How To Create A Blog On Yola

Yola is a free website builder with a strong suite of e-commerce features. It is easy to use, with a drag-and-drop format that is simple and intuitive. This makes it an excellent web builder for beginners. And if you have the skills, you can add your own coding to customize your site.

You can change your template without losing your previous work, which makes it a lot more flexible than many of its competitors. And there are options to monetize your business by integrating the Ecwid store builder widget.

Overall score	3.6 ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆	Great for beginner entrepreneurs
Ease of use	★ ★ ★ ★ ★	Very easy to use
Features	★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆	Good set of features, but no blogging tool
E-commerce	★ ★ ★ ★ ☆	Ecwid app unlocks e-commerce potential
Pricing	★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆	Fair pricing though needs an additional plan
Help and Support	★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆	Email support only for paid customers and no phone number

But is Yola the right fit for you? How much does it cost? What features does it have? And how does it stack up against other web builders? Read on to find out what you need to know.

Yola web builder Pros and Cons

Pros

Easy to use drag-and-drop format
Plenty of e-commerce options, including Ecwid
Ability to edit code
Free plan lets you get started without paying a penny

Cons

No blogging tool
Ads included in the Bronze plan
No mobile app

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Creating a website on Yola

Choose your template. Click on the template you want to use, and it will show you a preview.

Upload your logo and add business information and social media profiles.

Customize your website using blocks, such as headers, footers, contact information and an online shop. Then drag and drop them onto your website.

Click Publish in the top right-hand corner and your site will be available online. If you want your own custom domain, you can either import an existing domain or purchase one through Yola.

Yola features

Yola has a range of excellent features to help you build your dream website. But, as with most web builders, you get access to more if you upgrade to a premium plan.

But what are these tools? And which ones do you have to pay extra to use? Let's find out.

Templates

Yola has 65 free templates and themes, giving you plenty of different layouts and styles to choose from. You can filter them by industry. For instance, if you want to design a restaurant website, there are four templates listed under 'Food and Restaurants'. And if you want to monetize your website, there are several online store templates.

E-commerce

Yola has teamed up with Ecwid to help you build a fully functioning online store. But it's worth bearing in mind that this is only available on Silver and Gold packages.

Once you've added the Ecwid widget and integrated it into your site, you can start selling products. It lets you customize your store, track orders, manage your inventory and see real-time shipping quotes. You can also sell products on Facebook and you can accept payments from credit cards, PayPal and other major payment gateways.

Alternatively, you can use an online store add-on. As with the general price plan, there are four pricing plans:

The Free plan limits you to just three products and only one category. So it's not ideal for building a proper e-commerce store.
The Basic plan costs $12.50 a month and lets you sell 100 products from a choice of 10,000 categories. You also get access to more than 30 integrated payment methods.
The Professional plan costs $29.17 a month. With this, you can add up to 2,500 products to your site. This plan also comes with the ability to add discount coupons and product filters to your store, and you can sell your products on Amazon.
The Unlimited plan costs $82.50 a month, and lets you add up to 70,000 products to your site. This plan also comes with point of sale integration.

Tools

Yola has a range of tools to help you add functionality, including site statistics, contact forms and Google Maps integration. It also works with third parties, such as Full Slate, which will allow users to schedule appointments online, and Constant Contact, which lets you create a mailing list for your customers.

Yola offers a range of SEO tools, but you have to pay to access some of them. You can edit meta-title and meta-descriptions for your pages on all packages on any of the plans, even the free version. And if you upgrade to any of the paid packages, you can analyze your web stats.

But only the Gold package comes with continuous automatic SEO monitoring. This sends you ongoing information about your website's rankings for specific keywords across the main three search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing. It also updates your keyword strategy and tracks improvement every month.

Domain and hosting

Yola allows premium customers to use a custom domain. You can purchase a custom domain name, get WHOIS protection and host your website through Yola, but you will have to pay for the privilege. Prices for a custom domain start at $17.95 for a year.

You can also transfer an existing domain across to Yola, provided you've signed up to a premium package.

Customer support

If you have any issues, you can fill in an online contact form and someone from Yola's in-house support team will get back to you. If you're a Bronze, Silver, or Gold subscriber, you also get access to Yola's Premium Support, which includes the option to contact the team via email. Of course, there are many helpful tutorials and an extensive FAQ section on Yola's website.

Yola limitations

Although Yola has lots of great features, it's got some notable limitations. Let's take a closer look at what they are and how you can get around them.

No blogging tool

Yola does not have an adequate blogging tool, which is a serious limitation for anyone looking to create a blogging element on their website.

There are templates that you can use to replicate a blog, but none of them are a good substitute for a dedicated blogging tool.

If you really want to add a blog to your Yolo site, we'd recommend integrating your Tumblr account.

No mobile app

Surprisingly, Yola doesn't have a mobile app. And perhaps even more concerningly, the way your website renders on a smartphone is a bit underwhelming. So if you want a site that's just as good on mobile as it is on desktop, we'd recommend choosing a different web builder.

Yola pricing

Yola offers four different pricing plans: Free, Bronze, Silver and Gold. The Free package lets you build two websites with only two pages and has 1GB of storage.

The Bronze package costs $4.95 a month. This lets you build five websites with 1000 webpages. You also get a limit of 2GB of storage, plus Premium support, site statistics and a custom domain name.

The Silver package costs $11.95 a month. This lets you build 25 websites in unlimited languages. You also get 5GB of storage and the ability to add custom code. The Gold package costs $23.95 a month. It gives you unlimited storage plus automatic SEO monitoring.

The Gold package costs $23.95 a month. It gives you unlimited storage plus automatic SEO monitoring.

Plan	Features	Price (/Month)
Free	• 2 websites• 2 pages• 2 languages• Yola subdomain• Search engine friendly• 1GB storage• 5MB maximum file size• 2 Site backups	$0.00
Bronze	• 5 websites• 1,000 pages• 2GB storage• Everything in Free plan +• One year free domain• Site statistics• Premium support• Private registration• Nofollow tag controls	$4.95
Silver	• 25 Websites• 1,000 pages• Unlimited languages• 5GB storage• Everything in Bronze plan +• 100MB maximum file size• Unlimited site backup• Custom code editing• No Yola branding• Navigation submenus	$11.95
Gold	• Everything in Silver plan +• Unlimited storage• 150MB maximum file size• Continuous automatic SEO monitoring	$23.95

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Which websites is Yola best for?

Yola is a web builder that is best for small businesses and people who want to invest in building a website as a hobby or for personal use. Its simple drag-and-drop format is easy to get to grips with and the more expensive plans come with a huge range of e-commerce features to help you build a business site.

Yola alternatives

Yola is a free, user-friendly web builder aimed at those who want to create a simple website in a short space of time. But is it the best for your business? Let's take a look at how it stacks up against its competitors.

Yola vs Wix

Wix has better templates, more tools and it offers more value for money than Yola.

On the flip side, Yola allows users to change the template of an existing website without losing the content, but you can't do this on Wix unless you start a new template and then transfer your existing plan to your new site.

Overall though, Wix is a better option, as it has a much stronger suite of features and better customer satisfaction.

Yola vs Weebly

Weebly offers a better free plan, but Yola has a better set of packages for premium customers.

Yola offers more templates and layouts, but Weebly allows you to import themes and customize them. Weebly also comes with more e-commerce features, making it a better choice for anyone starting an online business. Want to know more? Read our Weebly review and see if it's the web builder you really need.

However, if you want to set up a blog, neither has a strong, functioning blogging option. So it might be best to choose another web builder.

Yola review summary and final thoughts

Overall, Yola is a decent web builder, particularly for beginners. Like with all things, the more you pay, the more value you can get out of the service, and Yola is no different. Yola's Silver and Gold packages come with a fairly impressive suite of features and are actually much better value than the cheaper plans. The Free plan is far too basic and the cheapest paid plan still comes with Yola site ads.

It's worth bearing in mind that Yola doesn't have a proper blogging tool. So if you want to create a blog, you'd be better off using WordPress.

But if you need a solid and dependable web builder to create a website for a small business or a personal venture, you won't go too far wrong with Yola.

FAQs

Is Yola a good web builder?

Yes, it is a good web builder for beginners and small businesses, especially if you pay for the Silver or Gold plan. It's easy to use and comes with a wide range of e-commerce options.

Is Yola free?

There is a limited free version, but it will only let you add two pages to your website. If you want to create a bigger site with more storage, you will need to upgrade to a Yola paid plan.

What is the best thing about Yola website builder?

The Ecwid app is the best feature Yola has to offer, as it comes with an impressive suite of e-commerce features to help you monetize your website.