Build a Site of Your Own in Guided Mode

Why a new Cardel site opens with a question instead of a dashboard.

The hardest part of writing a book is not the writing. It is the blank page. Nobody is there to question you if you stop. It is just you and an empty canvas.

This concept was reinforced for me earlier this year when I sat down to build a website to create a community around a new book that I was writing. I found that there are many web page and community builders out there, but they didn't feel much better than the first blank page of a book.

That is why we built Cardel, and that is why it has an intuitive guided mode built into it as the first thing you see when you add a new workspace to create your site. It's meant to be clean and simple instead of complex and difficult. Our goal has been to create a platform where artists, creators, and professionals can quickly create and manage their online presence and community in one place.

Instead of dumping your time into managing your online tools, you can focus it on your profession or craft. Guided mode is a key tool we have to help you get started.

Why?

The problem is not that the tools are missing. On most platforms the tools are all there, sitting in a menu, or submenu item, waiting for you to learn the software. That is a fine arrangement for the second or third site you build on their platform, but not for the first.

So when we built Cardel, we decided a new site should not open to a dashboard. It should open to a question.

What is this site called, and what URL should people type to find it? Answer that, and the next question arrives. Keep going and you come out the other side with a finished site, ready to publish. We call it Guided Mode, and it is where every new workspace starts.

Guided Mode - Step 1 - Name and URL:

One question, and the page it changes

What matters most is how guided mode is experienced on the page. It is not a separate onboarding flow that hands you off to the real product once it is done with you. It runs on your live site.

When it asks about your Home hero, your Home page is on screen next to the question. When it asks about your About page, you are looking at your About page. When it asks you to pick a theme, the colors change as you choose. You are never editing an abstraction and hoping the change looks right. You are looking at the page you are changing, in the state a reader will see it.

Every question also says why it is being asked, in one line. The logo step: upload a square logo, and we turn it into your icons and other branding. The header step: choose which pages show, in what order, and left, center, or right aligned. No step assumes you already know what it is for.

Guided Mode - Step 2 - Theme and fonts:

It bends around your answers

Guided Mode moves through nine chapters. Your site. Brand and theme. What is this site. Built-in pages. Custom pages. Home. What shows where. Email. Plan and publish.

You may not walk through every possible option, and that is the point. The interview branches on what you tell it. If you are not selling anything, the payments question never appears. If you do not want a video page, you are never asked to name one.

If you do want built-in scheduling, a step appears to connect your calendar. The progress bar counts only the steps you will actually see, so it gets shorter as you complete steps, instead of creating confusion when you skip steps.

What it costs

There is a moment in the interview where most software would upsell you by encouraging a feature without implying it will require a higher plan. We decided to tell you upfront.

When Guided Mode asks whether you want to take orders, it tells you plainly that checkout and orders need Pro, and that on Starter you can still link out from a Shop page. The bookings question does the same. You find out where the line is while you are deciding, not after you have built something that turns out not to work on your anticipated plan.

Before you publish

The final steps give you clarity on how the platform works without guided mode.

• Browse your site. Walk your own pages the way a visitor would, before anyone else can.

• Review Admin pages. Open each section so you know where things live once you leave Guided Mode.

• Choose a plan. Publishing for others to use the site, pick a plan that is right for you.

• Review your terms and privacy policy. These are the documents your readers agree to. The support email and domain links inside them update to your domain automatically.

• Publish, then confirm your domain. Your own domain needs ownership and DNS. Email on that domain is recommended, not required.

Then it tells you it is finished, and every step becomes jumpable. Nothing stays locked behind having done it in the right order.

It does not go away

About a dozen of those questions carry over into Editor Mode, the panel you use to edit your site from then on. Walk onto your About page later and the same question is there, in the same dock, in the same shape. The thing that taught you the product is the same editor experience later on. And if you would rather make changes back in Guided Mode, you can. It stays available to you.

It also reads the site you already have. If you changed your theme or added a shop item before reaching that step, it marks the step done and moves on. It will not make you repeat work you have already finished.

The next steps

This post doesn't go through every guided mode step, on purpose, because it's so easy it doesn't need help guide to navigate it. That being said, there is full documentation withing your workspace, and an AI assistant to help you with any questions.

You still have to decide what your site is for, and how you want your site to look. What Guided Mode does is make sure the blank page isn't daunting, and you can reached your finished work very quickly (A matter of minutes or hours, not days).

You can build the whole site before you pay anything. Answer the questions, walk the pages, see your finished site, and subscribe when you are ready to publish it. Get started, or view pricing first.

See the full demo at cardel.io/demo (Explore the demo site)