How do I edit my site?

There are six main types of editable content on your website.

These are:

• The Content Area
• The Sidebar
• The Footer
• Homepage Widgets
• Other Widget Areas
• Menus

Most sites will feature a main content area, a sidebar for placing widgets, one or more widget areas in the footer and possibly other places, and a navigation menu.

Some Ultra, and most Premium sites will also feature Homepage Widgets, for constructing their more intricate home pages.

The Content Area

The Content Area is the main block of content on any given page. It generally takes up 2/3rds of the width of the page. Whether it is on the left or the right depends on your site's design.

To edit the main content for a page, log in to your Dashboard and go to Pages and click the page you wish to edit.

Information on how to edit page content is available in the bundled manual and help videos.

If you want to try a more complex layout than what the manual and help videos describe, consider creating a table. We recommend becoming confident in the rest of the editor's tools before attempting complex layouts with tables however.

The Sidebar

Generally most pages have a sidebar. A sidebar is an area up to 1/3rd the width of the site that sits on the left or right of the main content area.

Sidebars contain widgets, which generate content wherever they are placed. The type of content they generate varies depending on the type of widget.

To view the available widgets, log in to your Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widgets. Here is where you can place widgets in your sidebar. Information on how to place and edit widgets is available in the bundled help videos and this support article.

To remove a sidebar from a page, so that the main content area takes up the full width of the page, go to Pages and edit the page you wish to remove the sidebar from. Under the editor is a box called Catalyst Post/Page Options. Inside this box is a dropdown called Layout. Select no_sidebar in this dropdown and click Publish to remove the sidebar from this page.

Note that by default every page will share the same sidebar content. However it is possible to create a unique sidebar for a page, or group of pages, by creating new Widget Areas. Information on how do do this is available in this support article.

More information on editing the sidebar is available in this support article.

The Footer

The footer is a widget area/series of widget areas that appears along the bottom of your page. Ultra and Premium customers will likely have 4-column 'fat footers'. Information on editing the footer is available in this support article.

Homepage Widgets

Many Ultra and Premium sites feature home pages with more complex layouts than the standard 'content area and sidebar' layout of other pages. These home pages are constructed using widgets.

These widgets are the same widgets that are placed in your sidebar, however instead of being placed into Sidebar 1, they are placed into widget areas with names like EZ Home Top #1, EZ Home Bottom #2, #EZ Home Feature Top 1 etc. The exact number of widget areas and their layout varies by theme, however comparing your homepage layout to the contents of your widget areas should give you a good idea of how your homepage is constructed.

Even though your homepage will have a more complex layout, there will likely still be a large block of text that looks like the main content area. This is in fact often placed there using what's called an 'Excerpt' widget. This widget usually places a portion of one page into a widget area on another.

To edit this page, go to Pages from your Dashboard and look for a page called 'Welcome' or 'Welcome to [Your Site]'. This is often the page that is being called into this widget area.

For more information on Widgetised Home Pages, see this support article.

Information on how to place and edit widgets is available in the bundled help videos and this support article.

Other Widget Areas

In addition to the sidebar,footer and home page widgets, there are often other widget areas on your site. The exact position and name of these widget areas depends on your design, but if there is a piece of content on your site that is not in any of the other editable areas (Homepage Widgets, Sidebar, Content Area etc.), chances are there is a widget area containing this content.

Go to Appearence > Widgets and look through the widget areas on the right until you find the content you wish to edit. Information on how to place and edit widgets is available in the bundled help videos and this support article.

Menus

In addition to the editable content on your website, most sites generally include at least one navigation menu, often more. To edit menus log in to your Dashboard and go to Appearance > Menus. On the right will be your menus, which appear as tabs along the top. Click the tab of the menu you want to modify to edit it. Here you can rearrange menu items, delete them, rename them or add more.

For more information on how to edit menus, see this support article and the included help videos.