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How pages work
Create and edit webpages
Create and edit webpages

Learn the details behind your website’s functionality so you can take full advantage of every page and truly make the site your own.

Updated over a week ago

📌 Note: Memberships are available as add-ons. For more information on adding new features please see the add-ons page in your nation.

Table of Contents

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Where to start

To create a new page, go to your website in the control panel and click on + New Page

Create a page

1. Enter a page name and slug. A slug uniquely identifies a page on your website. It is the end of the URL for a page. For example: http://abeforprez.nationbuilder.com/blog 

The word blog is the slug for the blog page on the Abe for Prez website. The slug will always be after the back slash at the end of address.

In many areas of the NationBuilder control panel, slugs are used to indicate pages that visitors will be directed to.

Slugs will always default to be the name that you designate for a page, and spaces will always be marked by underscores (_). You can edit them to make them shorter and simpler. You want to do this so that they are easy to remember. When editing a webpage, you can edit the slug from the Settings area. 

The word "slug" also refers to the nation's name you selected when the nation was created. 

2. Select a page type. Each page type comes with specific features. For example, donation pages allow you to link the page to your payment processor. If you are looking to create a page with no specific features, select the “Basic” page type. 

Click Show all pages types to view/select from more page types. Learn more about the various page types.

3. Decide whether you would like this page to be in your top or supporter navigation

4. Click Create Page.

If you are using a "basic" page type for your homepage, you can easily add a preview of any page to your homepage by adding the tag "homepage" to the page's settings. To remove the excerpt from the homepage, simply remove the tag homepage from the page. 

Page level navigation

Every page has a series of tabs that can be found in the page navigation. Each tab of the navigation serves a different purpose.

  • Dashboard: This is the activity stream of your page. Any activity from your page will be listed. This includes when the page was published and any interactions visitors had with the page.

  • Settings & Action Settings: Use these tabs to configure the primary settings of your page. Details are covered in the sections below.

  • Content: This is where you will write/add any content associated with the page. 

  • Subpages: This is where you can access the subpages of the page. For example, your blog posts will be listed as subpages of your blog page. The order that subpages appear can be changed by dragging and dropping the names of the pages.

  • Comments: This is where you can view all comments on your page. You may also add a comment from this area. This section only appears if you have comments turned on.

  • Followers: This tab lists every follower of your page. Any person can follow a page on your website. Followers will receive email notifications when comments are left on the page. 

  • Template & Files: These two sections will help you customize your website. The Template is where you can adjust the basic HTML of your page or insert a widget. Upload images or other media files under Files.

  • Clone: This allows you to duplicate a page you've already created.

  • Preview: Click on Preview to view what your page looks like before you publish it. You can see how the page will look when logged in or logged out, and how it looks with different themes. 

Basic page settings

Every page has a set of basic settings. To edit these settings go to [Page name] > Settings > Page settings. This is a full listing of every setting available on your basic page types. 

1. You can edit the name or slug of your page. 

2. You can make any page a subpage of another page. Type the slug of the desired parent page in the provided text box. This allows you to quickly move pages between different sections of your site. For example, you could move event pages between various calendars. 

3. A title will be automatically created using the name of your page and the name of your website. You can edit it at any time. This is the title that will appear in search engines and in browser tabs. 

4. Enter the headline of your page in the Headline text box. This will appear as the title of your page.

5. Add a tag to your page to help categorize your pages. It will live at the bottom of the front facing page. 

  • This ends up being a very effective way of grouping resources for your supporters to find in consolidated formats! Clicking on a tag will also create a link to all pages tagged with that specific tag that you can link to anywhere.

6. Select an author for the page by clicking on the dropdown menu. A blank search box will appear. Enter in the name, email, or twitter handle of the person you wish to add as author. The default author is listed as the person who created the page. 

7. If the page is user-submitted, select the appropriate checkbox. User submitted pages are connected to a particular username and when listed as user-submitted the page URL will change to: “mynation.nationbuilder.com/user-submitted-username/slug.” Locate all user-submitted pages by going to Website > Pages > User-submitted.

8. When you create a page, the default status of the page will be “unlisted.” You can change the status by selecting a status from the drop down menu or publishing the page. 

Status name: Description. Viewable in search engines - (yes - ✓)

  • Unlisted: Page is not listed on your website, but is accessible if you have the link. Any unlisted page will remain viewable in search engines if it had been published previously.

  • Published: Page is published and on your site. ✓

  • Expired: This only applies to event pages. After the event has passed, the page will disappear from the site but is accessible in the control panel. ✓

  • Archived: Page is removed from your public site, but is accessible via search. ✓

  • Deleted: Page is removed from your site and search, but can be accessed in your control panel. Content can only be viewed from when editing the page. Its URL will not work, nor will preview mode.

  • Rule violated: Page has been flagged as having violated a rule. Needs to be reviewed. ✓

  • Hidden: Page is only accessible in your control panel and not available from your site or search. Content can be viewed in preview mode or when editing the page. Its URL will not work.

9. When your page is published, text boxes with the publication date and publication time will appear. You may adjust the date by typing in a new date and time.

10. Limit who can see a page on your website based on the person’s access level. A person can see all pages that are less restrictive than their own. So, a supporter with an active membership on their profile will be able to view pages open to members, logged in users, and anyone.

11. Check one, or both, of the navigation checkboxes to include a page in your top navigation, supporter navigation, or both.

📌 Note: Supporter navigation will only appear for people who are logged into your nation, meaning they have already activated an account. 

12. The Show sidebar checkbox can adjust if the sidebar appears on your page. Unchecking the box will also remove the supporter nav from selected pages.

13. Check the Show stream checkbox if you want to have an activity stream displaying profiles from your nation. The profiles shown will be those who took an action on your page and what action they took. Each supporter will have the option to not publish their action to the site. This setting only applies to action pages.

14. Check the Allow comments checkbox if you want to allow comments on your page.

15. Any page of your website can be the homepage or a splash page. Only one page can act as the homepage at a given time. Similarly, only one page can act as a splash page. 

16. Don’t forget to click Save page to save your changes. Delete your page by clicking Delete page.

Action settings

An “action page” is a website page where your visitor is asked to take an action like sign a petition, make a donation, or RSVP to an event. Every action page has settings that are activated when a visitor takes an action on your site. To edit these settings go to [Page name] > Settings > [Action] Settings. These settings are always located the third tab to the right. 

The action pages available include: signup, user-submitted blog posts (within blog settings), user-submitted events (within calendar settings), donation, endorsement, feedback, petition, survey, vote pledge, volunteer signup, invoice, and moneybomb.

1. Choose to ask for phone number and address or require entry of phone number and address, or not ask for them at all (uncheck all boxes). 

2. Automatically add tags to any person who takes an action on your website. For example, track attendance by adding the tag “RSVP - Charity Drive - Event date” to anyone who RSVPs on your event page. These tags are completely separate from page tags. Enter the name of the tag in the provided text box. Separate multiple tags with commas.

3. You can select what page a supporter lands on after they take an action on your website. This will create action chains for supporters to take multiple actions in a row. For example, when someone signs your petition, you can have them land on your donation page. Enter the slug of the page you want to have your supporters land on in the text box.

4. Assign a point person when a visitor takes an action on your website. A point person is responsible for that visitor’s relationship with your organization. For example, your volunteer coordinator would be an excellent point person for people who sign up on your volunteer website page. Any control panel user can be listed as a point person. To add a point person to a website page, select the control panel user’s name from the provided drop down menu. Note that if a visitor already has a point person, they will not be assigned a new one when they take a website action.

5. Grant membership for action taken. Since every action page can grant membership when the action is taken, both unpaid and paid membership can be automatically added to supporters. First, decide which membership type to assign. If the membership should never expire, do not set an expiration date. Otherwise, set an expiration date that is relative to the date the supporter takes the action. 

📌 Note: memberships cannot be granted on invoice pages or moneybomb pages.

6. Add a supporter to a path. This will allow you to build and track the relationship with your supporters. Check the “Add to path” checkbox and add the appropriate information for path type, path point person, step, step point person, and step due date.

📌 Note: a supporter cannot be added to a path for pledging on a moneybomb page. 

👉🏼 Next steps

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