# Get started with your site

This article covers your first steps on Lovely Render, from your account to going online. You will be able to open your Staging, follow the setup steps, invite your team and publish your site.

## Before you start

- The Lovely Render team creates your site for you. You have no server, database or certificate to choose.
- Your site is already on HTTPS, backed up every night and protected from spam. Its emails are signed so they do not land in junk.
- Nothing is public until you publish your site.

## Understand your two addresses

Your site has two addresses. You build on the first and your visitors read the second.

| Address | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| Staging, at …lovelyrender.app | Your working site, visible to you and the members you invite. You create your pages, your forms and your design there. |
| Production, on your domain name | Your public site, visible to everyone. It receives a copy of your Staging at each publication. Nothing is edited there directly. |

A change in progress on Staging therefore never touches your live site. Your visitors see the state of your last publication.

## Take your first steps

1. Create your account and confirm your email address with the six-digit code you received. On your **Dashboard**, the invitation the Lovely Render team sent you waits under **Pending invitations**. Click **Accept**. The card of your site appears.
2. On your **Account** page, turn on two-step verification. [Log in and protect your account](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/log-in-protect-account/) details these two steps.
3. Open your Staging and follow the setup steps.
4. Invite the people who work with you and choose who can publish.
5. When your site is ready, connect your domain name then publish to Production.

The following sections detail the last three steps.

## Open your Staging

1. Log in to Lovely Render. The **Dashboard** opens with one card per site.
2. At the top of your site’s card, click the Staging address. It is written small next to the Production address. Your working site opens.

A site that does not have a Production address yet is named after its Staging address.

On a new site, an orange banner says that your domain does not point to Lovely Render yet. It disappears once your domain is connected.

![A site’s card on the dashboard: its Production address and, next to it, its Staging address, the Administrator role, the figures for the last 30 days, the page views of the year, the disk, the web performance and the Members, DNS and History buttons.](https://static.lovelyrender.com/uploads/2026/10/246-hebergement-carte.png)

## Follow the setup steps

The **Setup checklist** box lists what is left to design and set on your site. The site can be published to Production only once the six templates of its steps are published. The box stays displayed when all the steps are done and shows only the line **All setup steps are complete.**

1. In the administration of your Staging, open the **Dashboard**. In the box, a finished step has a green check mark and its name grayed out. A step to do has an orange exclamation mark and its name is a link.
2. In the **The structure of the site** group, click a step, for example **Design the home page**. The template editor opens. A template that did not exist is created as a draft.
3. Choose a creation in the catalog. It first offers the creations made for this template.
4. Publish the template. The step is checked in the box.

![The Setup checklist box of a site being prepared. Under The structure of the site, the home page, the structure of pages and the consent banner are checked. The structure of entries, the 404 error page and the translation of the structure into English remain to be done. Under Settings, the logo is checked, the favicon, the organization sheet and Google Search Console remain to be done.](https://static.lovelyrender.com/uploads/2026/10/925-doc-etapes.png)

| Step | Part of the site |
| --- | --- |
| **Design the home page** | Your home page. |
| **Design the structure of pages** | The layout of all your pages. |
| **Design the structure of entries** | The layout of all your contents, whatever their type. |
| **Design the not-found page** | The page displayed when an address leads nowhere. |
| **Design the generic modal** | The layout of a content item opened in a modal. |
| **Design the side panel** | The layout of a content item opened in a side panel. |
| **Place the consent banner** | The cookie consent banner. The step opens your compositions. |

**Tip:** Start with the home page. A home page creation also places your header, your footer, your mobile menu and your consent banner. The following templates reuse this header.

A step is not checked on click. The template must be published and carry real blocks. Three conditions are added.

- The template for pages and the one for entries carry the **Post content** block. Without it, the page is displayed without its content.
- The modal template and the side panel template carry the **Overlay** block.
- The banner carries the **Cookie consent manager** block. Without it, the visitor’s answer is not recorded.

The **Settings** group has four steps: **Add a logo**, **Add a favicon**, **Fill in the organization sheet** and **Connect Google Search Console**. Each is checked when its result exists, for example an uploaded logo.

Each language other than the main one adds a **Translate the structure into** step, followed by the name of the language. It is checked when the six templates and the consent banner have their version in that language.

## Invite your team

1. In the Lovely Render **Dashboard**, click **Members** at the bottom of the site’s card. A panel opens on the side.
2. Under **Invite a member**, enter the person’s email address and choose their **Role**.
3. For an administrator to be able to put the site online, check **Can publish**.
4. Click **Send the invitation**. The invitation appears in the **Pending invitations**.

The invitation stays valid for seven days. The **Members** button is shown only to site administrators. [Invite a member and choose their role](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/invite-member/) describes each role.

![The Members panel of a site: the members and their role, a pending invitation, then the Invite a member form with its email address, its role and the Can publish checkbox.](https://static.lovelyrender.com/uploads/2026/10/241-equipe-membres.png)

## Put your site online

1. For your site to answer on your domain, connect it by following [Connect your domain name](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/connect-domain/).
2. In the administration bar of your Staging, open the **Publish** menu then click **Publish to production**.
3. Review the **Changes going to production** list. It sorts your changes by content type.
4. Check **I confirm that I want to publish this website**, then click **Publish to production**.

The Production is backed up before it is replaced. If the copy fails, your live site returns to its previous state.

**Warning:** Publishing replaces the whole Production with your Staging. You publish the entire site, not a single page.

Publishing the site requires the **Administrator** role and the **Can publish** option. [Publish your site](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/publish-site/) details publication.

![The Publish the site to Production screen: the Changes to publish to Production list sorted by family, the confirmation checkbox and the Publish to Production button.](https://static.lovelyrender.com/uploads/2026/10/178-produit-publier.png)

## See also

- [Read your dashboard](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/read-dashboard/)
- [Connect your domain name](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/connect-domain/)
- [The Lovely Render glossary](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/lovely-render-glossary/)