Value Websites have been working with the Weebly content management platform since 2006. We're still working with it because, despite all it's improvements and developments, it remains a very intuitive and easy to use website editor and development platform.

Having said, that I regularly work with Kiwis who have problems with their Weebly website. In this news post I isolate three common problems I have encountered.
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Unfamiliarity with the wide range of design and content elements that are available to Weebly users. Back in 2006 the Weebly elements provided were few and basic. With the development of content management systems (like Weebly's) CMS developers had to keep up with the field and keep providing new options. I believe Weebly have done this well, while keeping the system as easy to use and intuitive as possible. However, for amateur users, the degree of sophistication available can feel intimidating and difficult to grasp. Today, to get the most out of Weebly, users are well-advised to seek help from experienced Weebly designers who know the system and who in a short time can edit or improve a website. My advice to many Weebly users has been to have a tutorial of two with us, develop your website content and come back and ask Value Websites to tweak it. While the outcome will be that you spend a little, the result will be an attractive and functional website.
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Not using the search engine optimisation (SEO) feature built into the Weebly system. When incorporating an image into your web pages describe it in the image tag option. E.g. the image below has the image tag, "Value Websites offers you a FREE  no obligation consultation". This was inserted in the advanced features section of the image options. The website as a whole and each page has options to describe the page content via Title, Description and Keyword tags. Help the Search Engine Bots do their work by making it easy for them and by accurately describing what you are trying to communicate. Completing this exercise can help you to stay focussed and say what you want and need to say to get visitors to your web pages.

Have as much control over your website as possible. Maintaining contact with your designer, or insisting that they keep contact with you is an important thing to do. Having ownership and control of your domain name is essential - some designers will look after your domain on their account. In effect they own it not you as you might expect! I have been aware of great difficulties and conflicts arising from this. With the passage of time we humans forget things, including logins and passwords, and paying bills which sometimes will go to no longer active email addresses. Within Weebly some sites have been built on the Designer Platform by web designers. These websites can become problematic if good relationship and contact does not exist between designer and client. Weebly bills the designer for these platforms. And the designer bills the client. What happens when the designer does not pay the bill, possibly continuing to bill the client? The site gets downgraded, if not lost. It can be a messy situation. Some so-called web designers have set up Weebly designer platforms as a money making endeavour and then moved on to other pursuits forgeting that they have clients very dependent on them. Weebly will rightly refer clients on such platforms to the designer with whom Weebly deals. Not surprising that there has been some bad press for Weebly about this. At its best this has been a valuable service; at its worst it is a service to be wary of.

​As the image at the top of this page suggests, Weebly is, "The easiest way to create a website". I firmly believe this to be true. However, with all truth there are challenges that can work towards undermining that truth. Let's keep aware of the challenges and keep on top of the issues. That way our website experience will be pleasant and profitable.

Terry Alve
Owner and Manager
Value Websites

Value Websites regularly upgrade Weebly websites for Kiwis. Often Weebly website owners have not appreciated that the Weebly platform is constantly developing. Recently, for instance, Weebly 4.0 was launched with some great enhancements. New templates, graphical design elements, new eCommerce functions and marketing resources are included in this Weebly upgrade.

Weebly is an increasingly sophisticated website development platform. Are you using the enhanced Weebly features to improve your website functionality and impact?

Today, Value Websites have launched a new, FREE, resource designed to help you explore how your Weebly website can work more effectively for you and/or your business enterprise. Whether your Weebly is on a Free, Starter, Pro or Business plan, we are confidant that we can assist you to exploit your Weebly to increase your business effectiveness

Christchurch and Canterbury business Precision Kerbing have been operating their Value-Websites-Designed-and-Built Weebly website since December 2015 - just six months. While we have been aware that the addition of the website has been a useful marketing tool for this business, it was pleasing this week to get the following endorsement from owner/manager Paul Diver,

Launched as a New Zealand website design and development company in 2008, Value Websites are now in their sixth year of operation. In six years the web has developed exponentially. Early in our development we began our partnership with the Weebly Content Management System (CMS) that had been launched a year before we were formed. Today, more than 90% of our web work relates to one of the Weebly websites that we manage. We humbly claim to be New Zealand Weebly experts and are often called upon by businesses and individuals to either build a Weebly web for them or to troubleshoot one that they have begun.

During 2014, Weebly have expanded very significantly, offering a new range of options and services as they seek to tune their system for the modern web. You can read about some of these  developments in this BLOG POST.

The Weebly System now ranks with the big players on the web. Whether it is a small business basic brochure website you need, an online registration and payment site linking with Formstack and PayPal (or other add-ons) or a full-blown eCommerce website, Weebly with Value Websites is a great choice for you if you need a professional, value-for-money and easy-to-work-with website developer.

All of our websites come with Blogging options and a built-in interface to easily connect to major social media.

If it is prompt, value-for-money, personalised service you want from your NZ Weebly website professional then call Terry on 027 600 1926 or use our Webform. 

Today I would like to demonstrate how I create breadcrumbs link trails in my Weebly websites. I have seen a few others try this but without complete success. I am indebted to Jack Woon's blog article on this subject and I use the Javascript code he used adding some refinements to his code and methodology.

This is the code I use in this website to setup Breadcrumbs.

You can copy the code above by saving the weeblybreadcrumbs.js file below to your Weebly Code Editor Files directory accessible via: DESIGN > Edit HTML/CCS > Files

There are a few variations to this code available to those of us who are not experienced Javascript coders. For instance:

• <h4>...</h4> could be <h3>...</h3> if you want a larger font size.
• "You Are Here: " can be changed  or deleted.
• UpperCase can be changed to LowerCase - there are three places where this change can be made.
• <font color="#555555"> (towards the bottom of the above code - this controls the font of the page name you are on) can be changed to any color code you wish as long as it contrasts with your page content background.

Having loaded the .js file above, you need to add code to your HTML pages above your Files folder.

The secret to creating Weebly Breadcrumb Trails is to treat each top level menu link in conjunction with the sublinks above (or beside) it.  

With reference to this website www.valuewebsites.co.nz for instance, I have grouped 'Web Services' with the sublinks below beginning with 'Weebly Websites'. In this case I have used the same Page layout for all these links, 'short-header.html'

Just above the closing </body> tag I have inserted this script.
<script src="/files/theme/weeblybreadcrumbs.js"></script> 

The final piece of code that needs to be added is placed immediately above  the {content} code (usually white) on the html page.
<div topurl="/Web-Services.html" toptitle="Web Services" ></div>
So 'topurl' in this case is '/Web-Services.html' and the top level page's title 'toptitle' is 'Web Services'

Now, this is where it all gets a little more complicated. Some Weebly users will need help with this. Each top level link, in my websites e.g. 'About Us', 'VW News', etc. needs to have a different Page Layout. If you want to use the same graphical design and page layout as 'short-header.html' for another top level menu link, you will need to copy the html code in that layout and create another page layout, e.g. 'short-header2.html'. I have done that for my 'About Us' page. I then changed the 'div' (2nd) red code above to:
<div topurl="/About-Us.html" toptitle="About Us" ></div>
while adding the 'script' (1st) code as is.

Furthermore, you may choose to have No Header for the sub link/s below (beside) a Top Level Link, as I have done for the pages below 'About Us'. Please do not use the 'no-header.html' Page Layout - this is needed for Store Products/Services if you need your website for eCommerce.

Copy the code from your existing 'no-header.html' page and create, 'no-header2.html' before adding in:
<div topurl="/About-Us.html" toptitle="About Us" ></div>
<script src="/files/theme/weeblybreadcrumbs.js"></script> 
as above.

And so on....

You will need to Publish your website to see your Breadcrumbs Trail - it does not appear when you are in Editing mode.

Three things to note:

1. You may choose not to have a breadcrumb trail on your Home page, or any other page that does not have menu sub-links. If you do have a 'Trail' on Home, you need to act in the same way as above because 'Home' is a top level menu link just like 'About Us' and 'Web Services' on this website.
   
2. If you have products for sale, your eCommerce 'Cart' is a 'no-header.html' page like the Product pages. Your 'Cart' breadcrumb trail 'Store' or 'equivalent' link may throw up a 404 error message. I have not figured how to get around this. Suggestions are welcome.
3. I have tried to offer a careful explanation of how to add breadcrumb trails to Weebly websites. Those of you unfamiliar with using html and javascript code may be encouraged to try implementing this breadcrumbs methodology. Don't waste too much time if your time is valuable. In most cases I can add this code to your Weebly website in less than an hour. You may choose to spend NZ$50 with me to have the code installed on your Weebly website.

Jack Woon also offers an alternative method which involves coding page by page. This is okay if there are say less than 15 pages in your website. Beyond that it becomes tedious and time consuming. As you develop your website it may also be frustrating to have to manually change or add code as you add new pages and/or change top level links, etc.
Alternative Method
Load the .js file as above to the 'Files' folder. 
Add the first code once at the bottom of one of your page footer elements:
<script src="/files/theme/weeblybreadcrumbs.js"></script> 
This code will automatically repeat on the footer of all pages.
Add the second code, adjusted for each of the top level menu links, to each web page, eg.:
<div topurl="/About-Us.html" toptitle="About Us" ></div>
For this alternative method top (2nd) code:

1. You can use the element Copy function to more quickly move the top level link code to the top of sub-menu pages;
   
2. You can add the code to the RH sidebar of any 'Blog' page - not top left;
   
3. You can add the code to your Store page, but you will not be able to place  it in Product pages nor in the Checkout Cart.

To view the results of coding using this alternative method visit our sister website Edit Your Webs

Please use the comments facility associated with this Post if you have questions or suggestions about this topic. 

May all your breadcrumbs be tasty ones!

Terry Alve
Value Websites

The Weebly website development and management system is much more powerful than most Kiwi users appreciate. While Weebly is one of the simplest website builders to use, many business and other users often give up without realising they are sitting on a goldmine. With a little perseverence and advice your Weebly website can be a very effective marketing and selling tool for you and your business.

Terry Alve from Value Websites has been using and profiting from Weebly Websites for over 10 years. During that time, he notes, Weebly have developed their website platform in leaps and bounds. Despite that they have maintained core values of simplicity, ease of use, along with clear and concise help systems. The end result is a wonderfully functional and effective, user-friendly website builder.

So, why do some struggle with their Weebly? 

A core issue, Terry notes, is that many small business Weebly owners and users are quite time poor. When they run into a website development issue they often give up when the solution is relatively simple. Issues we have been able to assist with include (with relevant links): getting header graphics sorted, tweaking the new and powerful Weebly eCommerce system, improving links to a payment processor and creatively adding documentation like product lists.

We can help troubleshoot and develop your Weebly website. Whether its advice, detailed instruction or asking us to do some hands on work; Value Websites are available to assist you. In working with us you will work with a Company that has designed and developed 50+ Weebly websites. We consider ourselves amongst the most experienced and knowledgeable Weebly developers in New Zealand.

Finally, a piece of valuable free advice.

One of the most under-rated components of a Weebly website is their Blog component. This very user-friendly facility is a great Weebly website back door to good search engine rankings. While we rank well in Google search engine first pages for a number of search terms (especially for Weebly related terms), a good news blog post - like this - will quickly rank on Google and other SEs. This will provide your website with a valuable entry point from which searchers will visit, explore and respond to some of your web pages. One of the reasons why we regularly write VW News posts.

And it costs you nothing (but a little time) to discuss your Weebly website issue with Terry. 

Want to talk ...?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) of a website takes focused time and some skill but you do not have to be a professional to get the basics right.

In our experience, and we have made the mistake too, we can be temped to take a deep breath when we have finished putting the words and images together to create our website, without paying needful attention to SEO. 

Many of us are using content management systems to develop and edit our websites. Thankfully most of these do assist us greatly to get SEO started at least. However, we still need to complete the detailed work:

• checking that the key terms in the text and tags of each web page are consistent with the page's title and description tags;
• in other words, the meta title, description and keyword tags need to accurately reflect the page content;
• having unique meta tags for each page - often I find that a set of universal meta tags are applied to all pages which is better than nothing, but not enough;
• ensuring that every  image has an alt tag not only to advise those who have turned images off or who are blind, but also to added relevant content to the web page - assuming the image has something to do with the page subject;
• making sure that Head tags are there containing main key terms for the web page - another way of telling the search engines what we think are the key terms for this page;
• linking your website to Google Analytics and Webmaser Tools to ensure that you can check down the track periodically that your website is performing as you wish;
• working to ensure that clients and others interested link to your website from theirs, especially if their content is in any way relevant to yours, offering to reciprocate by placing a link to their site on yours - this is called back linking;
• if possible, trying to get back links from Google Page Rank (PR) 4+ websites to your web site which will contribute to your page rank growing and you getting more page one listings for your key terms.

If you pay attention to getting these SEO factors done well, you be well on the way to making your website work for you as the marketing and promotional tool it should be.

By the way, why don't we swap links on our websites. Value Websites has PR4 with Google, so it may well be worth your while. Place the code below on your website and let us know. We will respond by linking back to you. Happy to do this as a freebie - win: win for both of us!

THE HTML CODE

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