Getting started: Create your new website in 10 minutes
This guide will walk you through creating a Phaistos account and getting your new website live within a few simple steps.
1. Create an account
Before you can start creating your new website, or improving your current one, you need to create a new Phaistos account. Just go to app.phaistos.io, enter your e-mail address, choose a password, and click Create My Account.
After signing up, you can use your account to manage multiple projects, and to contribute to projects of your colleagues and friends.
2. Create a project and get your free trial started
After creating an account, you can now create your first project representing your first Phaistos website. To create a project, just click the Create new project button on your dashboard, enter a project name, description and choose the type of the website you are building.
The project name will become the title of your website, the description will be used as a meta description of your homepage, and the type of your website will help us understand what you're building and provide you with a tailored experience.
And don't worry if you're just playing around, all entered information can be changed later under Site > General.
Every project you create will start with a 30 day free trial plan which is equivalent to our Business plan. And even after your trial plan expires, you can keep using a limited version of our CMS, building your website completely for free.
3. Select and customize your template
After creating a project, you can pick between our default template (demo) and creating a custom one with our easy to use template builder. If you change your mind after selecting the starting template, you can always come back and adjust your template to fit your needs.
If you want to create a fully customized template tailored specifically for your website, just head to our templating docs and create the template that fits your needs. Don't have a developer at hand? You can always reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to help you create the template you need.
4. Add some categories and set up your menu
Before you get started filling your new website with content, take a moment and create a few categories and set up your menu structure. This will help you get a better idea of how your final website will look like.
Let's say you're creating a cooking blog, then you might want to create the Soups, Pasta and Salad categories and add all of them to your Recipes menu group.
5. Add content to your project
Once you're happy with your template and menu structure, it's time to start creating some content. Are you starting a new website? Just go on, and create your first post or page. Are you moving your current website to Phaistos? No worries, we've got you covered, you can import your posts and pages by uploading your Wordpress Feed or crawling your current website (just reach out to us if you need any help importing your content).
If you're not sure whether your content should be a post or page, here is a rule of thumb that can help you decide when in doubt:
Posts belong to a category and can be listed on your homepage or on category overview pages, for example recipes, blog entries, or docs.
Pages are usually standalone pieces of content, for example your Terms of Service, landing pages, or contact information.
Once you're done crafting your first post, just hit the publish button, tweak the url, short description, or featured image, and get ready to share your content with the world.
6. Connect your project to a domain and publish it
After you've added some content to your website, you should be ready to share your new site with the world:
Go to Site > Publishing.
Choose the desired publisher type — if you want to host your website on our servers, just stick with the Phaistos hosting option. If you want to use your own webhosting, you can also configure an (S)FTP publisher or download your site as a zip file.
Enter the domain you want to use (or reach out to us if you want to use a phaistos.io subdomain).
If you've decided to stick with the Phaistos hosting option, you also need to configure your DNS records to point to our servers.
Save the settings and wait until the site has been published.
7. See your website grow
If you've reached this step, then accept our congratulations to publishing your first Phaistos website! Usually, the real work just starts here — keep creating great content, invite your colleagues to give you a hand, and watch your website grow.
You will also unlock our powerful analytics that will give you an overview of what pages your site visitors are looking at, how frequently they go there and for how long, you'll be able to analyze bottlenecks in terms of performance and see where your visitors drop off.
This was a detailed guide how to set up your first Phaistos project. And remember, just reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions, or need help setting up your first Phaistos project.