Website and Site Builder — common questions

Short answers about the Site Builder, the tool where you lay out your public website. Each answer links to the full article when there is one.

Where to find it

Click Website in the left sidebar. Hovering it opens a small menu: View my site, Website builder (beta), Blog, Domain configuration and Embed widget. The builder has three tabs on the left: Sections, Pages and Design.

Common questions

Where do I edit my website?

Click Website in the sidebar, then Website builder (beta) if the menu opens. Owners and managers can use it. The Staff role does not include website permissions, so a staff member cannot open the builder. See Building your website with the drag-and-drop editor.

Why does the builder say "Use a larger screen to edit your site"?

The drag-and-drop canvas needs a screen at least 1024 pixels wide. Open the page on a desktop or on a tablet held sideways (landscape).

What are the Sections, Pages and Design tabs?

Sections lists the blocks on the page you are editing and holds the Add Section list. Pages lists every page of your site (Home, Fleet, About and so on) with New Page. Design holds the colors, fonts and look that apply to the whole site. Renta calls the blocks "sections" in the builder and "widgets" in the help articles; they are the same thing.

How do I add something to my page, like a photo gallery or a Book Now button?

Open the Sections tab and press Add Section (or use the list on the left of a wide panel). Click a block to add it, or drag it where you want it. The list includes Navigation Bar, Hero Banner, Book Now Button, Date Picker, Fleet Grid, Text Block, Contact & Map, Contact Form, Reviews, FAQ, Image Gallery, Blog Posts, Portal, Sandbox, Spacer and Footer, plus Instagram Feed when Instagram has been switched on for Renta. See common questions about widgets.

How do I move, resize or put two sections side by side?

Drag a section by its handle to move it. Drag the handles on its edges to resize it; the page is a 12-column grid, so things snap into line. In the Page Sections list, dropping one section onto the left or right half of another puts them side by side in one row. With a section selected, the arrow keys nudge it one grid cell.

How do I duplicate or delete a section?

Select it and use the Duplicate or Delete buttons in its small toolbar, or press Cmd/Ctrl+D to duplicate and Delete (or Backspace) to remove it. The Page Sections list also has a Remove button on each row. Press Escape to deselect.

How do I undo a mistake?

Use the undo and redo arrows in the top bar, or Cmd/Ctrl+Z and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Z. They cover your sections and layout, not colors and fonts (for those, press Revert right after a palette change). If you have already published, use Version history (see below).

How do I change the words on my page?

Click the text right on the page, type, and use the small toolbar that appears for Font, Color, Size and alignment. Reset all style overrides for this element puts that text back to your site's defaults. The side panel only holds settings that are not text, such as links, layout and toggles.

What do "Saving...", "Saved" and "Save failed" mean?

The builder saves your work automatically as a draft while you edit. Saving... means it is writing now, Saved means the draft is stored, and Save failed means the last save did not go through, so check your connection and make the change again. A saved draft is not live yet.

Why isn't my change showing on my live website?

Your edits are only a draft until you publish. Press Publish recent changes in the top bar and confirm. The button is orange when this page has unpublished changes. Also check that the page itself is published: its card in the Pages tab must say Published, not Draft. The Publish button on that card only switches the page on or off; it does not push your edits live.

What does "Publish recent changes" do?

It makes this page's draft the live page, and marks the page as published if it was still a draft. See Pages, templates and publishing in the Site Builder. If you also changed colors or fonts on the Design tab, those go live on every page at the same time. Other pages with unpublished edits stay as drafts until you open each one and publish it.

Why does the Publish button say "Saved" and look grey?

There is nothing waiting to go live for the page you are on, so the button is switched off. Make a change and it turns back into Publish recent changes.

How do I preview my page before publishing?

Use the Preview button next to Edit in the top bar. It shows your current draft at the real width of the device you picked, so mobile and tablet styles apply. It is not necessarily what customers see right now, so publish to confirm. A page card in the Pages tab also has a Preview link for an unpublished page and View Live for a published one.

How do I see my live website as a customer?

Choose View my site in the Website menu, or click View Live on a page card. Until you connect your own domain, your address is your Renta address ending in `/shops/` followed by your shop's web name. See Connecting your own domain name.

How do I start from a template?

Click Change Template in the top bar (it sits under the "..." menu on a smaller screen) and pick one of Powersports, Watercraft, Bikes, Camping & Outdoors or General Equipment. Applying one builds a four-page site: Home, Fleet, About and Contact. The new layouts are saved as drafts, so nothing changes on your live site until you publish each page. The window warns you before it replaces pages you have already customized, and a checkbox lets you also replace your brand colors and fonts. The window also has an "Or use our recommended layout (the default)" button that fills the same four pages with Renta's standard layout straight away, with no confirmation step, replacing the drafts of those pages that already exist. See Pages, templates and publishing in the Site Builder. On a new site with an empty Home page the template window opens by itself.

How do I add a new page?

Open the Pages tab, press New Page, fill in Title and URL (the URL fills itself in from the title, and you can edit it), and press Create. The page starts as a Draft, so visitors cannot see it yet. Add sections to it, then publish.

Why does my new page show "not found" to customers?

New pages start unpublished. To put a new page live with the content you built, open it and press Publish recent changes in the top bar; that also marks the page as published. The Publish button on a page's card in the Pages tab only switches the page on or off, and does not push unpublished edits live, so a brand-new page switched on that way shows up empty. A visitor who opens an unpublished page gets a "not found" page, unless you set up a redirect from that address.

What can I use for a page's web address (URL)?

Lowercase letters, numbers and single hyphens, up to 64 characters, with no spaces and no hyphen at the start or end. Each address must be unique on your site. These are reserved and cannot be used: home, book, rental, pay, waiver, admin, api, checkout, 404, 500, sitemap and robots.

How do I rename a page or change its URL?

In the Pages tab press Settings on the page's card, edit Page name or Page URL, and press Save. This saves straight away. Some older pages, such as the Home page on an older site, are system pages: the URL is shown locked ("System pages cannot be renamed"). Renta does not add a redirect for you when you change a published page's URL, so add one under Redirecting old page links to new ones if people have the old link.

How do I make a page my home page?

Your home page is the page whose address is `home`; there is no "make this the home page" button, and `home` is reserved so you cannot give it to a second page. Edit the existing Home page instead, or apply a template, which rebuilds it.

How do I show or hide a page in my website menu?

Open the page's Settings and tick or untick Show in navbar, then Save. New pages start ticked, and the page must also be published to appear. System pages such as Home do not have this option.

How do I change the order of my pages?

In the Pages tab drag a page by its handle, or use the move up and move down arrows. The order is also the order used in your website menu and footer.

How do I unpublish, copy or delete a page?

Each page card has Unpublish (asks you to confirm, then removes the page from your live site immediately), Clone (makes a draft called "Page name (Copy)" with a new address such as `about-copy`) and Delete (press it, then Confirm?). System pages have no Delete button.

How do I set the title and description Google shows for a page?

Open the page's Settings and fill in Meta title (up to 70 characters) and Meta description (up to 160 characters). These save and go live immediately; they do not wait for Publish. Hints under each box suggest improvements, for example adding your business name, and tell you that an empty title falls back to "Page name — Business name". Canonical URL (optional) and Focus keywords (optional) are there for advanced SEO and can stay empty.

I published by mistake or want an older version back. What now?

Open History in the top bar (it is called Version History in the "..." menu on a smaller screen). Each time you publish, Renta saves the version it replaces there (even a page's first publish saves an empty entry); the list shows the 30 most recent with a date and section count. Press Restore, then Yes, restore. That puts the old version into your draft only, with the message "Restored into your draft", so press Publish recent changes to make it live.

What happens if I publish an empty page?

If the page has no sections but your live page does, Renta stops and asks "Publish an empty page?" because it would erase the live page for visitors. Choose Publish empty page only if you mean it.

How do I change my site's colors and fonts?

Open the Design tab. Pick a ready-made palette (Summit, Forest, Coast, Sunset, Mono, Berry, Dune, Industrial or Bold) to set colors, fonts and button style in one click, or set Primary, Accent, Page Background and Body Text yourself. Under it are Button Style, Border Width, Fonts (Heading Font and Body Font), Widget Style and Background. Applying a palette also clears any section's own style on the page you have open. Press Revert to undo the last palette change; it is forgotten when you reload. Design changes go live when you press Publish recent changes. See Setting your site-wide colors, fonts and spacing and Your logo, colors and fonts.

Why does the Design tab show "Low contrast (WCAG AA)"?

Two of your chosen colors, such as text on its background, are too close together to read comfortably (WCAG AA is the common web accessibility standard). Pick a darker text color or a lighter background.

What do Transparent, Card and Glass mean in Widget Style?

Transparent has no frame, so your page background shows through. Card is a solid panel with a shadow. Glass is a frosted, see-through panel. Corner radius rounds the corners of Card and Glass, and Space between widgets adds a gap you can switch on. If some sections ignore your choice, they have their own style set; Apply to all widgets clears that.

How do I add a background photo to my whole site?

In Design, scroll to Background and press Add an image. Choose Every page or Specific pages for each image. If text is hard to read over the photo, raise Widget backdrop. Frosted glass blurs the photo and Stay fixed while the page scrolls keeps it still.

How do I check or fix how my site looks on a phone or tablet?

Use the device buttons in the top bar: Wide (1920px), Desktop (1512px), Tablet (834px) and Mobile (402px). Anything you change while Tablet or Mobile is selected applies at that size only, and your desktop layout stays as it was. Tablet edits do not carry over to Mobile. A phone counts as anything under 640px wide, a tablet is 640px and up, and desktop is 1024px and up. See Making your site look right on phones and tablets.

What does "Float freely" do?

It is a toggle on a selected section, available on the Desktop view only. It detaches the section from the grid so you can place it freely above the page, with Bring to front and Send to back buttons. Other screen sizes show the setting but cannot change it, so switch to Desktop first.

Why do I see "This page uses the classic layout"?

That page was built with Renta's older section layout. Press Upgrade to Grid in the banner to convert its sections into grid widgets (or Dismiss to leave it). It is saved as a draft, and the live page does not change until you publish.

Is there a page for website stats or website optimization?

The Website Stats and Website Optimization pages exist but are still marked "in development", so there is nothing to use there yet. For visitor numbers and Google data use Insights.

Will Google find my website before I go live?

No. Until your account is live, your site tells search engines not to index it and your sitemap (the list of pages Google reads) is empty. This is on purpose, so a half-built site is not listed under an address that is about to change. After you go live, your published pages, blog posts and rental listings are added to the sitemap. See Going live.

Can I use my own domain name, like bookings.mycompany.com?

Yes. Connect it under Settings → Custom Domain. See common questions about domains, embedding and tracking code.