Step 5: Read every page

Now read your own website, the way a customer would. Start at the top of the home page and work down. Then do the next page.

Click View Site in the panel to open it in a new tab.

Your pages are Home, About, Services, Service Areas, Gallery, Team and Contact, plus the quote page. Some sites have a food menu page as well, and some have a Pricing page.

Two kinds of wording

When something reads wrong, it came from one of two places.

Words typed on the page. A headline, a paragraph, a set of questions and answers. You fix these on the page itself, under Content, then Pages.

Words from an entry. Your services, your reviews, your towns, your phone number. The page only shows them. You fix those on their own screens, which is Step 1 and Step 4.

Pages shows how to open a page and change a block.

The checklist

1. The home page

• Read the big headline at the top, and the line under it. If the headline still starts with EXAMPLE, it is waiting for your words: who you are and who you help.
• Click both buttons under it. They start out pointing at your quote page and your Services page. If one lands on a “page not found” screen, open the block and point it at /contact or /quotes.
• Find the strip that still says EXAMPLE. That is the story of your business, and it is waiting for your words.
• Read every other strip on the page, top to bottom.

Some older websites also have a strip of six small boxes about software teams. That wording came with the design. Put your own six in, or remove the strip.

2. The Pricing page, if you use it

Your website comes with a Pricing page, but it is not in your menu. It starts as a draft, so the public cannot see it. Look at its Status in the Pages list. On some older websites it is already published.

It arrives with an EXAMPLE headline and a made-up plan. Some older websites have three made-up plans instead, with buttons that go nowhere. If you want the page:

• Open the page and put your own words in the headline.
• Click the pricing block, then the pencil.
• Put your own plans in, in your own words.
• Point each button at /contact or /quotes.
• Click Publish now, then Publish now again in the box that opens. On a page that is already published, both say Publish changes instead.
• Add the page to your menu. Step 6 shows how.

Do not sell from a price list? Then leave it out of your menu, and nobody lands on it.

3. Every other page

Read the Services, Service Areas, Gallery, Team, Contact and quote pages. Most of what is on them comes from entries you have already fixed. The Team page lists your people from Plugins, then Team.

You are looking for anything that is not about your business.

Your About page is the one to write yourself. Open it under Content, then Pages, and put your own story in the Story block, in your own words. Pages shows how a block is changed.

Your site may also have a Shop page, a Work page or a Blog page. Those come with an add-on, and each one has its own page here: Shop page, Projects and Posts.

4. What Google shows

While a page is open, scroll the right hand panel down to SEO.

• SEO Title is the blue line people click. Around eight words.
• Meta Description is the gray sentence under it. Say what the page is for.

Leave both empty and your website writes them from the page. That is fine. Pages covers the boxes.

5. Publish as you go

Nothing you change reaches your website until you click Publish changes, then Publish changes again in the box that opens. Do it page by page, then read the page again with Live View.

6. Missing a page?

You can add one yourself: a Warranty page, a page of questions, anything built from blocks. Adding a new page shows how. Then add it to your menu in the next step.

What done looks like

You have opened every page on your live website and read it to the bottom. Nothing on any of them is about somebody else’s business.

Back in the panel, the Pages list shows no yellow Pending changes tags. Anything still yellow is an edit the public cannot see.

Next: Step 6: Navigation.