February 2018: What’s new in GoCentral

You invested your time and resources in a website for a specific reason. At the end of the day, you want to see tangible results from your website: traffic, calls, sales, donations, appointments — whatever success means to you. We want to help you meet you meet those goals, and we’re building the tools to help you do just that.

The GoCentral team works hard every day to make our website editor and built-in marketing tools more simple, powerful and effective. (Read to the end to meet one of our team members!) These “what’s new” blog posts are to help you learn about new tools to help you thrive online.

Website Builder

Whether you’re a new GoCentral user an old pro, we’ve got new things for you to try! Here are the latest and greatest features.

Color hex codes

The GoCentral color picker makes it easy to choose the perfect color for your website. And if you already have a logo, you can now choose a very specific color to match. We recently introduced the ability to add your own hex code (e.g., #C6E1F0 or #FFFFFF). To do:

1. Start in the My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Click Theme.
3. Click Colors.
4. Choose a color or enter a hex code at the bottom.

Site footer links

Now you can link to a page from your website footer, either as an additional place to find the info or to avoid cluttering your main navigation in the header.This feature is perfect for fine print, like a Privacy Policy or Terms & Conditions page. To do:

1. Start in the My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Click Pages.
3. To make an existing page show in the footer, select the page and then click the “kebab” menu (3 vertical dots). Click Page Settings. Select Show in Footer.
4. To create a new page to show in the footer, click Add. Give it a title and select Show in Footer.

MLS widget for real estate websites

Good news! We recently partnered with IDX Broker to bring GoCentral users an MLS widget and a 30% discount on an IDX Broker subscription. To set it up:

1. Start in the My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Choose the page where you want to include MLS search.
3. Click Add Section.
4. Select MLS/IDX Real Estate Listings (you may need to click Show More to see this).
5. Click on your new Find Your Dream Home section to set it up and customize the section title and background image. (You will need to create an IDX Broker account.)

High-resolution display support

GoCentral now supports high-resolution displays — delivering up to 9 times the number of pixels to mobile and desktop devices that support this much data. As a GoCentral user, this affects both your experience in the GoCentral Editor and the image quality on your website. To take advantage of this update as an existing GoCentral user, simply re-publish your website.

Blog tool

GoCentral now offers the ability to author your own blog posts. The tool is super easy to use and includes basic image editing features like zoom, alignment, captions, alt-text and links. For more information, check out this GoCentral Help article: “Host a blog on my website.” And you already have an existing blog, you can still use that feed on your GoCentral site. You’ve got options.

GoCentral user Ryan recently started his own blog called Hippie Today. Read more about Ryan’s take on the GoCentral blog tool here.

Blogging is a great way to refresh your website content regularly, boost your site’s SEO and have content to promote on social media.

Online Appointments updates

We continue to make the GoCentral Online Appointments tool more useful and user-friendly. Here are the latest features:

• Ability to add up to 80 different service offerings.
• “Book Now” button for your business Facebook Page.
• Scheduling buffer (option to require clients to book services a certain amount of time before the appointment).
• Services can last as long as you like — anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours in the same day.
• Service prices can be entered as custom text (e.g., “pricing by request”).
• Ability to add a service location other than your location or the client’s location (e.g., a public venue).
• Ability to set up SMS and email reminders for clients (see Business Info page).
• Group services/events for up to 300 participants.
• Ability to block off time for vacations.

Online Appointments is available on GoCentral Business Plus and GoCentral Online Store plans.

Google My Business updates

We launched the GoCentral Google My Business tool late last year, and we’ve already rolled out updates. GoCentral now sends your business name, category, location, phone number, hours and logo to Google My Business and offers ongoing syncing with Google.

When you create a Google My Business listing via GoCentral, you can see detailed insights and reply to reviews directly from your GoCentral account. For more information, check out this GoCentral Help article: “List my business on Google.”

A Google My Business listing helps your business appear on Google Search and Google Maps.

Google My Business is available on GoCentral Business Plus and GoCentral Online Store plans.

Drop-down menu (aka sub-navigation)

Have lots of pages on your website? You can now create a drop-down menu to organize those pages. From your website editor, go to Pages and click Add. You’ll see the option to add a new page, link to an external site or create a dropdown menu

For detailed instructions, reference this GoCentral Help article: “Create dropdown menu.”

Section and page duplication

It’s now easy to duplicate a website section or page. You can also move a section to a different page! Here’s how to do it.

1. To duplicate a section, start in the main My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Select Pages.
3. Select the name of the page that contains the section you wish to duplicate (e.g., Home).
4. Click on the three vertical dots icon for the section you want to duplicate (e.g., About Us, as shown below).
5. Select Duplicate Section.
6. If you have more than one page on your site, you’ll have the option to select Move Section.

1. To duplicate a page, start in the main My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Select Pages.
3. Click on the three vertical dots icon for the page you want to duplicate (as shown below).
4. Select Duplicate Page.

Bigger logos

If you prefer to display your brand more prominently on your website, it’s now possible to make your logo bigger (subject to image quality). Here’s how:

1. Start in the main My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Click Pages.
3. Click Home.
4. Click Header.
5. Upload your logo.
6. Drag the logo sizer to make it larger or smaller.
7. Experiment with different Header Layouts to see which looks best with your logo.

Stock video header images

We recently released a small selection of stock videos that can be used as your header image. Fancy! To add a video to the header:

1. Start in the main My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Click Pages.
3. Click Home.
4. Click Header.
5. Click Cover Photo.
6. Click Stock Images.
7. Select the Videos tab.

Facebook Pixel code

If you want to buy Facebook ads to drive traffic and sales, you can add the Facebook Pixel code to your GoCentral website. This feature is available under Site Settings. You’ll need to set up your ads on Facebook. Learn more about Facebook ads here.

1. Start in the main My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Click Site Settings.
3. Click Facebook Pixel Code.

Promotional Banner

You can now include an eye-catching banner like the yellow banner shown below. Highlight your sales, free shipping offers, limited-time news and more.

1. Start in the main My Site menu of your GoCentral Editor.
2. Click Pages.
3. Click Home.
4. Click Header.
5. Click Promotional Banner.
6. Enter your text.

Online Store

Here’s what’s new for our top GoCentral plan, which includes e-commerce capabilities, online appointments and more. If you want to sell products online, GoCentral Online Store is the plan for you.

Online Store tax categories

This feature allows you to create separate tax categories (and tax rates) for different types of products and services.

To do:

1. Select Settings from the green top navigation bar.
2. Click Tax.
3. Click Edit.
4. Click Create Tax Category.

People of GoCentral: Meet Rana

A huge team of people are hard at work to make your GoCentral experience even more awesome. Meet Rana, a Senior Product Manager focused on GoCentral growth, and one of the newest members of our team.

Here are a few fun facts about Rana:

• Is particularly great at: Solving hard problems to help customers achieve their goals.
• Hails from: Rana was born in beautiful and colorful India. Having spent 20 years in NYC, she considers herself a New Yorker.
• Dreams about: Traveling! She has been to more than 10 countries, including China and Egypt. She is dreaming of visiting the Galapagos Islands in the near future.
• Loves GoCentral because: It’s super easy — you can have a website up and running in a matter of minutes. There are several template options and many stock photos to choose from.

“With features like digital marketing tools, Online Store and Online Appointments, GoCentral can be a one-stop shop to build and manage your digital presence.” —Rana, GoCentral Senior Product Manager

GoCentral Help Resources

If you get stuck, check out these resources. And don’t forget — one of the benefits of GoCentral is 24/7 phone support. We’re here for you!

• Round-up of all GoCentral Help articles
• GoCentral user forum on the GoDaddy Community (must be logged in to access)

Note: If you don’t already have a GoCentral account, you can start a free trial today.

---

Also published on Medium.