Someone built this website for you
You were invited to a finished website that somebody else built. What it is, what you can change yourself, and what happens when you press Publish.
Do this
- Sign in. You land on the website's home screen, with your own website in the middle.
- Click Edit.
- Click the words on the page and type. Click a picture to swap it.
- Press Publish when you are happy.
What happens next: everything in the draft goes live on your web address, usually within a minute. Until then visitors see the website exactly as before, and every publish saves a copy you can go back to.
Somebody - an agency, a developer, a friend who is good at this - built a website for your business and handed it over to you. You did not have to make it, and you do not have to be technical to look after it.
This page is the short version of what you now have.
What you are looking at
When you sign in you land on the website's home screen. In the middle is a picture of your own website exactly as it looks to a visitor. Around it are the few things you can do with it: Edit, Publish, and a list of anything waiting for you.
The website may already be live at your own address, or it may be waiting for you to put it out. The home screen says which.
An agency may also have chosen the address for you. The Brand page shows what the agency's website code says about your colours, fonts and logo.
What you can change yourself
Text and pictures. Click Edit, then click the words on the page and type. It is the real page, not a form - what you see is what a visitor gets. Pictures are swapped the same way: click the picture, choose a new one.
Your contact details, your opening hours and the words on your buttons all work like that too.
You do not need to ask the person who built it for a small change. Ask them for the big ones - a new page, a different look, something that has to be designed.
Publishing is yours to press
Nothing you change reaches your visitors straight away. Your edits are saved as a draft that only you can see. The website out on your address carries on exactly as it was.
When you are happy, press Publish. That takes everything in your draft and puts it out at your address, usually within a minute. That is the whole thing: Publish means "show this to the world now".
If you would rather look first, use Preview - it shows the draft as a visitor would see it, without publishing anything.
You cannot break it
Every time you publish, we keep a copy of what the website looked like. If a change turns out wrong, open Version history and go back to an earlier version. Nothing is lost, and it takes a few seconds.
That is why it is safe to try. The worst case is one click back.
The look may be locked
The person who built the website may have fixed its look: the colours, the fonts and the logo. If they have, a Brand page appears on your website's home screen. Open it and it says in plain words what is fixed, shows the brand guide they wrote, and lists the few alternatives they approved for you.
Picking one of those alternatives changes the whole website in one press, and you can change back. Anything outside that list is theirs, so ask them for it.
Words and pictures are never locked. You edit those exactly as above.
When the agency changes something
The agency can keep working on the website after you get it. When they have, the website home says so: Your agency updated the website, with the pages they touched and what they rewrote. The same line appears in the editor the next time you open it, and you can close it.
What you wrote yourself stays. If you both change the same text, yours wins, and the notice says how many things still say exactly what you wrote.
On the same card there is Ask your agency for help. Write what you need. It becomes a comment on the website and the agency gets an email about it.
What is not yours
The account the website sits in may belong to the person who built it. If so, they handle the bill, and they decide which parts of the account you can reach - which is why your account may have fewer areas in it than a guide describes. If something a guide mentions is not there, it is not broken; it was simply not handed to you.
Ask them if you need something turned on, or if you want the website moved to an account of your own. Moving it is a normal thing to do and it does not take the website offline - see Move a website.
If you want to leave the agency and keep the website, open Take the whole website with you. First you see what will carry across. Every page, word, picture, link, redirect and form destination comes with you. A special layout or animation may become simpler. The change goes one way, so read the preview before you accept it. The agency's old version stays online until you publish the new version for the first time.
If you work at the agency
Open Customers to see all client websites. A warning beside a website tells you what needs attention. A failed build comes first. The list also warns when a website is offline, its address expires soon, changes wait for publishing, it was never published, or nothing was published for 90 days. Open the website from that row to fix the problem.
Where to go next
- Change the text on your website
- Replace the pictures
- Publish your website
- Go back to an earlier version
If you get stuck, the Ask AI button in the app answers questions about your own website in plain language.
Didn't find the answer, or is something wrong here? Tell us.
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