How to Build a Basic Site with IndieMade

Not every IndieMade site sells things. A portfolio, a studio's home on the web, a page for a craft group: all of these are a handful of pages and a good header. This page walks you through that, start to finish. Everything here is included on every plan.

Selling too? Follow Fast Start instead; it covers products, payments and shipping as well.

1. Name and logo

In your Dashboard, click IndieMade Settings at the top right and choose Basic Site Info. Type your Site Name, upload a logo if you have one (no logo is fine; your name shows instead), and save. See Basic Site Info.

2. Turn off selling, if you are not selling

Go to IndieMade Settings → Advanced, tick Disable Commerce and click Save Configuration. The store, cart and checkout go away; tick it off again any time. See Advanced Settings.

3. Make a homepage

  1. Go to Dashboard → Pages and click Add Page.
  2. Give it a Page Title such as Welcome, and a few lines about you. Or tick Build this page with Section Manager to build it from big pictures, columns and buttons instead; see Building Pages with the Section Builder.
  3. Click Save Page.
  4. Back on Basic Site Info, choose that page under Homepage and save.

4. Add an About page, and put it in your menu

  1. On Pages, click Add Page again. Title it the way a visitor would search, such as About Jane Smith, Weaver.
  2. Write it like a letter to a new visitor: who you are, what you make, where.
  3. Tick Provide a menu link, type a short Menu link title such as About, and leave Parent link on <IndieMade Site Menu> so it goes in your header.
  4. Click Save Page.
The bottom of the Add Page form: Build this page with Section Manager, the open Search engine optimization section with the URL field, Provide a menu link with Menu link title and Parent link, and Published, each circled
The options under the page editor. Tick Provide a menu link to put the page in your header.

Leave Search engine optimization (SEO) alone; IndieMade fills it in for you. The details of every option are on Adding a Page.

5. Look at your site

Click See My Shop at the top of the Dashboard. While you are signed in you see a toolbar along the bottom of every page; visitors never see it. From it you can edit the page you are on, switch on the Editor to change things right on the page, or go back to the Dashboard. See Editing Your Site Right on the Page.

6. Make the header yours

With the Editor on, point at your header and click Edit Header. The Color tab sets the header background, menu link color and site name color; the Style tab switches between header layouts. Changes show as you make them. See Header Design, and for fonts and colors across the whole site, Theme Fonts and Colors.

A shop page with the Editor on: the Edit Header button over the header is circled, and the header panel is open with the Brand, Color, Size, Style and Settings tabs circled
Edit Header opens on your own page, so you see each change on the real header.

7. Keep going

Stuck anywhere? Email support@indiemade.com.