fastsite dashboard

Tag: Beginner

  • Recovering Access to Your Account

    Recovering Access to Your Account

    Being locked out of your account is stressful, but in most cases access can be restored safely with a few checks.

    The first thing to confirm is which email address your account uses. Many access problems come down to simply trying to log in with the wrong email — for instance a personal address when the account was created with a work one. Try any addresses you might have used at sign-up.

    If you know the email but not the password, use the “Forgot password” link to reset it, and check your spam folder for the reset message.

    If you’re being asked for a verification code you can’t access — for example from an old phone number — you’ll need our help to verify your identity and restore access securely.

    For your protection, account recovery requests should come from the email address associated with the account wherever possible. This helps us confirm the request is genuinely from you.

    If you’ve tried resetting your password and confirming your email and still can’t get in, open a ticket with as much detail as you can about your account. We’ll verify your identity and help you back in as quickly as possible.

  • Updating Your Payment Details

    Keeping your payment information up to date is the easiest way to ensure your website never goes offline due to a missed renewal.

    You can update your card or payment method in your account’s billing area. It’s a good habit to do this as soon as you receive a new card or your existing one is about to expire, rather than waiting for a payment to fail.

    If a renewal payment has already failed, updating your details and retrying usually restores everything quickly. Most systems attempt the payment again automatically once valid details are in place, but you can often trigger it manually too.

    If your payment keeps getting declined even with a valid card, the issue is frequently on the bank’s side — some banks block online or recurring charges by default. A quick call to your bank to approve the payment usually resolves it.

    Always check that the billing address you’ve entered matches the one your bank has on file, as a mismatch can cause declines.

    If you’ve updated everything correctly and payments still won’t go through, open a ticket and we’ll look into it with you.

  • Managing Your Subscription

    Managing Your Subscription

    Keeping your FastSites subscription in order ensures your site stays live without interruption, and managing it is simple.

    Your subscription details — including your current plan, renewal date, and payment history — are available in your account area. It’s worth checking your renewal date occasionally so a payment never catches you by surprise.

    If your needs change, you can move between plans. Upgrading gives you access to more features, while downgrading suits a simpler setup. Changes typically take effect from your next billing cycle.

    To avoid any disruption to your site, make sure your payment method is always current. An expired card is the single most common reason a renewal fails, and a failed renewal can eventually take a site offline.

    If you’re considering cancelling, be aware of what happens to your site and domain afterwards, and check whether you’d like to back anything up first.

    For any billing question that isn’t answered in your account area — refunds, invoices, or plan advice — open a ticket and our team will help you directly.

  • Common Design Fixes That Take Seconds

    Common Design Fixes That Take Seconds

    Small design frustrations are usually quick to fix once you know where to look. Here are the most common ones and how to solve them.

    If your text or images look misaligned, check the spacing and alignment settings on that specific section. Inconsistent padding or margins are the usual cause, and nudging them into line instantly tidies things up.

    If something looks fine on desktop but broken on mobile, switch to the mobile preview and adjust it there. FastSites lets you fine-tune the mobile view separately, which is essential since most visitors browse on phones.

    If your colours look inconsistent across pages, you’ve likely set them manually in places rather than using your global brand colours. Setting them globally keeps everything uniform.

    If an image appears stretched or pixelated, it’s either the wrong shape for its container or too low-resolution. Replacing it with a correctly sized, high-quality image fixes it immediately.

    And if a change you made isn’t showing, do a hard refresh — you may be seeing a cached version.

    For anything that won’t budge, open a ticket with a screenshot and we’ll help you sort it.

  • Customising Your Template

    Customising Your Template

    Your template is the foundation of your site’s look, and FastSites makes it easy to shape it around your brand without touching code.

    Most design changes happen directly in the editor. You can update colours, fonts, images, and text to match your identity. A good first step is setting your brand colours and fonts globally, so they apply consistently across every page rather than adjusting each section individually.

    When swapping images, use high-quality files that are appropriately sized. Oversized images can slow your site down, while blurry ones undermine an otherwise polished design.

    If a section doesn’t look quite how you want, check whether it has its own settings panel — many elements offer spacing, alignment, and background options that give you fine control.

    Remember to preview your changes on both desktop and mobile. A layout that looks great on a wide screen sometimes needs small tweaks to feel right on a phone, where most visitors will see it.

    If you want to achieve a specific look and can’t find the right option, open a ticket describing the effect you’re after, and we’ll point you in the right direction.

  • Saving and Publishing Your Changes

    Saving and Publishing Your Changes

    Understanding the difference between saving and publishing helps you work confidently in the editor without worrying about losing changes or pushing something live too early.

    Saving stores your work so it isn’t lost, but it doesn’t necessarily make changes visible to the public. Publishing is what pushes your latest version live to your actual website. This separation lets you experiment freely and only go live when you’re ready.

    If your changes aren’t appearing on your live site, the most common reason is simply that they were saved but not published. Look for the publish button and confirm you’ve pushed the update.

    If you’ve published but still don’t see changes, your browser may be showing a cached version of the page. Do a hard refresh or check in a private window to see the true live version.

    If you’re getting an error when trying to save, it’s usually a connection issue — check that you’re online and try again.

    Still stuck? Open a ticket describing what you clicked, what you expected, and what happened instead.

  • Why DNS Changes Take Time to Work

    Why DNS Changes Take Time to Work

    If you’ve just updated your domain settings and your site isn’t loading correctly yet, you’re probably experiencing DNS propagation — and it’s completely normal.

    DNS is essentially the internet’s address book. When someone types your domain, their device asks a DNS server where your site lives. To keep things fast, these servers temporarily store (“cache”) the answer. When you change your DNS records, those cached copies around the world need time to expire and refresh.

    This is why a change you made can appear to work for you but not for a friend, or work on your phone but not your laptop. Different servers update at different speeds.

    Propagation typically takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, and occasionally up to 24–48 hours in slower cases. There’s no way to force the entire internet to update instantly, but you can check progress using a free online DNS propagation checker.

    While you wait, avoid making repeated changes — each new edit restarts the clock. If everything still looks wrong after 48 hours, raise a ticket and we’ll take a look.

  • What to Do When Your Website Isn’t Loading

    What to Do When Your Website Isn’t Loading

    What to Do When Your Website Isn’t Loading

    If your FastSites website won’t load, don’t panic — most cases come down to a handful of common causes, and many resolve on their own within minutes.

    Start by checking whether the problem is just on your end. Try loading your site on your phone using mobile data instead of Wi-Fi, or ask someone in a different location to open it. If it loads for them, the issue is likely your local connection or browser cache rather than your actual site.

    Next, clear your browser cache or open the site in a private/incognito window. Cached files sometimes hold onto an old, broken version of a page.

    If the site is genuinely down everywhere, check that your domain hasn’t expired and that your DNS settings are still pointing to FastSites. A recently changed DNS record can take a few hours to update across the internet.

    If you’ve ruled all of this out and your site is still unreachable, open a support ticket and include: the exact error message you see, your device and browser, and roughly when the problem started. That detail helps us pinpoint the cause far faster.