Get ready because we're about to take custom backgrounds to a whole new level. Not too long ago, we launched a major update to the way you add background images to your website. With options like Full Screen, Random Photo, Slideshow, and tiled overlays, adding a custom background to your site had never been more awesome. Until now.

Have you ever wondered what your website would look like inside of an aquarium? Or how it would read from the bottom of the sea floor? If you've ever wanted to put your favorite cat video in the background of your website, today is your lucky day. We've just added the option to use a YouTube.com or Vimeo.com Video for your website background.

Of course, videos do more than move – they also make sound. If you choose to put a video in the background of your website, you can disable the audio or give your visitors the ability to mute and unmute it by clicking a button in the bottom corner.

By clicking Style in the Site Admin and then the Custom Background tab, you have full control over what shows up in the background of your web pages. If you decide to use a video, all you need to do is paste in the URL of one hosted at YouTube.com or Vimeo.com, and then configure the options: Audio, Full Screen, and the position of the Audio and Full Screen buttons (left or right). Turning on Full Screen will allow your visitors to hide the rest of the content on the page so they can see the video in all its glory. After all, regardless of how interesting the content on your page is, it can't compete if Maru is being adorable in the background. Can it?

Give the new Video Background option your best shot and post a link to your site in the comments below. I'm obviously stuck on cat videos, but I'm sure you can muster a bit more creativity with this new feature. I can't wait to see what you come up with, and don't forget to watch the video above to see a demonstration of all the new awesome background features.

Pages to the People - şimdi daha da fazla dilde mevcut! Jimdo onikinci dil sürümünü sunmaya başladı - Artık sitenizi dilediğiniz şekilde Türkçe olarak oluşturabilir ya da düzenleyebilirsiniz!

If you can read the sentence above, then you already know the good news: Jimdo's newest language version has arrived: Turkish! This is the 12th language that you can use the Jimdo website builder in.

We've already found at least one website created using Jimdo in every country in the world. With the new language version, we hope to see even more JimdoPages from Turkish-speaking parts of the world.

So here's to Jimdo's new language! If you have friends who you know would like to use a Turkish-language system to make their websites, please let them know. If you know of a Jimdo site in Turkish that we should highlight in our favorite pages or in a Jimdo Spotlight, this is the time to let us know. Send us a message and tell us about the site. We're really looking forward to seeing lots of Turkish websites!

It's clear, your potential customers are visiting your website on their mobile devices more and more. Fortunately, it's now possible to display a Mobile Express Page for these visitors to show them all the most important details about your business up front. (Pictured above.)

These days, we're always on the go. We rely on our mobile devices to keep us on track, using them to find basic information about all the businesses we visit on a daily basis. Our smartphones know it all: The new address of our favorite Thai restaurant, how late our dry cleaner stays open, the phone number for our kids' daycare center, and a billion other little pieces of information that we could never keep track of before.

If you run a small business, it's important to consider what your website looks like, and what kind of information is easily accessible when people view it on mobile devices. For a while now, Jimdo has handled the first part of that with the Mobile View option. Now, with the addition of the Mobile Express Page, Jimdo has it all covered.

Customers don't have much time to find the information about your business that they're looking for, so it's important for your website to organize that information in an easy-to-find, easy-to-read format. The Mobile Express Page helps your website do just that. Your regular website is still there in mobile view if a visitor wants to dig deeper, too.

Activate the Mobile Express Page in Settings > Mobile > Mobile Express Page, and then fill out all of the relevant fields: Description, Phone Number, Email Address, Opening Hours, and Address. All fields are optional, so only fill out the ones you want to display on the page. 

With the new Mobile Express Page, your mobile website gets straight to the point, and helps customers get straight to your business. Let us know how you'll use the Mobile Express Page in the comments below.

Starting today, it's possible to create discount codes for your Jimdo store. Whether you use discount codes to offer a reward to your loyal customers or to entice new customers to your store, they can be a valuable marketing tool. We're extremely excited to make this feature public for all of our JimdoBusiness customers today. 

If you haven't already tried selling online, now is the time to start. Anyone can create an online store with Jimdo—even JimdoFree websites are set up for ecommerce. The best way to manage an online store is with a JimdoBusiness subscription, which includes a custom domain name and SEO tools that make your store more visible, as well as unlimited store items and discount codes.

Tons of people are already using Jimdo to sell incredible products online, like Zoombowls and Amigonstro. We can't wait to see what you sell and how you use discount codes to generate even more sales. 

Embedding a Google Translate widget on your site makes it accessible in more than sixty of the world's languages. If you don't have the time or resources to translate all of your content manually, the Google Translate widget is a simple solution that makes your website available to more people. 

Although the Google Translate widget doesn't offer a perfect translation of your content, it's still a great way to help your site reach a larger audience.

Keep reading to learn how to add the Google Translate widget to your Jimdo website.

It only takes a few simple steps to add Google Translate to your website:

1. Visit Google's Translation Manager and sign in to your Google account (If you don't already have anaccount, you can sign up for a free Google account).
2. Click Add to your website now on the right-hand side.
3. Follow the instructions on the next few pages to customize your translator.
4. You'll then receive two code snippets: Add the meta tag to the Head section of your site by clicking Settings > Edit Head and pasting the meta tag code. Add the widget code to the page where you want your translator to show up by adding a Widget / HTML element and pasting the widget code. 

If you want the Google Translate widget to show up on every page of your site, add it to your site's Sidebar. 

For more detailed instructions, check out our tutorial: How to Embed Google Translate on Your Site.

We've got lots of other tutorials in the Tutorials section of our Help Center. 

Earlier today we released a new feature that brings backgrounds to the forefront. For some time, it has been possible to use custom background images to personalize your Jimdo site. The new custom background feature adds a ton of new options, like the ability to set up a slideshow in your background that changes while your visitors look at your website. We're also releasing 9 new layouts that are designed to show off all the awesome new background images that you'll be uploading to your website. 

It's now even easier to upload background images and adjust settings like tiling, alignment, and position. With the incredible new Custom Background panel, it's also easy to switch between a single background, a random background, and a background slideshow. You can find the Custom Background panel by clicking Style in the Site Admin. 

Because you'll need large, high-quality images to get the full effect of the new background feature, we increased the size limit of background images to 5 MB. After you upload your images, there's an option to add a light or dark overlay, which provides a stunning effect when combined with gorgeous, high-resolution images. 

You can now upload 25 background images and play them as a slideshow at one of three speeds and with one of six different transitions. It's also possible to have a random background appear any time someone refreshes the page or visits a different subpage on your site. 

To complement the new custom background feature, we are releasing 9 new layouts that highlight stellar background images – 3 for JimdoFree (F4218, F4216, F4217), 3 for JimdoPro (P4223, P4224, P4215), and 3 for JimdoBusiness (B4219, B4225, B4226). Click the images below to see some of the new layouts. 

If you need some fantastic images for your site, check out the blog post we wrote a couple weeks ago about how to find free stock images online. 

We're so excited about all of the sites you are going to create with the new background feature and the new layouts. Leave a link to your site in the comments so we can check it out, or tweet a link to @jimdo. We can't wait to see everything you come up with. 

In order to get the most from your store, it's a good idea to create a unique page for each item that you are selling. This will help boost your SEO and give a unique url to each item in your store. Start by editing your Navigation to create a new page in your store area. If you click the eyeball icon next to this new page, you can hide it in your navigation, but don't forget to link to it from somewhere else on your site! Add your Store Item element to the new page and then move on to step 2.

In addition to your Store Item element, you should add Text, Photo, and even Video Elements to these pages. This is a great place to put larger photos, instructional videos, and user reviews and testimonials. Make sure you enable the Pinterest feature on any additional Photo elements you place on the page as well as social media Share Buttons to help your customers spread the word.

Did you know that you can download a spreadsheet of all the orders that have been placed through your JimdoPage? Click the Store icon in the Site Admin, then click on both the Order and Order Archive tabs and you will see an Export Orders link at the bottom of the window. Click this for several options to export your data into a CSV that can be opened in any spreadsheet software and even many accounting packages.

Some users have used this to track very specific details like how much they charged their customers for shipping in the past month.

Traditionally, Variations are used for Store Items with different size and color options, but you can be more creative by using this as a way to offer bulk packages or even expedited shipping options.

Want to sell 3 items for the price of 2 but can't find a way to do it? Try using Variations. You can enable Variations from the Price tab of any Store Item element. This will add a drop-down menu for that Store Item where your customers can choose different sizes, colors, quantities, and more. Each variation that you create can have its own description, price, inventory level, and item number.

We are always amazed by the unique solutions that our users come up with. Share your store tips and tricks with us in the comments below.

Thank you for all your comments wishing us well on Jimdo's 6th birthday last week. It's been amazing hearing from all of you!

As we've done in years past, we've put together an infographic as a visual respresentation of Jimdo and our team. But it's not just about our average shoe size – though you'll find that too. We've also dug up a few interesting numbers about you!

• How many Jimdo websites are there now?
• How many images did Jimdo users upload last year?
• How many new elements do Jimdo users add each second?

You'll find the answers to these burning questions and more in the infographic below. Click to view the entire image, which you can also download and share!

Great photographs are an essential part of a beautiful website. Adding several stunning images can transform your Jimdo site into an exciting, memorable hub for your visitors and customers. When putting images on your site, there's a lot to keep in mind, like placement, dimensions, and file size.

Before you can begin to consider anything else, there's a very important question: Where do you get magnificent photos without spending a ton of money? One way, of course, is to use your own photographs — but many of us aren't professional photographers. The best way to get professional photos on your website is to use stock photography. Below, we'll tell you about one paid option and one free option for acquiring stock photos. 

We hope you enjoy using Fotolia and Pixabay to add beautiful images to your Jimdo site. After you have found some images, you should check out our design tutorial to learn more about using images on your website. Comment below and show us how you've used stock photography to enhance your pages. 

Update: List of JimdoPro subscription winners

• http://www.patkaz.com/
• http://www.thoseagainstdrunkdriving.org/
• http://www.oldfieldssingers.com/
• http://www.fanwoodrescue.com/

Today is a day for celebration. Raise your glasses, everyone, and let's give a toast to Jimdo.

Exactly six years ago today, Jimdo was founded by Christian, Matthias, and Fridtjof. About 3,163,680 minutes have passed since then, and millions of Jimdo sites have been created. In fact, more than two Jimdo sites have been created every single minute since the day Jimdo was founded. 

A lot has happened in the world of Jimdo over the years. Naturally the product itself has gotten better and better, and new features are added all the time. We've also moved our headquarters a couple of times — after starting out in a small farmhouse in Luedingworth, we feel quite luxurious in our four-story office building in Hamburg. 117 people (and 5 dogs!) work together, eat together, and play together in that office. We've also spread around the globe, and our team now has offices in San Francisco, Tokyo, and Shanghai. 

One thing is for sure: We couldn't have done it without you. These six years have been incredible because you have been incredible. These six years have seen Jimdo spread around the globe because you spread the word. These six years have been the best of our lives, and we're so happy that you have been there to support us. Thank you for everything.

To say thanks for the past six years, we are going to give away four one-year subscriptions to JimdoPro. All you have to do is leave a comment below before February 24, 2013 — make sure that you leave some way for us to get in touch with you if you win! Everyone can participate, even people who have never used Jimdo before, so pass this post along to friends and family who have been thinking about starting a website.

And, as a second thank you, we're adding a new layout to JimdoFree today: F4222. This layout features a large header section and has the sidebar on the bottom. We're excited to see what sort of sites you make with this new layout.

Happy birthday, Jimdo. Here's to the next six — or hopefully sixty — years!