Every Avistra website has a small editing tool built into the site itself. There is nothing to install and no separate dashboard to learn. You open your own site, point at the part that should change, and say what it should say instead. Small changes are made on the spot. Anything larger comes to us, and we take it from there.
Open the tool
Go to your website and add ?edit to the end of the address, so yourbusiness.com/?edit. Enter the email address we have on file for you and we send a six-digit code to it. Type the code in.
Then comes one more step: your passkey. A passkey is your fingerprint, your face or your device PIN, the same thing that unlocks your phone or computer. The emailed code proves the address is yours; the passkey proves it is really you, so nobody who gets into your email can change your site or see the people on it. Choose Use your passkey, and your browser asks for your fingerprint, face or PIN.
The first time: set up a passkey
The first time you sign in, the tool asks you to set one up. Choose Set up a passkey and follow what your browser asks; it takes a few seconds. Then:
- Add another device? If you also make changes from a phone or a second computer, add it now, so losing one device never locks you out. Or choose Skip.
- Keep these backup codes. You are shown ten one-time codes, once. Each one signs you in if you do not have your passkey with you. Copy them somewhere safe, tick that you have kept them, and choose Done.
You can choose Not now instead. Until you add a passkey you can look at the site and send us a support request, but you cannot change anything or see anybody's details: Make an edit is hidden, and panels that show people ask you to set up a passkey first. Security, behind the dots at the end of the bar, is where you add a passkey later, add another device, make new backup codes, and see where you are signed in.
If your browser cannot make a passkey, set one up on another device and sign in here with a backup code. If you are stuck, send us a support request.
The bar
Once you are in, a small bar sits in the lower right of every page: Make an edit, Dashboard, Support request, and a dots button at the end.
- Dashboard takes you to a page of its own for everything your site keeps. Down the left side is a list, like the one in WordPress: Home, which shows what needs you and how things are going, then Blogs for writing pieces like this one, and anything else your site keeps. Choose one and it opens beside the list. Back to the site, at the bottom of the list, brings you back here.
- The dots hold Page settings, Request log, Security and Sign out. If you manage who else can use the tool, Admins and Webhooks are there too.
Two ways to make an edit
Choose Make an edit and two small buttons appear above it: Change text and Screenshot. Change text is for words that are already on the page. Screenshot is for everything else: a photo, a button, how something looks, anything you would rather point at in a picture.
Change text
Choose Change text and every piece of text on the page lights up as you move over it, headings, paragraphs, buttons, links and prices alike. Click one and a card opens with its words already in it. Change them and press Save. The new wording goes live at once, after a quick check that nothing unsuitable is going on the site. If the check has a doubt, the edit comes to us instead and the card tells you why. Some words live in more than one place, like a post's title, which is on its own page, on the Insights page and in the browser tab. The tool says so and asks whether to change it everywhere or only on the page you are on.
Rewrite with AI is inside that card. Highlight some of the words in the box, the same way you would select text to copy it, and a small Rewrite with AI button appears over them. Press it and say how the words should read, like "make this sound more confident", "shorter" or "fix the spelling", or type the new words yourself. The new wording is put into the box in place of the old, so you can read it, change anything you like, or press Undo, before you Save. Nothing changes on the site until you Save.
Screenshot
Choose Screenshot, then tap the part of the page that should change, or drag a box around it. The page dims and the part inside your box stays bright. A picture of the page then opens with your box on it. If the change involves more than one spot, draw on the picture to mark the rest. There is a pen and a shape menu with a box, a circle and an arrow, in four colors, and Undo takes marks off one at a time.
Then say what it should be, the way you would say it to us. "Change $79/mo to say $79 per month." "Swap this photo for the attached one." "Make this button dark blue." "Put these words in bold." "Hide this line." Attach a photo or a file if the change needs one. Then choose Send edit.
Screenshot can change how something looks as well as what it says: a color, a size, bold or italic, the alignment, or hiding something altogether. It keeps to your site's own colors and type, so a change always looks like the rest of the site.
Check the preview
The tool always tries to show you the change before anything happens. New wording appears with the old words crossed out and the new ones in their place, and a new look or a picture is shown on the page itself, in the real spot, so you can see how it sits. The tool asks whether that is what you meant.
- Yes puts it live at once, and the page updates in front of you.
- Not quite lets you say what to change about it. The tool keeps everything you have said so far and builds on its last try, and something you turned down is never offered to you again.
- No, send it to us sends it to us instead.
If three tries still have not got it right, the tool says it might need help from a real person and offers to send a support request, with what you asked and every try already written in. Choose Not now to keep going where you were.
Everything else comes to us
A new page, a whole new section, or a change the tool is not sure about: those arrive with us as a request, with your picture and your words attached. We make the change and let you know by email. Everything you have asked for, and where it stands, is listed under Request log, behind the dots at the end of the bar. A change you made yourself can be put back from there too. If a later change has altered what an earlier one was made to, the earlier one reads No longer applies. The same menu holds Page settings, which is where a page's title and description in search results are set: How a page shows up in search walks through it.
If you get stuck
Support request, in the same bar, sends us anything else: a question, a new page, a bigger change. It works before you have set up a passkey, too. How to submit a support request on an Avistra website explains when to use which. Or reply to any email from us. Edits are part of the plan, so ask for what you need.