably low cost and you’ve got a remarkably full featured aggregator.

Flavors offers two packages, Free and Premium. A free account delivers access to 5 services, 222 fonts and 7 layout options. The free plan offers users a simple effective way to create their own personal space. A premium account provides 10 more layout options, access to all services, mobile site view, statistics, contact forms, custom URL and content. The premium account is $20/year. In our opinion, $20 is a fantastic value.

Why Not Flavors?

Experienced webmasters and those familiar with coding and/or those comfortable with servers and databases might see Flavors as a bit limiting. Flavors isn’t a likely choice if you’re designing a business website or merchant outlet. Instead, Flavors is targeted towards individual web spaces or perhaps those looking to promote a cause.

Flavors is a personal portal designed to be simple and concise while at the same time elegant and beautiful. They succeed, but because of that nature users shouldn’t expect a robust selection of interface manipulations.

Final Thoughts

After reviewing sites like Flavors, we’re always left wondering what the web would have been like a dozen years ago if these types of site creators had been around. Not everyone can be a coder and even webmasters can’t be every kind of coder necessary to create wonderful websites. Flavors removes all that trouble and provides a point and click way to design a personal web space for even the most green of novices.

Flavors is an incredible value at $20 a year and although the free account is limited in terms of content possibilities, it’s more than adequate for those just getting started.

Visit Flavors

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Are you serious about building a website for yourself? Serious enough that you’ve even considered hiring someone? If so, then there may be an alternative for those who want more than a free alternative and are willing to pay for a good look. Virb.

Website Builder

Virb is a website builder. Users interested in creating their very first website on their own will find Virb to be wildly simple in its usage. Pages are created with simple copy/paste or in browser delivery of content. Within a few short clicks, new users can have a page up and running on their Virb site.

Menus, widgets, photo slideshows and music albums are all standard parts of the Virb builder. Each has its own nuances, but all are manipulated with quick drag and drop functionality. Photo albums and slideshows can be rearranged infinitely and Virb can import photos from Flickr for added convenience.

Virb blog creation has exactly what you’d expect from a blogging platform with options to add video, quote blocks, photos and other typical features. Those with Tumblr accounts can incorporate their Tumblr updates to automatically post on the Virb site.

Features

So what makes Virb a desirable choice? Well, beyond its ease of use, there are a number of other things to consider. Virb sites allow for unlimited pages which makes content creation limitless.

Along with pre-designed themes, users can custom create themes to showcase their own unique style and personality. Pre-designed themes we viewed were of good quality with a wide range of style variation.

A feature that is regularly sought after is that of custom domains. Virb covers those as well. Other important features worth noting are the social media integration and site analytics. Social media components include Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Soundcloud and others.

Have Nots

Virb is fairly all inclusive, however there are a couple things they don’t provide. Email is one of them. Anyone who wants to use Virb as a main portal for showcasing themselves won’t be able to have dedicated email through Virb. The flip-side to that is by associating your Gmail account with your Virb website you can still have a contact option.

Virb doesn’t sell domain names so if that is important to you, then places like GoDaddy and others are still your best bet.

Bottom Line

Virb isn’t free. The monthly charge of $10 goes back to our opening which references the seriousness of your website dedication. Clearly, if you’re going to pay monthly, then you should be convinced that a website builder like Virb is what you’re after. Fortunately, Virb offers a 10-day free trial to test things out. Since it only takes about 5 minutes to build a multi-page website, 10 days worth should be plenty of time to get used to and test out the interface.

Virb is like others we’ve seen that are free with premium options. The difference though is that you get everything right from the get-go with Virb. No need to add-on this and that later, you’ve already got it. As we hinted at earlier, Virb is for the more dedicated user. Virb is easy enough for anyone to use, though those who intend on regular updates, content additions and single webspace visibility will get the most benefit. Virb’s intuitive building interface makes the process lightning quick while maintaining deep detail options.

Visit Virb

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The post Virb Website Builder Is Seriously Fast And Easy first appeared on GeekITDown Computer Services & Technology Solutions.