Creating your site
Find the Website area, understand the pages and collections that make up your public site, and create your site with a single click.
Your organisation can publish a public website straight from WAQAF — an "about us" presence, the programmes and projects you run, your governance and library, news, and the donation pages your supporters give through. This guide shows you where the Website area lives in your dashboard, what the site is made of, and how to create it in the first place. You'd do this once, near the start of setting up your organisation; after that you spend your time editing the pages rather than creating the site again.
Who can do this. Creating the site needs a site role that grants create — typically the Site Manager (the Site Editor role, and an organisation owner or admin, can do it too). Just viewing the Website area needs only read, so a colleague may be able to see it without being able to create or publish. If you don't see the Website area at all, your role doesn't include it; see Members & roles.
Where to find it. Open Website from the main dashboard navigation. This is the home of everything to do with your public site.
What your site is made of
When you open the Website area you'll see the site laid out in three parts. It helps to know them before you create anything.
- Pages — the fixed landing pages that make up your site. There are nine of them, each editable on its own: Home, About, Programs, Projects, Sponsorship, News, Governance, Library, and Contact. Each page has its own Edit link and can be shown or hidden on your live site independently, so you can launch with just the pages you're ready for.
- Collections — the lists of items that feed several of those pages. From the Collections card you manage your programs, your projects, and your library documents. A collection holds the individual entries (one project, one programme, one document); the matching page is what visitors browse them on.
- Theme & SEO — how the site looks (colours, logo, fonts) and how it appears in search results and link previews. You reach both from the overview through the Edit theme and Edit SEO links.
You don't have to fill everything in at once. The pages and collections are all optional and individually publishable, so it's normal to create the site, work on a couple of pages, and add the rest over time.
Creating your site
Until you create it, the Website area shows a short "No website yet" card inviting you to begin. Creating the site is a single step — there's nothing to fill in.
Open the Website area
Go to Website from your dashboard. If your organisation has no site yet, you'll see the No website yet card explaining that a site lets you publish a public page for your organisation.
Press Create website
Click Create website. There are no settings to choose — WAQAF creates the site for you and sets its web address from your organisation, then drops you onto the full overview with the Pages and Collections laid out.
The site's address is taken from your organisation automatically, so you don't type it here. You can connect your own custom domain later — see Custom domains.
Start with the Home page
Your new site begins as a Draft, with an empty Home page ready to edit. Use the Edit link on the Home card to add your content. Nothing is visible to the public until you publish — see Publishing & preview.
One site per organisation
Each organisation has exactly one website. Once it exists, the Create website button is gone and the overview shows the site instead — there's no second site to create and nothing to create twice. If a colleague has already created it, you'll simply land on the overview rather than the empty-state card.
A "missing" Create website button usually isn't a fault. Either the site already exists (so you see the overview), or your role doesn't grant create (so you see the area read-only). WAQAF hides what your role can't reach — see Members & roles.
What happens after you create it
- The site is created as a Draft with an empty Home page. It is not live yet — visitors can't see anything until you publish.
- The full overview appears, with the Pages grid, the Collections card, and the Edit theme / Edit SEO links.
- Each page and each collection item is published independently, so you control exactly what appears on the live site and when.
See also
Your website
An overview of everything in the Website area and where to go for each part.
Editing your pages
Add content to the Home, About, and other landing pages of your site.
Theme & branding
Set the colours, logo, and fonts that give your site its look.
Publishing & preview
Preview your site privately, then publish it to the public.