Create your pages and add your content

Whenever you want to set up a new page or add a menu link to a new page you have to create the page first.
To do this go to Pages and Menus in your admin bar. Here you see all the existing pages and your menu links.

Click on Add Page and enter the title of your new page (e.g. Our Services). Lara will automatically create a URL for this new page so you don’t have to worry about the Path. This field should have the link to the page (in this case: /our-services).

Write a description of this page into the Description box (what this page is about).

This and a good page title is very important in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so take your time and think about a good title and a description text that includes your keywords for this page. Think about what people might search for and try to integrate that into your description.

Let’s leave out the Advanced Settings for now and proceed to Add to Main Menu. That box is automatically checked and will add the new page to your menu. If you don’t want the new page to appear in the menu un-check this box.

Let’s come back to the Top Menu later as well and just focus on the basics at this point.

Once you have entered all your text click Save. Your new page has been added into the Website Pages section as well as to Main Menu Links if you wanted the page to appear in your menu.

Now that you have created a new page we can start working on it.

To go to the new page you can either click on the menu link (if the page has been added to the menu) or you can access it through Pages and Menus.

Click on the page you want to go to (it should still be highlighted if you have just created it) and then click View at the top right corner. This brings you to the page.
Currently the page only has your description text on it and a placeholder for an image on the right.

Now you have to decide how your page should be organised. What is going onto this page and how? How many columns do you need?

Click on Edit Page > Change Layout or Add Feature. This shows you how your page currently looks like and what is on it. Your new page currently has one row with one wide and one narrow column.

Click in this row to highlight it. This loads the layout options on the left. You can click on them to see how they would look on this page. Decide on one and click Save at the top. You can at any time change the layout of every page!

Now that you have a layout for your page you need to decide what kind of content you want in which location.

Click on Edit Page > Change Layout or Add Feature. Wherever you want some static descriptive text you have to put a Text Area, for every photo, logo, graphic you need an Image. A Contact Box lets website visitors send an email to you.

There are many content features to work with but at this point let’s just use static Text, Images and Contact Boxes.

Click on Common Features on the left and drag and drop a Text Area into the column you want it to be. If you want it to go somewhere else you can do the same and just move to the right spot.

Do the same with an Image: Click on Common Features, click on Image and drag it over into the column.

Do the same with a Contact Box.

When you are done click Save.

Now you have the right placeholders on your page and it’s time to put your content in.

Let’s start with the text.

Click on Edit on your Text Areas and type in the text that you have prepared.

Please note: If you are copying text from a document it is best to copy your text from Notepad in order to avoid any formatting issues. When pasting in directly from a Word document you will add the formatting as well that comes with the document and that might lead to some style issues. The cleanest way is to copy your document into Notepad (it’s on your PC computer. Click on your start button at the bottom left and type Notepad into the Search box and notepad will open.) and from there copy and paste into the Text Area.

You can always click on Preview to see how your text currently looks like. When it looks good click on Save.

Let’s add an Image.

You have already uploaded your logo at a previous step so you are already familiar with the uploading process. If you would like to get some assistance for this step again please see under Edit an Image.

Now we can set the Contact Box right so you will start receiving emails that your visitors send you.

Click on Edit next to the Contact Box. You might want to change the title at the top right to something like “Email Us”. You can also decide not to show the title and just un-check the Show Title box.

Now enter the email address you want to use to receive the emails. Make sure it is a valid one and all spelling is correct.

Message Box Height determines the size (height) of the box where visitors type in the message. You can leave it at the default 100 for now and change it later if you want.

The Button Text is for the “Send” button underneath the message box. If you want the button to say something different than “Send” you can type in the word there.

If you want visitors to enter their phone number you can select the field “Your Phone Number”. This will add an extra field for that.

Now you have the choice of just leaving the message box empty and people can type in a message. Or you can enter messages/topics they can select, something like “I would like to get more information on prices”, “Send me more on upcoming events”, “Customer Services” etc.

Enter each message into the box and separate them with a ;

Make sure the Show suggested messages as checkboxes is selected.

With Select Contact Box View you can decide how to display the box. Just try both options and click on Preview to see how they look. If everything is set click Save.

Now you have added three fundamental content features to your website!

Repeat those steps for all pages you have set up.