Build your first site

1. Describe the site #

Open InstaWP Studio and press New site. The box asks What are we building? Write it the way you would tell a friend: who you are, what you offer, who it is for, and what the site should get visitors to do. A line is enough to start; a pasted brief of a few pages fits too (up to about 3,000 words).

Build a homepage for Cedar House, a boutique mountain retreat. Quiet luxury, forest green and cream, editorial typography, and atmospheric mountain photography. The goal is enquiries. Don't invent amenities or contact details.

Things that help:

• Give the facts you care about: name, place, services, prices, opening hours, phone, email. Facts you give are used exactly. A detail the site needs that you did not give is filled in with a plausible specific, for you to change later.
• Say the mood in a few words: calm, bold, playful, premium, minimal. Name colours or a site you like if you have one.
• Say the goal: enquiries, bookings, calls, sales, sign-ups.
• The microphone button lets you say it instead of typing.

2. Pick a look #

After your description, InstaWP Studio sketches three starting looks, pitched to what suits your business: one on brief, one a notch calmer, one a notch wilder. Nudge any of them with Calmer or Wilder. When ready-made templates fit your description, they are offered beside the looks: pick one and its words and photos are rewritten for your business. See Templates and looks.

Choose one and press Start designing. Nothing is built, and no credits are used, until you do.

3. The first homepage #

The assistant designs the homepage section by section. One status line under the chat says what is happening in plain words: Designing your homepage · 4 sections…, Adding photos…, Saving your homepage…, Checking the layout…. The preview shows the page as soon as it is saved.

• Keep the tab open. WordPress runs in this tab, so closing or reloading it stops the build. InstaWP Studio reminds you after a few seconds and asks before you leave.
• Stop ends a build you do not want to wait for. What was saved stays.
• The finished page is checked at phone, tablet and desktop widths before the reply says Done. If something could not be finished, the reply says so and lists what remains.

A new homepage usually takes a minute or two and about 10 credits.

4. Make it yours #

From here, everything is a conversation:

• Ask for changes in chat: "make the hero calmer", "add a pricing section with three plans", "use a warmer green". See Edit in chat.
• Press Click to edit, click any spot on the page and say what should change there. See Click to edit.
• Ask for more: "add an About page and a Contact page", "start a blog with three posts", "add an enquiry form", "add a small shop with these five products".

Where the site is #

Your draft lives in this browser and is saved as you go. It is there after a refresh, and the Sites screen lists every site in this browser with a picture of its homepage. When you are ready, share a link to show it to someone, or publish it.

On a phone #

InstaWP Studio works one-handed. The builder shows Chat or Preview at a time, switched from the bar at the bottom; a build started in chat keeps going behind the preview. Tap to edit is Click to edit by touch.