Yola (formerly SynthaSite)

Formerly called SynthaSite, Yola is a very powerful tool and, to look at it, you’d be forgiven for believing it to be a computer-based application rather than a website running in a browser.
The service is very reliant on templates but there are a lot to choose from and they vary from fun and funky to classy and cool. Every now and then you’ll stumble across a template that has a bit of flexibility – offering the ability to change the background image, for example – but those who want to exercise their design flair will still find it restrictive. The rest of us, however, should be satisfied with a great-looking site that is very difficult to break by fiddling.

All other aspects of your site are configurable. You can add pages, choosing whether they should automatically appear in menus, and include any content you like, such as widgets (maps, Google ads, videos and images from popular sharing sites – and much more besides), or images and text from your hard disk. If your images need tweaking, Picnik (www.picnik.com) is integrated for fine tuning.

The most amazing thing about the service is that it’s completely free. You don’t get any adverts on your site, and you can host your own if you’ve got a Google AdSense account. The company behind the service promises that it will stay that way – everything that’s currently free will stay free, though extra paid-for services may be added in the future.

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