A great note-taking app can help with all kinds of daily routines like taking class notes, writing a shopping list, or jotting down ideas for your next great blog post.

At Automattic, we love using Simplenote, which is an easy way to create notes, lists, and more. Our favorite part? It’s backed by a powerful sync engine that syncs notes across all of your devices swiftly and smoothly — and for free! — so our notes are accessible everywhere.

The Simplenote experience is all about speed and efficiency. Open it, write some thoughts, and you’re done — saving and syncing happens automatically. As your collection of notes grows, find what you need fast by searching, and keep them organized with tags and pins. You can also share notes and publish them for other people.

Simplenote for Windows

Simplenote is also built to play nicely with WordPress.com. With the latest update to the app, you can sign in to the app using your WordPress.com account, so you have one fewer password to keep track of. Write something in the Simplenote mobile app and share it directly to the WordPress app, where it becomes a new post. And if you’re a fan of Markdown, your posts will be automatically formatted when published.

Sharing a note to the WordPress App

Simplenote is available for all of your devices, including iOS, macOS, Android, Windows, Linux, or you can use it on the web. Download it, give it a try, and let us know what you think!

The WordPress.com Business plan combines fully managed hosting with the freedom to grow and scale your site without limits. Today we’re adding Jetpack Search to WordPress.com Business so you can enjoy powerful and fast on-site search functionality as part of your plan.

Once you activate Jetpack Search, you’ll be using the same search engine powering some of the largest sites on the web. Jetpack Search provides a more engaging experience for your visitors: it relies on modern search algorithms that take phrase matches and the recency of your content into consideration, which in turn produces better search results.

In addition to more relevant matches, you can also configure the Jetpack Search sidebar widget to let your visitors sort their results or filter them by tags, categories, dates, and post types.

Whether you run a news site or sell products on your online store, a more engaging search experience will help readers and customers dig deeper into the content on your site and keep them there for longer visits.

As recently as three years ago, our enhanced search functionality was a $6,000-a-year add-on to our enterprise plan; we’ve since been able to scale the service and can now offer it as part of a Business plan that costs a fraction of the original price. Moreover, most search solutions come with limits on the total number of indexed posts or the number of monthly queries. Just like the rest of your WordPress.com Business site, unlimited is the name of the game. We want your business to be successful, so we don’t place arbitrary limits on the amount of content or number of searches that your visitors can run.

You can join the thousands of websites already using Jetpack Search by upgrading your site to WordPress.com Business today.

How to Enable Jetpack Search

1. If you don’t already have it, go to the Plans page and add WordPress.com Business to your site.
2. Go to My Sites → Settings → traffic to enable Jetpack Search on your site.
3. If you want to enable sidebar filtering, customize your site and add the Search (Powered by Jetpack) widget. Configuration of filters is simple and can be done with a few clicks.

Read more about this new feature on the Jetpack Search support page.

Since the introduction of the Simple Payment Button, we’ve been looking for more ways to streamline payments on WordPress.com and Jetpack-enabled sites. Today, we’re introducing a new variant of the Simple Payment Button, available to WordPress.com Premium and Business plan subscribers and to Jetpack sites on Premium and Professional plans.

Take payments anywhere on your site with the Simple Payment Widget

Use the Simple Payment Widget to add a quick payment option to the sidebar or footer of your WordPress.com or Jetpack site. (If you have Jetpack site, make sure its running version 6.3.3 or higher.) Then add the widget to your site via the Customizer, by going to Personalize → Customize → Widgets.

Using the Customizer

You’ll be able to select an existing Simple Payment Button or create a new one to add to your sidebar, header, or footer.

Simple Payment Widget on a Site’s Footer

The widget also gives you the ability to manage all of your products or services from the Customizer — set pricing, add images, and write product description right in the widget settings:

Edit a Product on the Customizer

Once you’ve create multiple payment buttons, you can choose between them any time you add the Simple Payment Widget. And any button you create or edit via the Customizer is instantly available to use on the rest of your site, on any post or page.

Add a product created on the Customizer to any page or post.

We hope you enjoy this new feature and make the most of it. Let us know what you think in the comments! And if you run into any issues setting up your new widget, take a look at the support documentation or reach out to support.