Getting Started with Presence Builder

Presence Builder Overview

The Presence Builder is a simple drag-and-drop site builder that can help you build and maintain your website with little to no technical knowledge. It’s included with all web hosting and reseller hosting plans.

Create or Modify Website

  1. Log in to your hosting account’s control panel (cPanel)

  2. Under Popula Tools, click presence builder

  3. If you would like to create a new website, click Create a Site thenchoose the domain name you wish to use and click Create

  4. If you wish to edit an existing website, under Actions click Edit

Choosing a Template

Choose a template that relates to your business by either selecting one from the categories provided or by typing keywords into the search bar.

After selecting a template, fill out basic information that will appear on your website. Not sure what to write? Don’t worry, you will be able to make changes at a later time. Once you have filled in the fields, click Create.

Modifying your Site’s Content

You can modify most elements on your website using the Presence Builder’s drag-and-drop interface. Move your cursor over an element on the page and you will see the option to:

  • Move the element to another location on the page

  • Edit the element

  • Remove the element

  • Decide whether the element should be visible on the front page, on all pages or on all pages except the front page (only element areas specified as design will offer this option).

Working with the Presence Builder Floating Menu

The floating menu allows you to manage various aspects of your website.

Let’s go over some of these tools.

Modules

Presence builder makes creating a website very simple with its drag-and-drop interface and modules is where you will find many different elements to add to your site. As you drag an element around the page it will indicate where it can be placed by shifting other elements or showing the border of where it would appear.

Please note: When dragging and dropping an element you will be shown either design or content written in the area you will place the element.

  1. Design: This indicates that the design of the whole template will be affected (don’t worry you can always remove it). As the design is being altered the element will appear on every page of the website.
  2. Content: a content area is specific to a single page of your website and any element placed there will only appear on that specific page.
  • Text and images – Mix images and text in the same element.

  • Embedded video - Grab a video from youtube or elsewhere to put on your site.

  • Image slider - Present many images one at a time.

  • Image gallery - Show multiple pictures all at once.

  • Blog - Share your opinion on a subject with a blog article.

  • Online store - Display the items you wish to sell online. To enable this module, drag-and-drop it into a content area box. You will be prompted to create a free account with Ecwid (an eCommerce platform). To make changes to the online store click on the manage button and sign into your Ecwid account.

  • Shopping cart – Allow visitors to purchase from your online store by dragging and dropping items into the shopping cart module. The shopping cart will be automatically placed on the page when you enable your Ecwid account through the online store module.

  • Map - Connect to Google Maps to show people where you are located.

  • Commenting - Let your visitors share their thoughts of your work with a user-friendly comment section.

  • Contact form - Add a contact form so visitors can reach you.

  • Social sharing – Allows you to place the icons for your active social sharing platforms like facebook, twitter, pinterest etc.

  • Twitter feed - Display and promote your twitter feed.

  • Amazon aStore - Use this to create a link to your Amazon aStore.

  • Advertisements – If you are in an affiliate program this tool will enable you to add the code required for advertising purposes.

  • Language switcher – Working in numerous languages? This element tells visitors they can switch to their preferred language with a single click. To add languages see the language section under settings.

  • Search - Make your site easy to search by adding a search bar.

  • Navigation - Do you want the tabs at the top of the screen to be elsewhere on the page? Navigation does that.

  • Breadcrumbs – Tell visitors where they are on your website.

  • Banner – Create an image which crosses the length of the screen.

  • Site Logo - Upload your logo to an area and modify its size.

  • Script – Place Html, JavaScript or php code onto your site.

Design

The design tab allows you to make changes to the overall appearance of your new website.  

  • Templates – Pick a new template for your site.  Remember to save a copy of the current template before choosing a new one so that you can restore the previous version if needed.

  • Layout –  Change the dimensions of your website, add sidebars and more.

  • Scheme -  More accurately ‘colour scheme’.  Develop your website by changing the colours of its main features.

  • Color - Adjust the color of backgrounds, fonts and headers.

  • Fonts - Revitalize the site with a new, eye-catching font.

  • Corners - Choose right angle or rounded corners for your website containers.

  • Borders - Add effects to the borders of the on page elements.

Pages

Use this handy tool to add, remove, rename, or change the position of the pages of your website as seen in the navigation bar..

Do do this you can

  1. Drag and drop an existing or newly created page into the position you wish.

  2. Use the arrow tool   to move a page to a different position or as a subpage of top level page.

Documents

If you are looking to add a PDF or other document to the website to be downloaded by visitors, here is where to do it.

Upload a document:

  1. To upload a document you will first need it to be saved on your computer or stored in a place where your computer can access, such as Dropbox or OneDrive

  2. Click the upload button 

  3. Find the file you wish to upload and click open

Integrate the document into the website:

  1. Select a piece of text (word or phrase) that you would like to link the document too

  2. When selected, the link button will become highlighted 

  3. Click the link button

  4. A window will appear where you can select a document

  5. In the dropdown you will find the documents you have uploaded

  6. Click on the document you wish to link

  7. Click OK

Settings

Manage your website’s global configuration.

Basic -  Review and make changes to the website’s name, meta description, meta keywords and favicon.

Language – Tell search engines what languages are on your site as well as add a new language.

To add a language:

  1. Click the add language button

  2. Choose the language from the drop down list

  3. After selecting the language(s), click ok

  4. Flags representing the languages you chose will appear at the top right hand corner of all pages

  5. Click the flag of the language you wish to work on

  6. Replace all the existing text on the page with the correct translation (this will need to be done for each page separately)

Advanced - Go deeper into the website’s parameters by editing metadata, adding analytics, downloading a sitemap and more.

Social media – Advertise your new website on Facebook

Owner info – verify that your personal information is correct

Save & Publish

To publish your site, click on the publish button in the upper right-hand corner of the floating menu. This may take a few minutes to complete.

Once published your website will be immediately available online.

If you wish to wait to publish your website changes, click Save.

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