topic Re: Best practices for website facelift in Blog, Website & Page Publishing

Best practices for website facelift

swordfish — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 19:55:50 GMT

Hi all,

I'm new to Hubspot. I need to apply new page designs to a Website developed using Hubspot. The page content will majorily stay the same. What is best practice, clone each of the pages and the make the changes to the cloned versions? If I clone the page, does it also clone the templates and modules so I don't break the existing pages or do I need to clone the templates/modules as well?

Any recommendations would be highly appreciated.

Re: Best practices for website facelift

TitiCuisset — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 11:41:46 GMT

Hi @swordfish

Thank you for reaching out

I want to tag some of our experts on this - @Kevin-C @Alejandro_ @MatthewShepherd any thoughts to share with @swordfish on this?

Thank you!

Best

Tiphaine

Re: Best practices for website facelift

MatthewShepherd — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 12:01:22 GMT

Hi @swordfish
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Edit: The original comment below works if you are using HubSpot professional or above, sorry I thought I saw the 'professional' tag on your post. If you don't have access to the feature below then I'd suggest cloning your templates and applying the cloned template to your page, and making your changes, but just be sure to not hit publish until you are ready to update your live page. Be aware that if you remove a content module on your template and apply it to your page, the content in that module will no longer be visible in the editor, so make sure to keep a copy of your content. You could clone the pages and make your changes to the cloned page, but then you are going to have some work to do in changing the URL of the live page so the cloned page can use it, and that can lead to a few seconds of downtime while you switch.
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The best approach would be to use HubSpot CMS's Content Staging tool. That way you can stage your pages (clone your existing pages to a sandbox environment) and make your changes without affecting your live pages. If you are making template changes you just clone your existing templates and apply the cloned templates to your staged pages. When you are ready, you the publish your staged pages which replace the live pages on your site.

This support article will guide you through the process in more detail: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/cms-general/redesign-and-relaunch-your-site-with-content-staging

Re: Best practices for website facelift

swordfish — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:53:59 GMT

Hi Matthew, thanks for the response. Not got professional so will follow your comments in your edit.

If I clone a template, does it create a seperate copy of the modules so I can edit them without changing the existing ones or would I need to then clone the modules as well?

Alternatively, I noticed in File Explorer that there are customer versions of the site theme. Could I clone the latests theme, make the necessary changes in the cloned theme and then create a new page pointing to a cloned them template to work in isolation?

Re: Best practices for website facelift

MatthewShepherd — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:50:01 GMT

Hi @swordfish

Cloning a template doesn't clone the modules within the template, so if you are editing modules, best to clone them too and then use the cloned modules in your cloned template.

If you a clone a theme that isn't being used by any other pages and you edit modules (still best to clone them) within that template that aren't being used by any other pages/templates, that shouldn't cause any issues with your live pages. In the Design Manager, when you open a template or module for editing, you can check which pages or templates are dependent on the template or module by Selecting the Actions menu in the left column and then 'Show dependents'.

Once you have created your new template you can apply it to your existing page, and not publish page changes until you are happy, or a new page, but then you will have to work through the process of changing live page URLs so your new pages can use them or redirecting from old URLs to new URLs.