Site settings

Use Site settings in Back Office to manage the public website Selflane hosts for your business. You can update its public details, control page visibility, and change its appearance.

Set up your website

Before your business has a website, Settings → Domain shows Website Setup. Set up a site yourself in a few minutes, or ask Selflane to build one for you.

1. In the Back Office , open Settings → Domain.

2. Under How would you like to get online?, choose one option:

   Option	What you get	What to enter
   New website	A full website on a domain you own: home, menu, story, gallery, and online ordering.	Your domain, such as joespizza.com.
   Ordering link on my domain	Keep your current website and add online ordering at order.yourdomain.com.	Your website's domain. The screen shows the ordering link it will create, such as order.joespizza.com.
   Use a free Selflane address	Set up and preview a full website at yourname.selflane.com. Going live starts Website Hosting.	Your Selflane address, using lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. Leave it blank to get one based on your business name.

3. Click Set up my site.

The page then shows the Connect your domain card with the DNS records to add. A Selflane address needs no DNS changes and connects on its own, usually within a few minutes. See Connect a domain to add the records and take your site live.

What it costs

• New website and Use a free Selflane address are full websites. They need Website Hosting, which costs $50 per location per month ($60 CAD in Canada). Hosting starts only when the business owner clicks Go live. If you go live in the last 7 days of a month, the rest of that month is free.
• Ordering link on my domain has no monthly charge. It goes live by itself once its DNS record is found.

The Selflane address itself is free. Taking a full site live on it still starts Website Hosting.

Click Compare options and pricing in the setup screen to see the three website options . Once your full site is live on its Selflane address, Website Hosting includes one available .com or .net domain registered in your business’s name. See Register your included domain.

Register your included domain

Start here after the business owner takes a full website live on its Selflane address. The Your domain card appears in Back Office  once the site is live. Registration requires Website Hosting.

1. Under Your domain, enter an available .com or .net name and click Search.
2. The business owner clicks Register beside the available name and confirms. Review the name carefully: it can’t be changed after registration. Your name, email, phone number, and business address become the registration contact.
3. Wait for registration to finish, usually about 15 minutes.
4. Open the registrar’s email and click its confirmation link within 15 days. Without confirmation, the domain is suspended. Use Send the email again if you need another link.
5. After confirming the email, return to Your domain. The business owner clicks Switch my site to the new domain and confirms.
6. Wait while the domain connects, usually a minute or two. If you leave the page, return to finish the switch.

Your old Selflane address keeps working and forwards visitors to the new domain, including visitors using old links or QR codes. The domain renews at no extra charge while Website Hosting stays on.

If the name is taken, try another name or .net. Contact Support for a premium name or to move a site that already uses another custom domain. If the switch reports unfinished steps, contact Support.

Ask Selflane to build your site

Don’t have a domain and want one? Below the options, click Ask us to set it up. The card then shows Thank you — we'll be in touch soon. A Selflane rep follows up to quote and start your project.

Follow the setup tracker

When a Selflane rep starts a website project for you, the page shows Website Setup Progress with your domain name and five steps:

Completed steps show the date they finished. Selflane moves each step forward; you don’t need to do anything except pay the invoice.

• At Pending Payment, the business owner sees Pay Invoice, which opens the owner’s invoices. Managers see a note to ask the owner to pay it.
• For a domain you already own, the tracker explains during Building that Selflane emails the DNS records to add. Keep your current nameservers. See Connect a domain before changing DNS.
• At Published, click Refresh to view settings to open the site settings described below.

Choose a task

• Sites with several locations — keep each location’s ordering details separate.
• Connect a domain — point your whole domain or only an ordering address to your Selflane site.
• Requests — review contact, hiring, catering, and private-event inquiries submitted on your website.
• Business email — use addresses at your domain while keeping your website hosted by Selflane.
• Press — publish and maintain articles on your site’s news page.
• Social Posts — add and arrange social-media highlights for your website.

Update public site details

The card at the top of the page shows your site name and tagline, social icons, SEO description, phone, email, and website address.

• Go to opens the live site in a new tab.
• Publish refreshes every page of the live site with your latest changes.
• Edit opens the site details form.

In the edit form, you can update:

• Tagline — a short subtitle under your site name, up to 100 characters.
• SEO Description — the description search engines use to index your site. It is required and must be 10 to 360 characters.
• Phone and Email — the public contact details on your site.
• Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — your full profile URLs, such as https://instagram.com/yourrestaurant. Leave a field blank to hide that icon.

Site Name is shown for reference only. To change it, contact Selflane support.

When changes appear on the live site

Changes to site details, page content, theme, layout, announcements, and gallery reorders or deletions don’t update the live site at once. The site refreshes on its own: the home page within about 2 minutes, and most other pages within about 10 minutes. Menu, ordering, reservation, catering, rewards, gift card, and account pages show changes right away. Click Publish to show your changes right away.

Add announcements

Use an announcement for a time-sensitive message, such as special hours, a promotion, or a closure. It appears as a banner across the top of every page of your site between its start and end dates.

1. In the Announcement section, click Announcement.
2. Enter a Title of at least 10 characters. This is the banner text. You can use Markdown, such as **bold** or [link text](https://...).
3. Select the Start and End dates. The banner shows from the start of the first day to the end of the last day, in your business’s time zone. The end date can’t be earlier than the start date. Pick the same day for a one-day announcement.
4. Click Save.

The site shows one announcement at a time. If two announcements overlap, the one that started first shows until it ends. Like other changes, a banner can take a few minutes to appear or disappear. See When changes appear on the live site.

The list highlights the announcement that is showing now and shows past end dates in red. Click the pencil to edit an announcement, or the trash can to delete it. When any announcements have ended, Clear Expired permanently deletes all of them at once, without asking to confirm.

Manage the gallery

The Gallery section is being retired. It appears only on sites that added gallery photos before page content editing was available. To show photos on a newer site, use the page editor: for example, a hero carousel.

If your site still has a gallery, it shows on the home page:

• Click Picture to upload a photo. Crop it to a 4:3 shape before saving. A new photo goes live on its own and is added at the end. Drag it into the first three if you want it on the home page.
• Drag photos to change their order. The home page gallery shows the first three. With three or more photos, visitors can click Show More to see them all.
• Click the trash can on a photo to delete it permanently. When you delete the last photo, the section disappears.

Choose a theme and header layout

Site Theme and Site Layout sit below the gallery. Both apply to every page of your site and save as soon as you pick an option.

Choose a brand color

The Site Theme card shows your current theme and a Preview of an Order Now button, a View menu link, and a Popular tag in that color.

1. Click Change theme.
2. Choose one of the 12 presets: Blue, Orange, Magenta, Teal, Lavender, Rose, Mint, Slate, Sage, Cobalt, Terracotta, or Graphite. It saves right away.
3. To match your brand instead, use Custom brand color. Pick a color or type a six-digit hex code, such as 0ea5e9, and click Apply.

Choosing a preset clears a custom color.

Choose a header layout

Under Site Layout, click a layout:

• Classic — your logo on the left and the navigation links on the right.
• Centered logo — a large logo in the middle, with the navigation links on the left and the order and account buttons on the right. On wide screens, the first three links show and the rest go in a menu. Smaller screens use a menu button.

Edit your site’s pages

Below the theme and layout, a row of page buttons lists your site’s pages: Home Page, Catering Page, Story Page, Events Page, Hiring Page, Private Events Page, and Contact Page. A grayed-out button with a dot is a page that is turned off.

Turn pages on or off

Select a page, then use its toggle. Page enabled — shown on domain adds the page and its link to your site’s navigation. Page disabled — hidden on domain removes the link and the page. Events Page and Private Events Page are exceptions: turning them off removes only the link, and the page still opens at its address. While a page is off, you can’t edit it.

The Home page is always on, so it has no toggle.

A page you have never edited stays off your site, even when its toggle shows it as enabled. Save a change on any of its sections, or turn the toggle off and on again, to add it. This applies to the Home page too: until you save a change on it, your home page shows no content.

Edit sections in place

Each page is split into sections, shown as tabs. Each tab shows a preview of the section that looks like your site:

• Click any text to change it. Press Enter (or click away) to save a one-line field. Press Esc to cancel.
• Click + Add button to add a button, or click an existing button to change its Button text and link. Enter the full link, starting with https://. Click Save.
• Click an image or Add image to upload a photo. You crop each photo to the section’s shape before it uploads.
• Click a dashed tile, such as Featured item or FAQ item, to add an item. Drag items to reorder them. Click the trash can on an item to remove it right away.

Most sections save automatically. The top-right corner of the section shows Autosaves, Saving…, or Saved. Inquiry Settings and External Form are the exceptions: they have a Save button. If you switch section or page with unsaved changes there, Back Office asks before discarding them.

Each section except Inquiry Settings and External Form has a Visible on website toggle.

Changes reach your live site on the same schedule as your other site edits. See When changes appear on the live site.

Home page sections

You can’t reorder sections. On your site, Hot Dish appears after the first Story block and Order Entry after the second. The site also adds content you manage elsewhere, such as weekly specials, promotions, social posts, and your hours and locations. A section with no content, such as a FAQ with no questions, doesn’t appear.

On wide screens, your site alternates Story blocks: the first has its photo on the right, the next on the left, and so on. Empty blocks are skipped. The Image → Text / Text → Image button on each block changes only the preview.

Other pages

Submissions from the catering, hiring, private-event, and contact forms arrive in Requests.

Use a hero image, carousel, or video

Open the Home page’s Hero section and choose a Hero type:

• Single image — one background photo. Use Change to replace it or the trash can to remove it.
• Carousel — two or more photos that rotate every six seconds on your site. Use Add slide, Change slide, and the trash can to edit the slide shown in the preview. Use the arrows or dots to move between slides. A carousel with one slide shows a static image until you add another.
• Video — a muted video that loops behind your headline.

Photos are cropped to 16:9. Switching from a carousel to a single image keeps only the slide in view, so Back Office asks you to confirm.

To set up a video:

1. Under Desktop video (landscape), click Upload video. Use an MP4, WebM, or MOV file up to two minutes and 75 MB. A 16:9 clip at 1920×1080 works best.
2. Wait while it uploads and then processes. Processing can take a few minutes.
3. Optionally, under Mobile video (portrait, optional), upload a 9:16 clip for phones. Phones use the desktop video if you leave this empty. You can add it only after the desktop video.
4. Use the Desktop and Phone previews to check how each video is cropped.

Back Office warns you before uploading a clip that is the wrong orientation, lower than 720p, or a different shape than 16:9 (or 9:16 for phones). Click Upload anyway or Choose another. Keep the main subject in the center: some screens crop the edges, and the headline covers the bottom third.

A still from the start of the video becomes its poster, which shows while the video loads and for visitors who turn off motion on their device. Click Change poster to use your own image. Click Remove to delete a video. Removing the desktop video also removes the mobile one, and the hero switches to a single image of the poster.

If your video is hosted somewhere else, open Or paste a hosted video URL and enter its link instead of uploading.

Import reviews from Google

1. Open the page’s Review section.
2. Click Import from Google.
3. Select up to 20 reviews and click Import. Reviews already on the page show Added.
4. Review the copied names, photos, ratings, and text. Edit, reorder, or remove them as needed.

Imported reviews are copies. They don’t change if the review changes on Google.

Link your Google Place listing in Settings → Profile → Address first. This picker uses reviews collected from that listing. Google supplies up to five recent reviews per sync, twice a week. It is not your full Google review history. If the last sync failed or is late, the picker warns that its reviews could be out of date.

Set up private-event inquiries

Enable Private Events Page, then set up its sections:

• Private Event Form — the title and subtitle above the form, and the Thank-you message (a title and a message) guests see in place of the form after sending an inquiry.
• Inquiry Settings — the rules for the form. Leave a setting empty to use the default, then click Save.
• External Form — show a Perfect Venue form instead of Selflane’s.
• Header Image — the banner image at the top, with its own title and description. The page heading comes from Private Event Form, so the Page title here isn’t shown.

In Inquiry Settings:

• Event types — the choices guests pick from. Click Start from the default list to edit the built-in list (Anniversary, Birthday, Wedding, and others), type a name and click Add, or click ✕ on a type to remove it. You can have up to 50 types.
• Start time window — the Earliest start time and Latest start time guests can pick, in 15-minute steps. If the earliest is later than the latest, the window runs past midnight.
• Minimum group size — the form refuses an inquiry for a smaller group and tells the guest why. Use a whole number of at least 1.
• Required fields — check Last name, Phone, Event type, Event date & start time, Group size, or Budget to require it. Name and email are always required.

Review submissions in Requests.

To use Perfect Venue, open External Form and choose Perfect Venue under Provider. Copy the data-pv-venue-contact-form-id value from your Perfect Venue embed code into Form ID, or paste the whole embed code and Back Office keeps only the ID. Click Save.

The Perfect Venue form replaces the built-in inquiry form; its title and subtitle still apply. Leave Form ID empty to use Selflane’s form.

Use advanced controls

Advanced holds rare, sitewide switches. It sits collapsed near the bottom of Settings → Domain, above Google Workspace email, so nobody changes it by mistake. Click it to expand.

Managers and the business owner can change the site mode, online ordering, menu style, and tracking IDs. Only the business owner sees the DNS controls.

Each site setting here saves and publishes right away, except Google Analytics, which updates the site in a few minutes. If a change saves but doesn’t publish, you see Saved, but publishing failed — use the Publish button to retry. Click Publish on the site card at the top of the page.

Choose a site mode

Site mode sets what kind of site customers see.

Use storefront mode when you keep your main website elsewhere and only want ordering on Selflane. See Connect a domain to point an ordering address at your site.

In storefront mode, a Home link field appears. Enter your main website’s address, such as https://www.yourrestaurant.com, and click Save. Your logo then links back to that site. Leave it blank to link the logo to your menu. An address without https:// gets it added.

Switching back to Standard (full site) clears the Home link.

Turn online ordering on or off

Online ordering is on by default. Turn it off for a restaurant that doesn’t take online orders, such as a fine-dining restaurant or a bar.

When online ordering is off:

• The Order button and cart disappear across the site.
• The menu page shows a read-only menu instead of the ordering menu. It lists every menu, course, and dish except catering menus and items that are 86’d. Combos and modifiers don’t show.
• The Menu link stays in the navigation only while the read-only menu has dishes to show.
• Reservations and gift cards keep working.

You can’t turn online ordering off in storefront mode. The toggle stays on and shows Always on in storefront mode.

Style the read-only menu

These settings appear only while Online ordering is off.

• Menu theme sets the look of the menu page: Chalkboard (dark, chalk-drawn), Paper (warm cream, serif), Minimal (light, monochrome), or Kraft (brown kraft paper). Chalkboard is the default.
• Display menu shows or hides Photos, Prices, Descriptions, and Dietary tags. Each one is on by default. Turn off Prices for a market-price menu, or Photos for a text-only menu.

Set tracking IDs

Add your own tracking IDs to measure visits and ad results on your site. Enter only the ID, not a script.

• Google Analytics takes the measurement ID from your own GA4 property, such as G-ABC123XYZ. Lowercase letters are changed to uppercase. A placeholder such as G-1234567890 doesn’t report. It appears once Selflane finishes setting up your site’s hosting.
• Vibe pixel takes your Vibe.co pixel ID, 4 to 32 letters or numbers.

Selflane’s own analytics always runs on your site. Your Google Analytics ID adds a second property, so every visit reports to both. Clearing the ID stops reports to your property only. Clearing the Vibe pixel ID removes the pixel.

Save stays off until you change the ID to a valid one. Clicking it opens a confirmation that shows the Current and New IDs.

• Adding an ID: click Save.
• Replacing or removing an ID: check I understand this changes where my site's tracking data goes., then click Replace ID or Remove ID. Reports in the old Google Analytics property stop updating, and ad campaigns tied to the old Vibe pixel stop receiving visits and conversions.

Connect DNS and verify your site

The business owner sees Connect DNS and Site verification in Advanced when Selflane hosts your domain’s DNS. They don’t appear for managers, for an ordering address such as order.yourrestaurant.com, or for a domain whose DNS you manage elsewhere.

• Connect DNS points your domain at its Selflane website. It’s safe to click again if your site isn’t loading.
• Site verification adds a verification record for Google Search Console or Apple Pay on the web. Paste the full value you were given, starting with google-site-verification= or apple-domain-verification=, then click Add. Records already added are listed above the field. Click Remove next to one you no longer need.

The verification record added by the Google Workspace email card also appears in this list. Leave it in place, or Google can stop treating your domain as verified.

DNS changes can take a minute to take effect. If a change fails because DNS changed at the same moment, click Try again.

To set up Gmail at your domain, use the Google Workspace email card below Advanced. See Business email.

Related links

• Hours — update your business hours before announcing a schedule change.
• Basic Settings — configure how customers order online.
• Marketing Events — manage ticketed events for your business.