Before you begin

These pages are a path through the manual. They put the jobs of your first week in order. Each step is short, and each one links to the page that shows you how.

Start here, then work down the list.

Your website is already up

It is built, and it is on the internet now. Anyone with the address can read it today. Nothing waits for you to press a big red button.

So the work in front of you is not building a site. It is making the one you have say the right things.

What we have already done

• Built your pages and put the links across the top.
• Set your colors.
• Put in your phone number, your email and your address.
• Uploaded the logo and the photos you sent us.
• Wired your inquiry form to your inbox.

You do not start from an empty screen. You start from a full one.

What is still an example

Some entries are examples. We put them there so you can see the shape of a real one. They are live, and a visitor can read them.

Your first job is to swap them for your own work.

Spotting an example

Most of them start with the word EXAMPLE. You will see it in the list, in the entry, and on your live website.

Look for it in these places:

• Services, two of them
• Testimonials, one
• Service Area, two towns in the list
• Service Area Pages, one town page
• Credentials, two licenses and one badge
• Gallery, one empty album
• Menus (Food) and Menu Sections (Food), if your site has them

Some wording came with the design and carries no EXAMPLE at all. The Pricing page is the big one. Step 5 covers those.

What to have ready

Get these in front of you first. It saves stopping halfway.

• Your photos, on this computer, in a folder you can find.
• Your logo file, if we do not have it yet.
• Your license numbers, and who gave you each one.
• Your opening hours, day by day.
• Your phone number and email, spelled the way you want them read.
• The towns you work in.
• The web address of each social profile you use.
• Your prices, or a starting price for each job.

Sign in and look around

1. Sign in to your admin panel.
2. Bookmark the panel. Press Cmd+D on a Mac, or Ctrl+D on Windows.
3. Read the tour of the admin panel. It is ten minutes and it makes every later step quicker.
4. Read Saving and publishing. Saving is not the same as going live, and that catches everybody out once.

Done all four? Go on to Step 1: Your business details.

Tip

Set aside an hour or two, not a whole day. The steps stand on their own, so you can stop after any one of them and pick it up later.