Managing Your Website
It couldn't be easier to manage and edit your website and keep it up-to-date!
When your website is ready, you will receive an invitation to register and create a password for your editor account with We Love Websites. You will be able to log in to your account using the link at the top of this page, or by going directly to app.welovewebsites.co.uk
When you are logged in, you will see your main account screen which lists any websites you have access to. From here you can get some at-a-glance information about your website like the number of visitors it has received in the last 30 days, how many sales you have made (if you have an online store) and how many people have contacted you in the last 30 days from your website.
Clicking the Edit Site button will take you to the live site editor, or clicking the Settings button will open a menu of options to help you manage your site. You can use these to edit your site's general info, to see some basic statistics, to manage your store stock or to respond to messages.
From your Site Settings, choose Site Statistics from the side menu. This screen gives you an overview of the health of your website. You can quickly see how many visitors your website receives, how many times they visit, how many pages they look at and whether they have completed a form.
By default, this page will show you statistics for the last 7 days and an indicator of whether the numbers have risen or fallen compared to the previous 7 days. You can use the calendar menu at the top right to change the period that you are looking at.
This will likely be enough information for you at first, but if you need more detailed website analytics, then I can help you connect your website to third-party services like Google Analytics.
From your Site Settings, choose Form Management, or click Open Form Management at the top right of the Site Statistics page.
Any time somebody completes a form on your website, a record of it is made in your site's Form Management. You can also be notified by email or connect your form to other third party services to notify you.
If you have more than one form on your site, you can use the dropdown menu button at the top left of the main panel to switch between them and see the responses from each form.
The columns in Form management do not expand so if the information doesn’t fit it will be cut off with “…” at the end. To see the full content, hover your mouse over the column you want to read and click; the content will automatically be copied to your computer’s clipboard. Open a note or a document on your computer and paste (right-click > paste or CMD-V). The full information will be pasted so you’ll be able to read it all.
if you have a blog on your website, you can add, edit and manage posts from your Site Settings. You can also access this from the Site Editor by clicking the Manage Posts button on the Blog page of your website.
Once you are in the Blog area of your Site Settings, you will see a large Settings button on the screen that opens your author profile so that you can set the name and profile photo of your blog’s author. Currently, the blog only supports one regular author.
The Create Post button opens the post editor where you can type directly into the main panel to start writing your post. Each time you start a new paragraph, a + symbol appears. Click the + or hit the tab key on your keyboard to reveal options for adding a new Heading, Paragraph, Image, List or Video. You can rearrange any content by simply clicking and dragging it up or down the page.the
In the post editor, there is a second tab for SEO settings. For existing posts, you can also access this by clicking the settings (cog) button. To understand the importance of these settings, see the SEO section of this guide.
Existing posts are divided between Published and Drafts. The ••• button on existing posts allows you to Preview, Duplicate, Publish, Unpublish or Delete any existing posts.
To access the Site Editor, you can find an Edit Site button either next to the preview of your website when you first login, or at the top right of every screen in Site Settings.
Once you are in the Site Editor, you will notice that you now have two toolbars across the top of your window. In the first toolbar are links back to your other websites, to Site Settings, to preview your website and to publish your website.
The second toolbar is where you will find the following options:● Pages and Pop-ups: This lists all the pages of your site and lets you jump straight to them or edit settings for them. The pages you can see here are only visible to you, to make them visible to your website visitors they must be added to a menu.● Navigator: This lists all the main blocks on the current page and lets you jump to them (useful on very long pages!), rearrange them, copy and delete them or access various settings for them.● Site Styles: Here you can change your site's colour scheme, text styles and button styles. Any changes you make here will affect the whole site, so use it with care!● Desktop/Mobile Switcher: This allows you to view and edit your website as it will appear on different devices.● Autosave Status: A tick here means that any changes you have made are saved and ready to be published.● Undo & Redo: If you have made any mistakes, you can easily undo them!● Site History: Use this to store, and restore, different versions of your website design.● Comment Mode: This mode lets you pin comments to the page for me, or your own team members, to see. This is useful for providing feedback on design changes or new content before you are ready to publish it to the live site.● Share: This opens a panel with a number of options to share your site with friends and colleagues - either the live version or a preview version in comment mode for feedback. You can also save a QR code that links to your website, or share directly to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.● Hide Menu: This collapses the top bar, and merges some of its functions into the second bar to take up less space on screen.
First, let us say that this guide is just to get you started on making basic edits to your site, we're just going to review the key features and basic principles of using the Site Editor.
If you want to do more more than just basic edits to your website, there are a number of options:● Leave it to us! If you have any big changes you want to make or new features you want added and you're not sure how to do it, just get in touch and we will be happy to assist you.● Explore and experiment! Have a play with the editor! Any new pages you make will not be visible to your site visitors until they are added to the menu, so you could use a new page as a "playground" to explore all the extra features of the Site Editor.● One-to-one advanced training. If you want to have a go at creating more advanced pages in future, but don't know where to start, then contact us to arrange a live training session via Zoom.
In the main panel of the Site Editor, you can see a preview of your website, like a visitor. When you move your mouse over the page, you will see different areas of the website highlighted and buttons appearing.
The page is divided into blocks or main sections. Each block may have a header, a series of rows and a footer. Each row can also be divided into multiple columns. Within each column are various elements which may be text, images, buttons or other interactive features. Every block, row, column and element has its own controls which appear when you hover over them.
To edit any text on the page, just click directly on it to insert your cursor and you can start typing. A toolbar of standard text tools will appear that allow you to make text bold, italic, underlined, change the size and colour, the line height, the alignment, make lists or add links.
Rearrange Blocks: This button appears only on main blocks and opens a window that lets you rearrange, or delete, all the main blocks of your page. When you are done rearranging, just click the X at the top of the window to return back to the main editor window.
Settings: This button appears on blocks, columns and most elements and opens a settings window. These settings include layout, sizing, spacing, background and colours. The settings may vary depending on the type of section or element.
More: This button appears on blocks, columns and most elements and opens a menu of options that include some or all of the following:Duplicate: make a copy of this element or section. The copy will appear immediately below or beside the original depending on what it is that you are duplicating.Copy to: this allows you to copy a whole block to another page of your website if you wanted to use the same layout or design on other pages.Hide: this allows you to hide an entire section. This may be useful, for example, if you have a holiday notice on your homepage. You can hide it without deleting it so it's ready for you to use again in future.Delete: permanently delete the element or section.
Move: This button appears on columns and elements and allows you to move them by simply dragging them. Generally, elements or columns can only be moved within their own block, they cannot be moved or copied to other blocks, you may need to manually reproduce the content if you want it to appear in another block.
As you move your cursor over the page, you will also see these buttons appear in various locations:
Add Column: This button allows you to add a column to a row within a block of your page
This button opens the settings for the block or column. These settings include layout, sizing, spacing, background and colours. The settings may vary depending on the type of section or element.
This button opens a menu of options that include some or all of the following:Duplicate: make a copy of this element or section. The copy will appear immediately below or beside the original depending on what it is that you are duplicating.Copy to: this allows you to copy a whole block to another page of your website if you wanted to use the same layout or design on other pages.Hide: this allows you to hide an entire section. This may be useful, for example, if you have a holiday notice on your homepage. You can hide it without deleting it so it's ready for you to use again in future.Delete: permanently delete the element or section.
This button allows you to move an element or column by simply dragging it. Generally, elements or columns can only be moved within their own block, they cannot be moved or copied to other blocks.