Your website, from Studio

Everything on your public website is edited from the same panel as the rest of your work. There is no second admin to sign in to, and no second password to lose.

Where to find it: press Website in the menu on the left. It is there on both the Studio and Sites plans.

The links, in order: Pages, Menu, Portfolio, Journal, Testimonials, Media, Bring a site across, SEO, Mailing list, Site settings and Your address. (On the Sites plan, Mailing list comes before **Bring a site across**.)

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Pages

Pages lists every page on your site with its address, how many blocks it has, whether it is in the menu, and whether it is published or a draft.

Edit a page

1. Go to Pages.
2. Press Edit beside the page (or click its title). View opens the page

as visitors see it.

1. Change what you need, then press Save page at the bottom. Cancel

leaves without saving.

On the right of the page editor:

• Title — the page's name.
• Address — the end of the web address, such as /about. The home page's address cannot be changed.
• Sits under — put this page under another one in the menu, as a dropdown. Leave it on Top level for an ordinary menu item.
• Menu label — a shorter name for the menu, if the title is long. Leave it blank to use the title.
• Status — Published (on your site) or Draft (hidden).
• Menu order — a number. Lower numbers come first in the menu.
• Show in the main menu — tick to put the page in your menu.
• Header on this page — leave it on As the rest of the site, or choose Show the header and the menu (even when the menu is off elsewhere), Show the header, without the menu (a landing page), or **Hide the header on this page** (where your opening photograph carries your logo). The footer still links to the rest of your site.

Your home page cannot be made a draft or taken out of the menu — a site whose front page is hidden shows nothing at its own address.

Search appearance controls what Google shows: Title for search results (about 60 characters shows in full), Description (one or two sentences, about 155 characters) and Hide this page from search engines, for a page that should exist but not be found, such as a thank-you page.

Build a page from blocks

A page is a stack of blocks — a hero photograph, some text, a gallery, an enquiry form and so on.

1. Open the page and scroll to Blocks.
2. Under Add a block, press the block you want. It is added at the bottom

of the page and opens so you can fill it in.

1. Fill in its boxes. Click a block's top bar to open or close it.
2. Use the buttons on the block's bar to move it up or down, duplicate it, or

remove it (the bin). You can also drag a block up or down by its handle.

1. Press Save page. Nothing you change in the blocks is kept until you do.

Removing a block does not delete the photographs in it — those stay in your library under Media.

Some pages build part of themselves: the home page and ordinary pages open with a title band, the Portfolio page shows your collections and the Journal page lists your posts. What this page builds itself at the top of the editor lets you turn that part off, so your own blocks are the whole page.

A Flex canvas block (under Custom editors) is designed by hand rather than filled in with boxes. Press Open the designer on the block. See the flex canvas.

Delete a page

Open the page, press Delete page, and confirm. This cannot be undone, so set the page to Draft instead if you might want it back. The home, Portfolio and Journal pages cannot be deleted.

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Menu

Menu arranges your website's menu on one screen.

• In the menu lists the pages in the order they appear. Press the up and down arrows beside a page to move it. A page that sits under another moves among that page's drop-down, and a page with a drop-down takes its pages with it. The arrows also save anything else you have changed.
• Press Rename it, or put it under another page on a row to give the page a shorter name in the menu, or to put it in another page's drop-down. One level only: a page in a drop-down cannot have its own.
• Untick In the menu to take a page out; tick it on a page under **Not in the menu** to add one. It joins the end; move it from there.
• Other links go after your pages: your booking page (/book), a shop, Instagram. An address on your own site starts with /; anything else opens in a new tab. Clear both boxes to remove a link.
• The header turns the whole header (your logo and menu), the menu, and the button at the end of it on or off, and sets the button's words (for example Book a session) and where it goes. A page can override this for itself under Header on this page in the page editor; the Menu screen marks those pages.
• Over the opening photograph chooses whether the header is Clear (the photograph shows through it while the page is at the top) or Solid (always on its own background). Either way, as soon as the visitor scrolls, the header has a background so the menu stays readable.
• Pages in the menu that are still drafts are listed with a note, and Publish … and save the menu puts them all live at once.

Press Save menu. Only published pages appear on the site, so a draft in the menu shows up once it is published.

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Portfolio

Your sets of work, each with a cover photograph and its own page.

Start a new set

1. Go to Portfolio.
2. Under Start a new set, fill in the Title and, if you like, Kind

(for example Weddings), Under the title, Where, **When you photographed it and A few words to open with**.

1. Choose How they sit together: Masonry keeps each photograph's own

shape; Grid crops them evenly.

1. Optionally fill in Title in search results, The line underneath it,

Keep this out of Google and Show this one first (which features the set).

1. Under Publish, choose Keep it as a draft or Put it on the site,

then press Create it.

Choose its photographs

The number in the Photographs column is a link. Press it to open the set.

1. Every photograph in your library is listed with a Place box.
2. Type 1 beside the photograph you want first, 2 beside the next, and so on.

Ordering is by number, not by dragging — it works on a phone, with a keyboard and with a screen reader, which dragging does not.

1. Leave a box empty to keep that photograph out of the set.
2. Tick Cover beside the photograph that should front the set.
3. Press Save this set.

If your library is empty, add photographs under Media first.

Put on site and Take off site publish or hide a set. Remove deletes the set itself; its photographs stay in your library.

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Journal

Your blog. Posts are written and published from Journal — see the journal for the step-by-step.

There is no date box: a post is dated the day you first press Publish, so publishing it means today. Publishing it again later keeps that first date, and the post's address never changes once it has been published, so links people have shared keep working.

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Testimonials

Kind words from clients, shown wherever your pages use a testimonials block.

1. Go to Testimonials.
2. Under Add one, fill in What they said, Who said it and **And

about what** (for example Their wedding, March 2026).

1. Leave Show this on the site ticked, and press Add it.

To change one, edit it in place and press Save. The arrows move it up or down the order, and Remove deletes it. Untick Show this on the site to hide one without deleting it.

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Media

Every photograph and document in your website's library, newest first, a hundred at a time. Older and Newer move between the pages.

Add photographs

1. Go to Media.
2. Under Add media, press the file box under The photograph and choose

one or more photographs (or PDF documents).

1. Write a line under What is in it — for example *Nell laughing on the

steps at Werribee*. A screen reader reads it aloud and Google reads it too. It is the thing most often left blank and the one most worth a line.

1. Press Add it.

Photographs are resized for phones and screens as they arrive, so a large file straight from your camera is fine.

Change one

Each photograph has its own panel:

• File name — what the library calls it. Renaming it changes nothing on your site.
• Caption, if it needs one — a short line to go with the photograph.
• Point at what matters most — click the part of the picture that must never be cropped away, usually a face. A wide picture in a square space crops to the middle by default, which on a couple standing off-centre can cut someone in half.
• Show the whole picture rather than filling the space — stops it being cropped at all, at the cost of leaving space around it.

Press Save. Remove deletes the photograph; any page using it will show a gap.

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SEO

How your site appears in Google and when somebody shares a link. It also holds your redirects. See SEO.

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Mailing list

Everybody who has used the sign-up box in your site's footer. (The box appears when Newsletter in the footer is ticked under **Site settings → Appearance**.)

Nothing here sends email in bulk. Under Every address, ready to copy, click the box to select every address, copy it, and paste it into whatever you send your newsletter with.

Remove deletes somebody from the list completely: a person who asks to come off a list has not asked to be remembered as having been on it.

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Site settings

Six tabs across the top. Change what you need, then press Save all of it.

The look of your site

On Appearance, under The look of your site, pick a style kit and press Save all of it. Each kit sets every font, colour and spacing at once, so switching is one choice rather than twenty. See style kits.

Your content is never touched. Your pages, photographs and posts stay exactly where they were — only the styling changes.

Your logo

1. Open the Brand tab.
2. Under Logo, choose the file and press Upload. Do the same under

The little icon on a browser tab for the tab icon.

1. To reuse something already in your library, open **Or choose one you have

already uploaded** and click it.

Remove it takes the logo or icon off again.

The header's size

On Appearance, under Header and footer, three choices set how big the bar at the top of every page is:

• Header height: Slim, Regular, Roomy or Tall. This is the space above and below the logo and menu.
• Logo size in the header: Small, Medium, Large, Extra large or Largest. A logo that is mostly words usually needs Large or bigger to read well.
• Menu text size: Small, Regular, Large or Extra large.

Phones get a smaller version of each automatically. Press Save all of it, then look at the site on a phone as well as a computer.

The footer

On Appearance, under Footer, every line of the footer can be changed: the Name in the footer and the Words under the name, the **Newsletter heading and Newsletter button, whether to List your pages in the footer and the Heading over the pages, whether to List your email, phone, town and social links and the Heading over them, and A column of your own** (a heading and words, for example opening hours or an Acknowledgement of Country). Clear a box to leave that line out. The Footer line and Newsletter in the footer sit just above, and the Copyright line is on Studio details.

Protecting your photographs

On Appearance, under Protecting your photographs:

• Discourage saving photographs and copying the page turns off right-click and long-press saving, dragging photographs off the page, selecting and copying, and the keyboard shortcuts for viewing the page's source, saving it, printing it and opening the browser's developer tools. Photographs disappear for a moment when a computer's screenshot keys are pressed, blur while the window is in the background, and are left out when the page is printed.
• Watermark the photographs on your site puts your mark into every photograph as it is sent, so a saved copy or a screenshot carries it. Choose the Watermark words (empty uses your studio name), Where it sits, **How visible and the Size**. Your logo is never marked, and your own files are not changed: turn it off and the photographs are sent as they were.

No website can stop a phone's own screenshot buttons, a camera pointed at the screen, or someone choosing View Source from the browser's own menu. The watermark is what still protects the photograph then.

How mail is sent

On the Email tab. Your studio and your website share this, so set it once and your contracts, invoices and contact form all send the same way.

Under Send through, A mail server (recommended) uses the details from whoever provides your email (they will give you the Server, Port, Username and Password). This machine usually means your messages land in spam.

Then use Does your email work?: type your own address under Send it to and press Send one. You find out now, rather than when a couple says they never got their contract.

Take a copy of everything

On the Site details tab, Download a copy gives you your pages, posts, portfolio and settings as one file. Tick Include the photographs for everything (slower on a big library). Keep the copy somewhere safe.

Closing the site for a while

The Maintenance tab. See closing your site temporarily.

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Your address

Where people find your site.

A new site answers at an address of ours, which works and keeps working. To use your own domain:

1. Go to Your address.
2. Under Your domain, type it without http:// or www. — for example

yourstudio.com.au — and press Use this one.

1. The screen shows The records to add, with the exact values to copy.

Add them where you bought the domain. Using your own domain walks through this step by step.

1. Press Check them now, or simply wait — it is checked every few minutes.

This can take a few minutes or most of a day, depending on where the domain is registered. Nothing is broken while you wait.

Go back to the Meridian address disconnects your own domain again.

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Bring a site across

Reads your old website and copies its words and photographs onto pages here.

It looks first and copies second, so you see what it found before anything happens. Imported pages arrive as drafts — somebody else's layout in your style kit is almost never right first time, and it should not be live while you sort it out. See bringing your old site across.

Starting from a template

A template is a file that holds a whole website: its pages, journal posts, site details and look. Its photographs can come from Pexels, a free photo library.

To use one, open Bring a site across. Under A template file, choose the file and press Read it. You will see what it holds before anything changes. Then choose:

• Use the template's look: its style kit, colours, type and header sizes.
• Replace my pages that have the same address. Each old page is kept as a hidden draft.
• Publish straight away, or leave the new pages as drafts.

Then press Bring it across.

Its Pexels photographs are downloaded into your Media library as the template is applied, which can take a minute. If one cannot be downloaded, that spot is left empty for you to fill.

Any testimonials in a template are samples. Replace them with words from real clients before the site goes live.