Building your first website
You give it a name, pick a starting point, and get a real site with real pages that you can then change however you like. It takes a few minutes, and you cannot break anything.
The short version
- Press New website (or Create your first website) and give it a name. You can change it later.
- Pick a starter site, or start from scratch.
- A starter site opens in the editor ready to change. From scratch, the chat asks a few quick questions about your business and builds the site from your answers.
- You get a full site. Every part of it is editable.
- Nothing is public until you publish, so take your time.
Choosing a starting point
A starter site is a complete site with pages, sections and styling already in place. Browse them, search for your kind of business, preview any of them, and pick whichever is closest to what you want. Closest is good enough. It opens in the editor exactly as it comes, and you change the words, pictures and colors to fit, by clicking into the page or by asking the chat.
Start from scratch begins with a blank page and builds it in the editor. The chat asks about your business first and then builds a whole site around the answers. Choose this if you would rather describe what you want than change somebody else's layout.
Telling us about the business
On a site started from scratch, the editor's chat opens by asking what the business is and who it is for. After that come a few quick questions, most of them answered with a click: how it should feel, a layout for the top of the home page, your brand color, how much movement you want, and anything specific the site must carry. Then it builds the site. On a starter site nothing is asked; describe your business in the chat whenever you like and ask for the changes you want.
What it does. A couple of sentences in plain language. What you sell, who buys it, what makes you different, anything specific worth saying. "A family dental practice offering cleanings, whitening and braces. Good with nervous patients, open Saturdays. Been on Bridge Street for 20 years."
Specifics are what make the difference. "We do plumbing" produces a site about plumbing. The version above produces one that mentions Saturdays, nervous patients and twenty years on Bridge Street, because those are the things a customer choosing between you and somebody else actually reads.
How it should feel. A few words. "Clean, calm, professional". "Warm and a bit playful". This steers tone and styling rather than content.
Brand color. If you have one, give it when you are asked. If you do not, pick one of the colors it suggests, or let it choose for you.
On a free trial, that first build is on us. After it, building with the chat needs a plan. Editing by hand stays free.
What you get
A working site with several pages, a header, a footer and consistent styling throughout. Not a wireframe. Built from scratch, it is written from your answers; a starter site comes with the design's own wording, ready for yours.
It will not be exactly right, and it is not supposed to be. It is a starting point, which is a much easier thing to edit than an empty page.
What to do next
Read your own site in the editor. Fix the things that are wrong about your business first, before touching anything visual. Wrong opening hours matter more than a heading you would have worded differently.
Then pick your address, choose a plan and publish. Your website's overview lists those steps in order. Getting something live and imperfect beats polishing something nobody can see, and you can keep editing after it is live.
You cannot break it
Every page keeps a version history, so any change can be put back. Nothing you do in the editor is visible to anyone until you publish. And building a second site to try a different direction is always an option.