Start With Your Homepage

The very first page someone is likely to land on when visiting your website is your homepage. And since first impressions are made in a split second, your homepage is also likely your most important page on your website and can make the difference between someone engaging with the rest of your website or moving onto another church’s website.

Thankfully, Nucleus provides you with all the tools you need to create an amazing homepage (and website!) that has everything you need to make a great first impression and that’s useful to pointing people in the right direction.

To get started, go to your Pages Panel in Nucleus Web. Click here for a quick link.

In this guide, we'll cover the following topics. Click on any one to jump ahead.

Premade Homepage Template

With every Nucleus Web, we provide you with a homepage template already set up on your account to give you a head start. That way you can more easily envision what your own homepage could look like!

But don’t worry, you can fully edit every aspect of what we’ve given you. You could even delete everything and start from scratch. We won’t be mad. (Or will we… 😜)

To see what the homepage template looks like, click View Site and then Preview URL.

This will open a new tab and take you to your website as it currently exists. Feel free to scroll through the entire homepage so you can get some inspiration for the edits you’re about to make.

To go back to the Nucleus Dashboard, simply go back to the original tab you were on.

Explore The Page Editor

Now that you’ve seen what the homepage template looks like, it’s time to explore how to build and manage your homepage.

To begin, click the Edit Homepage button. This will take you to the Page Editor.


Note: Even though we’re focusing on the homepage, the Page Editor is exactly the same as when building any other pages on your website.

The Page Editor consists of the main menu at the top.

  • The Create section provides you with all the options and features you need to fully create your page.

Note: You’ll notice there are a number of sections already established on your homepage. We’ll take a look at how to manage and edit them below.

  • The Share section is where you can access the various ways to share your page, namely via a direct URL or in The Launcher.

  • The Settings section lets you adjust the page’s slug/permalink as well as manage admin access to that specific page.

Clicking on each item in the top menu will present you with unique options in the left sidebar, some of which we’ll explore below.

In the top menu, you’ll also notice a few other options.

  • When you click Exit, you can choose to Save & Close or Discard Changes. Exiting brings you back to the overall Pages Panel.

  • Clicking on Preview opens a new tab and lands you on the page you’re currently working on. (In this context, it would be the homepage, but whatever page you’re working on, you’d be taken directly to a preview of that page.)
  • When you’re ready to make your edits live on your website, click the Publish button. From there, you can publish your edits immediately or schedule for your edits to be set live at a later date/time.

Lastly, the dropdown in Page Menu offers a couple more important features.

  • Choosing Edit Page Name + Info, you can add in some helpful basic information for search engines to use for indexing your page, as well as for if you share this page in other areas of your website, this information could be shown there (such as in a Cards Section on a page).

  • Choosing Add to List allows you to add the page you’re currently working on to a list/group of other pages. (You’ll need to create a custom list first before you can see any options here.)

To learn more about creating lists and grouping pages, click here.

Manage Your Sections

Now that you’re a bit more oriented with the Page Editor, let’s explore what makes up a page: sections.

To start, go back to the Create tab. You should immediately land on Build in the left sidebar.

All pages on Nucleus Web are constructed with sections. There are various types of sections you create, and each section can contain unique pieces of information and content.

(We’ll explore editing a section below.)

As mentioned above, you’ll notice a number of sections already established for your homepage.

You can reorder the sections by clicking on the two lines on a section and dragging it up/down the list.

By clicking the down arrow on a section, you can choose to Duplicate a section, Rename a section, or Delete a section.

Add & Edit Your Sections

Feel free to delete all the premade sections and start from scratch or edit each section to give yourself a good starting point.

To add a new section, click + Add New Section.

You can then choose which section type you want:

  • The Information Section allows you to display informational content. (This will likely be your most used content section on all your pages you create.)
  • The Cards Section allows you to present a grid of blocks linking out to other areas on the internet (either on your website, in The Launcher, or elsewhere).
  • The List Section allows you to present content in lists, including collapsible accordion formatting.
  • The HTML Section allows you to embed content that’s hosted elsewhere (such as video or audio content).
  • The Calendar Section allows you to present a calendar with information pulled from another calendar host, such as Google or Apple (or any other calendar that uses the iCal format).
  • The Leader & Staff Section allows you to dynamically add a list of already created Leaders & Staff right to your page.
  • The Sermon Section allows you to add Sermon, or a list of Sermons right to your page, pulling from your SermonHub.

Then, you can choose the layout (which can be changed later) and title it (for admin organizational purposes).

If you already have a plan for your entire homepage, you can Save + Add Another to add multiple sections and then edit them later, or Save & Start Editing immediately.

Each section will have its own unique features and options to add content (like the Calendar Section vs. the Information Section).

At the top, you can change and adjust various options for just this section:

  • Changing the Layout will present your content in different ways (e.g. multiple columns vs. just one).
  • Changing the Colors will give you 4 options to choose from, each pulled from your Design color palette (accessed here).
  • Adjusting the Text & Buttons will change the alignment, positioning, and behavior of each.
  • Changing the Background allows you to control what’s presented in the background of your entire section.
  • Adding Custom Code is an advanced option that allows you to add custom CSS to only this section.

Below these options, you can begin adding your content to the section. In the Information Section, you can add various forms of text, with a rich text editor in the body.

Depending on the layout selected, you may also be able to upload an image to showcase in your section. Simply drag & drop the image or click the + Add Image button to search your device.

Once an image is uploaded, you can set a focal point so no matter what size of screen your website is being presented on, that specific spot on the image will be in the center of the image container in your section.

To do this, click Edit Image and then Set Focal Point.

Then, move the white circle to where you want the focal point to be. Then click Save Focal Point.

Below this, you’ll see a section called Actions. Each section you create will allow you to add buttons which act as an action (or next step 😉) that people can take based on what they just read/saw in this section.

To add an action, click + Add An Action.

Then, choose the destination of the button (i.e. the Type), create a name for the button (i.e. the Call-To-Action text), and the style for the button. Then, click Add New Action.

Note: There are 4 button styles that can be used throughout your website. To adjust each style, click here to access those settings in your Design Panel.

Just like reordering multiple sections on a page (showcased previously), you can reorder multiple Actions by clicking on the two lines of an Action and dragging it up/down to your desired position.

To go back to editing/managing the rest of your sections, simply click Back to all or use the Previous/Next buttons to move up/down the list of sections created. (An alternative is to click on Build in the left sidebar.)

Continue with this process with all your sections until you have all the content you want presented on your homepage.

Preview & Publish Your Changes

Anytime throughout the editing process, if you want to see how the changes you’re making will look like to someone actually visiting your website, simply click the Preview button. (Remember, changes are auto-saved, so as long as it’s been a few seconds since your last edit, all of your changes will showcase in the preview.)

Once you’re ready to set your changes live, click the Publish button.

Here, you can choose to make your changes live immediately (Yes! Publish Now). Or you can select Choose Date & Time to decide when you want your changes to be set live on your website and then click Save & Schedule.

You can also click to Add An Unpublish Date & Time for your changes to be unpublished. This is helpful especially for when posting information about an upcoming event and you want to ensure that information isn’t displayed for longer than intended.

Once you’re done editing your homepage, click the Exit button and then select Save & Close. This will take you back to the Pages Panel here.

Note: Nucleus Web operates with an auto-save feature, so you can make edits to all of your sections on your page before choosing to Exit and Saving or Discarding your changes.

What Next?

Now that you’ve gotten a good feel for editing your homepage, you’re already set up for success in building all the rest of your pages - because the process is exactly the same 😎

  1. Create a page
  2. Add sections
  3. Adjust the page and section design settings
  4. Check any other page settings
  5. Publish
  6. Repeat

But before we get too carried away, it’s important to understand Nucleus Web privacy options. You can toggle on privacy settings for any page you create, which can limit certain people from accessing that page. But to know how this works, it’s super crucial to understand what powers these privacy settings: Connection Types.

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