◰Websites

Via “New website”. First comes an entry page with two routes — it decides how much you have to decide yourself:

• Describe with AI — you write in your own words what kind of website should be created, and get a finished draft. The quickest route, and the right one for most cases.
• Design it yourself (advanced) — the familiar wizard with seven steps: type and industry, content, review, scope, design, company details, done.

On both routes you can go back at any time — nothing is created before you confirm at the end.

What results is the same in both cases: a website in the website workspace that can be edited further and later handed over to Aurora Hive Sites.

• Single-page: everything on one page; visitors scroll instead of searching. Ten ready-made designs per industry, done in a few minutes. Right if you do not have anything yet or it needs to be quick.
• Multi-page: separate subpages with navigation — services, team, careers, prices. Every topic gets room. Right if you have a lot to say or need separate pages.

For most trade and service businesses the single-page version is the better one: a good single-page website beats a half-finished multi-page one.

Three routes:

1. Start empty.
2. Have an existing website read in.
3. Describe in your own words what the business does — what you do, since when, for whom, and what sets you apart.

With the first two, step 3 shows the revision next to the original — nothing is taken over without asking. You decide for each passage: “Apply revision” or “Keep original”; you can also do everything at once.

If you choose the third route, write generously: address, phone, opening hours and special features belong in it — the sections are created from that.

Instead of eighteen tiles side by side, you first choose the look and feel. After that, three or four drafts remain — each with your own texts and colours, not with dummy text.

“View large” shows a draft full screen. Use it: on a tile the size of a matchbox, all drafts look the same.

Without your own photos, the page shows calm areas of colour. That deliberately looks intentional and not like a missing image.

You swap images later directly on the page — that is the usual way: go online first, then have photos taken, then swap them. Waiting for good photos before the site goes online costs more than bad photos would ever have cost.

The wizard asks for them in the “Company details” step and generates both. It states explicitly: required for every commercial website. Please replace all placeholders.

The second sentence is the important one. A legal notice (Impressum) with placeholders left in it is worse than none: it looks as if the obligation has been fulfilled, and it can lead to a formal warning (Abmahnung).

On the finished site, the legal notice and privacy notice have their own addresses and are deliberately not in the main menu — they belong in the footer.

In the Website workspace: pages, sections, design, media, enquiries, and publishing.

Every page has its own address. The legal texts are generated from your company details.

Once the website has been handed over to Aurora Hive Sites, the workspace is there — no longer here.

Enlarge

By publishing it in the workspace. After that the site is publicly accessible at its address.

“Take offline” is the way back. Use it if a site has been published by mistake — but expect that search engines may have seen it in the meantime.

For your own domain, the same applies as everywhere: first the DNS entry, then the activation.

Enlarge

In the workspace under Enquiries.

If you want to process them further in Aurora Hive Sales, the most convenient way is to set up the form so that the response also goes as an email to a mailbox that Aurora Hive Sales syncs — then it appears in the inbox and can be created as a contact from there.

Generating it takes about a minute — the program says so too: The website is being built… (this can take a minute).

The effort lies elsewhere: in the content. Anyone who writes the description of the business carefully has a usable site in half an hour. Anyone who throws in three sentences gets three sentences back, only longer.

There, the revision is shown next to the original — section by section. You decide for each passage: “Apply revision” or “Keep original”; you can also do everything at once.

Nothing is taken over without asking. This is the step that decides whether the site sounds like your business or like a machine — take the ten minutes.

Enlarge

Answer four questions in your own words: what do you do, since when, for whom? What sets you apart?

And then add generously: address, phone and opening hours explicitly belong in it — sections and contact details are created from them.

Also useful are four brief reasons why someone calls you. These four sentences carry half the home page.

It determines which sections are suggested and which designs are available to choose from — different ones for a trade business than for a law firm.

Choose the industry that comes closest to the business, even if it does not fit exactly. The sections can be changed afterwards; the preselection only saves you the start.

Both are separate fields in the wizard — opening hours per day and a note for the emergency service.

The emergency service note belongs in a place that can be seen on a mobile phone without scrolling: anyone looking for it has a problem and no patience. Check this in the preview on a mobile phone.

As soon as its content is settled and it is to be maintained long term. After that: Aurora Hive Sites leads; there is only one store. Aurora Hive Sales no longer keeps its own copy, but shows the pages live from Aurora Hive Sites and saves your changes directly there.

The handover itself deletes nothing. Into an empty website, everything goes across; if the website already has content, you choose for each page what should go across, and see beforehand what will change.

If your customer then changes something — in Aurora Hive Sites or with Aurora Hive Live — Aurora Hive Sites reports it by itself; in addition, Aurora Hive Sales checks every five minutes in case a notification does not arrive. Every change creates a version that you can compare and restore. If you and your customer have changed the same page at the same time, Aurora Hive Sales shows both versions side by side instead of overwriting one of them.

So do not hand over too early — but not too late either: any fine-tuning you do in Aurora Hive Sales would be better placed in Aurora Hive Sites anyway.

You describe the website you want in your own words — the way you would explain it to someone on the phone. From that, a complete draft is created with structure, texts and colours, which you then continue to edit.

What belongs in the description:

• Which business it is about, what it does, since when and for whom.
• What sets it apart — two or three sentences are enough.
• Town, address, phone, opening hours.
• What should be on the site, if you already have an idea: services, team, references, contact form.
• How it should come across — calm and factual, bold and hands-on, light and friendly.

The more you write into it, the less you have to change afterwards. Three sentences give you three sentences back, only longer.

The draft is a suggestion, not a result: texts, sections, order and design can be changed completely afterwards. If you prefer to make every decision yourself, take the “Design it yourself (advanced)” route.

This route uses AI usage; before generating, it shows what to expect.

On three, and the choice decides how much is possible later:

• Builder — the site consists of ready-made sections that can be arranged, filled and coloured. The normal case: quick, safe, and nobody can break anything.
• Aurora Hive Sites — the site is created there straight away and kept from the start in the store where it is meant to end up anyway. Right if it is clear from the outset that you will look after the website long term.
• Plain HTML — the site is a file you write yourself. The route for special cases: a landing page with a special structure, an adopted design, something that does not fit into any builder.

The honest order of recommendation is exactly this. Plain HTML gives you every freedom and takes away every aid — no drag and drop, no section library, and your customer can no longer change anything themselves afterwards, except via Aurora Hive Live.

If in doubt: builder. You can still switch later — though not from an HTML page back into the builder without rebuilding.

A second view of the same page: instead of the sections, you see the source code and can edit it directly.

What it is meant for:

• Fine tuning for which there is no switch — a spacing, a font size, a small detail in the structure.
• Inserting third-party code, for example a map or a booking calendar.
• Looking up what a section actually outputs.

What it is not meant for: everyday work. What you change in code mode cannot always be carried forward cleanly by the builder afterwards — and your customer can no longer maintain it themselves.

Three rules that save trouble:

1. Look before, look after. The preview shows immediately whether something has shifted.
2. Third-party code only from sources you trust. What you insert here runs in your visitors’ browsers — including scripts that send data to third parties. That is a data protection matter and belongs in the privacy notice.
3. Small steps. One change, look, carry on.

Anyone who needs code mode regularly is better served by the plain HTML basis than by a builder they keep overwriting.

With the mouse: grab a section and drag and drop it where you want it. The preview moves along, so you see while dragging how the page will look afterwards.

Two things that pay off:

• The most important things at the top. What someone sees on a mobile phone without scrolling decides whether they stay. As a rule that is: what you do, where you are, and how to reach you.
• Check on a mobile phone. Sections arranged side by side move one below the other there, and an order that looked good on the screen can become illogical.

Remove sections you do not need entirely, instead of leaving them empty. An empty section looks like an oversight on the finished site.