Features

With Web to date, you can design a modern and impressive web presence. No programming expertise is required; the software always optimally presents your contents. Since the program is a content management system (CMS), the design and contents of your website are managed separately from one another enabling you to easily update all of the contents and to change the design effortlessly at any time. This way you can save yourself the cost of hiring an expensive web design agency.

The website building software Web to date includes a total of 69 appealing designs that you can use with just a click of the mouse. All designs are offered with a multitude of variations and with perfectly harmonised colour schemes. Each style sheet is flexible and can be adapted to your corporate design: colours, fonts, images, and logos can be changed according to your personal needs. In addition, the software offers you an abundance of so far undreamed-of design possibilities. For instance, it allows you to integrate different header graphics into each page, to utilize Flash and video files as headers, or to design the navigation elements in the form of a carousel. The justification of your website (centred, left-justified) can easily be changed with just a click as well.

With the new design selection dialogue box of Web to date, you can stay on top of things despite 2,000 web design versions. For example, with the convenient filter function you can search for all the designs that are optimized for a screen resolution of 1024x768 or that support DHTML. A click of the mouse lists the appropriate templates. You can define multiple filter criteria and target your search for your preferred design. Thanks to the new large-sized preview you can see all the design details right in the selection dialogue box.

The industry-specific templates included in the implementation wizard of Web to date help you to create a content structure and menu navigation that are optimized for the requirements of your industry in no time at all. Afterwards you simply enter your own contents into the individual menu items and change the structure of the page, if needed; for instance, you can move subpages or add new pages to your ready-made website. In this way you can focus on the contents of your web presence and do not waste precious time.

Web to date assists you in creating a website in a language other than the default language. Language resources are the text elements that Web to date automatically integrates into your website. You can also edit elements that are used in your original site, for example the year of the copyright, or you may want to replace the word User with the word Member. The software also allows you to add complete language packages to your website project. The available languages are German, English, Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish.

With this module you can incorporate multiple banners into your web presence that rotate according to individually set intervals and link to user-defined targets. Up to four banners can be placed next to or on top of each other. This is ideal for an eye-catching presentation of new products, special offers, etc.! Even "normal" photos can be presented beautifully and effectively with this feature.

This module simulates the effect of a stack of real photos. The photos you select are arranged one on top of the other and slightly rotated. The image on top is clearly visible. The changing of the image is done with a stylish cross-fade effect. You can determine whether the change happens automatically after a certain interval or whether you want to enable your visitor to navigate through the stack of photos autonomously via arrow keys.

Buttons are very helpful in drawing the attention of website visitors to a special offer or a download, for instance. To be able to use this option, Web to date includes a gallery of 74 attractive button designs. You can label them individually and integrate them effectively into your website afterwards and with just a few clicks. Using placeholders you can even show the file name and file size for download buttons automatically.

The "Lightbox" feature enables you to display your photos attractively and to present your services or products favourably, for example. When a visitor clicks on an image, the image is enlarged while the website is effectively hidden at the same time. This type of image presentation is state-of-the-art and can be seen on many Web 2.0 web pages these days.

This function enables the visitor to view a section of the image in fourfold magnification. All the visitor has to do is move the mouse over the image that you set up with this feature. Consequently all important image details can be seen clearly at any time.

Web to date makes effective slide shows with beautiful transitions possible. You can set the display intervals for your images as well as the type of transition. You can add music to the slide show for an even more persuasive presentation of your offers, services, or products!

You can add music and videos easily to your website with optional controls for volume and playback. Playing multiple media files in one window is also possible thanks to the playlist feature.

With a Tag Cloud you can visualise terms that are especially relevant for your website. Your visitors can click on the terms and are taken directly to the contents with the respective tag. Depending on their relevance, the words are displayed in a larger or smaller font and can be different colours, if desired. You have two options for using this function: you can manually determine which terms appear in your Tag Cloud and, in doing so, highlight the corresponding pages specifically. Or you can select the option to have the Tag Cloud generated automatically based on the assigned Meta tags.

Do you have your own Twitter account? If not, why don't you establish one? Once you do, you can integrate the short messages you post on Twitter, so-called Tweets, into your website seamlessly. This new function is, for instance, superbly suited for quickly publishing short news messages on your website using a Smartphone or another device. Just send the new Tweet (the message) and it appears on your website. If you wish, you can also display persons who follow you on Twitter or whom you are following on Twitter.

You can also integrate the popular "Like" button from Facebook into your website effortlessly. It can be added as a module to any page of your web presence. If a visitor likes a certain item, service, or product and wants to recommend it, he can just click the button. His feedback is displayed on your website (e.g. "three persons like it") as well as in the profile of the respective Facebook users (e.g. "Max Sampleman likes Web to date 8.0 on www.todate.com"). Since you are generating valuable links back to your website in this way, the "Like" button is also a rewarding marketing tool for you.

Besides the full-text search option, Web to date now also offers an advanced search option with several search criteria. This lets you realise combination searches like the searches used on real estate websites. The user can define several criteria at the same time (e.g. the number of rooms, the size of the apartment, the maximum amount for rent, etc.) and, in this way, can find subjects without delay that meet his requirements optimally. If needed, you can also integrate multiple search modules with completely different search criteria into your website. This can be especially useful if your website offers a large variety of topics.

The Feedback module in Web to date is a tool that gives your customers the opportunity to comment on and evaluate products and services allowing you to collect valuable information about customer satisfaction. With the Survey module you can do market research for free: query your customers on different topics and find out more about their ideas and wishes in regard to your products and services. The software also provides a flexible form editor that lets you create customised feedback or service forms. With these forms you can request all the information you need for optimal customer care.

With the RSS reader you can integrate RSS feeds from third parties directly into your own website and publish them, so that your website always displays new and current news automatically.
The RSS publisher enables you to create your own RSS feeds and lets you refer to new contents on your website in this way. Surfers who have subscribed to your RSS feed are automatically informed as soon as your site offers new contents.

You can add a blog (online journal) to the website you created with Web to date. You can update and maintain this blog from any computer that has access to the internet. In this way, your customers stay current and well informed about your new products and services.

Effortlessly point to your next courses, seminars, trade show activities, or press conferences in an eye-catching manner: with the event countdown module, your visitors can see the next important dates for your company immediately and at all times.

With this component you can place texts and images on your website in a modern and concise way on a time bar. For example, this module is superbly suitable for presenting the chronological sequence of your company's successes effectively or for illustrating your products' histories.

Web pages with an information density that is too high can quickly tire visitors. Especially pages that require a lot of scrolling increase the bounce rate. The new tabs module in Web to date solves this problem: instead of placing content vertically, you can distribute it into different tabs of appropriate topics with the help of this feature. The visitors can simply click the tabs and view the information contained in the tab in a concise and appealing presentation. By using the tab feature you avoid unnecessary scrolling and at the same time keep your website compact, because you can use the same space for several types of content.

With the FactBox feature you can create multi-column lists. Lists can also be distributed onto multiple tabs and organised in an attractive and clear manner. A large number of display and sort options ensures that this feature can be used in a versatile and flexible manner: the choice is completely yours. This feature is superbly suited for displaying important facts about services and products clearly.

Web to date 8 lets you easily create websites with multiple text columns for a stylish, flexible, and customer-friendly design!

Web to date provides all the technical requirements needed for your website to be easily found and listed in the top positions by Google, etc. For example, it does not use frames and automatically assigns descriptive page titles. The program also supports the generation of a Google Sitemap, which enables search engines to more easily index your website, i.e. search for relevant contents. The software also gives you the option to set the update interval and importance of each individual main page of your web presence via the <changefreq> and <priority> parameters, so that Google visits the pages you consider important more often and updates the corresponding entries in the search results regularly.

The functionality of your website can be expanded via external scripts in the HTML or PHP programming languages almost without limits. For example, you can integrate the current weather report, an external image gallery, or a dynamic trip planner as a service for your visitors into your website. This works very easily and without cumbersome additional work since Web to date integrates all the files that the external script needs automatically and uploads them to the server.

The smart hyperlink management feature of Web to date makes obsolete links that connect to nowhere a thing of the past. Prior to updating your website, the software checks each time whether all links work and displays error messages for erroneous entries, if need be.

Web to date includes a series of convenient backup features that enable you to backup your website automatically at certain previously-set times, if desired! Worrying about losing important data is therefore definitely a thing of the past. Starting with version 7.0, you can now also backup extremely large projects that require more than two GBs of storage space. The software simply divides your project into multiple files with a maximum file size of two GB.

Our software gives you the opportunity to time individual pages or sections of your web presence. This is a good option for contents that are only valid for a certain time period, e.g. special offers, events, etc.
Web to date lets you immediately assign the time period in which these "transient" contents are valid. In this way you minimize the occurrences of obsolete contents. The next upload automatically hides the expired contents.

A website created with Web to date provides information pages such as About Us, Terms & Conditions, or Contact Us automatically. This helps to ensure that your website complies with regulatory requirements.

Conveniently load your texts from your existing Word documents onto your website and utilise the option to automatically transfer changes made to your documents to your web presence. Please note that not all formatting options can be transferred.

Do you want to offer your website in different languages or in multiple versions, e.g. for corporate and private customers? Then a splash page is useful which lets your visitors select one of the various areas and go directly to the area that provides them with the relevant information. You can create and design your splash page directly in Web to date, either with the help of a series of stylish design templates or individually customized to your needs. By adding a Flash animation you can increase the value of your splash page and Web to date includes all the necessary tools!