Create and manage a website

A website is a set of pages with a shared menu, footer and look. A new website starts with five pages written for your trade: Home (at the root of the address), Services, About, Reviews and Contact. You then edit, add and arrange pages as you like.

Before you start

• Your business name, your trade, and one line on what you do, for example "Family dentist in Leeds".

Steps: create a website

1. Open Sites and choose the Websites tab.
2. Press New website.
3. Check the Business name, choose your Trade, and fill in What you do. The trade decides the words, the pictures and the type, so a dentist and a law firm do not come out looking the same.
4. Press Create website. The window shows what it is doing, for example "Writing the five pages for your trade…".
5. When you see "Website created with five written pages.", the editor opens on Home.

Steps: manage pages and the menu

1. In the Websites list, press Manage pages on the website. The Navigation window opens.
2. Every page sits in one list: the header menu, the footer, or hidden. Drag a page between lists to move it, or within a list to reorder it. The change shows on every page.
3. To rename a page, press its rename icon, type the new name and press Enter. The old address keeps working and forwards to the new one.
4. To add a page, type its name under Add a page (for example "Pricing"), choose Where should this appear? (Header, Footer or Hidden), and press Add page.
5. For common pages, press one of FAQ, Contact, Privacy Policy or Terms of Service next to "Add a standard page". Privacy and terms pages come already written.
6. To remove a page, press its bin icon and confirm. Home cannot be deleted.
7. Press Edit beside any page to open it in the editor.

You can also change the menu from inside the editor with the Menu button, and add a page with New page… in the page picker.

What happens next

• Website pages are live from the moment they are made, on your free address. Every change you make in the editor shows once it has saved.
• The Websites list shows each site's address, number of pages and status. The external-link button opens the published site; the pencil opens the editor.
• To put the site on your own domain, press Domain. See Choose where a site lives.
• A blog can be added to the site under Sites › Blogs. See Start a blog and publish posts.

For agencies

Build websites inside a client with Sub-accounts › Open, or copy one you built with Copy to client…. The copy arrives unpublished for the client to look at, with their own logo.

Troubleshooting

"Business name, trade and one line on what you do are all needed." All three fields are needed before the site can be written.

"Website created with five pages." without "written". The words could not be written for your trade, so the pages have standard text. Edit them in the editor.

The view button is greyed out. Hover it to see why. "Not live yet — publish a page first" means nothing on the site is published; "Waiting on the domain to go live" means the site is set to a domain that is not active yet.

I added a page but can't see it in the menu. You chose Hidden. It is reachable by its address but not listed. Drag it into the header or footer list.

A link I shared to an old page name still works. That is on purpose. Renamed pages keep their old address and forward it.

Related

• Edit a page in the editor
• Choose where a site lives: your free address and paths
• Connect your own domain
• Set how a page appears in search results