New, Easier, Shinier Homepage Feature

The Hail Homepage feature has been much more popular than we anticipated, with many schools and businesses very keen to have all their content creation and publishing in one place. Hail's 'create once, publish everywhere' mantra means your articles, newsletters, blogs, information packs, yearbooks, email & social media updates and website can all be taken care of in one centralised, easy to use and collaborative platform.

Naturally with many organisations taking up all those features we've also had a lot of feedback for ways to improve the Homepage, which is exactly what we've been working on: an update to the Homepage to make it more attractive and easier to get around, with more links between articles and associated publications. Plus, it has an upgraded layout that's aligned to the latest article and blog styles to create a family of branded outputs.

For an example of the new Homepage check out www.diamondharbour.school.nz and then get in touch to have your Homepage upgraded for free.

Enhancements and additions explained:

• The Information section now expands down to take the space it needs for all the content that's been added — no more clicking on 'More' to show the whole lot. You can always add a smaller intro there that links off to a longer article or publication if need be.
  
• Articles and Publications — no more horizontal scrolling article and publication carousels. They weren't very friendly on mobile devices where only one item is shown at a time and people are used to scrolling vertically. And the fact that they scroll was often missed on desktop computers.
• Custom Block — there's a new freeform HTML block that users can add anything into. For example, you could add a Sponsors header and some images that would link off to partner websites. Custom Blocks added to your Homepage can include any HTML, CSS or JavaScript.
• Map/Contacts — we've moved Contacts to the bottom alongside the map and have included a contacts icon at the top to jump people straight down to the details. This is where most people expect to find contact info these days.
• No more dates showing on the Homepage's articles or publication promo blocks as they can be confusing if they seem out of date.
• The article page has a new structure with an updated sidebar that aligns with the blog and shared article styles and encourages more browsing, without people having to go back to the Homepage to keep exploring.
• The article's hero image no longer is constrained into the banner with text and brand overlays. The image can now be shown in full, including portraits. Plus you can now have autoplay videos as with the Blogs and shared article layouts.
• The new Article appears in... sidebar will list publications that contain the current article. This is a great way to automatically link off to related content in a blog, newsletter or Magazine. For example, you can imagine someone reading the Principal's Welcome article on the site and then seeing the School Information Pack that it's included in linked on the side.

With this latest revamp to the Hail Homepage we've listened to your feedback and gone back to the drawing board to improve on every aspect of our mobile-friendly website offering. We're proud to bring you our constantly improving feature set and hope you'll be just as excited to present your new website to your community!

Want to try out the new Homepage? Just get in touch and we'll switch you over for free.

📺 See the video below for a walkthrough of setting up your Hail Homepage.