Make your first website change safely

You have a website, but you’ve never changed it yourself. This guide walks you through one small change, like new opening hours or a new price. You’ll make it, check it, and know how to undo it if something looks wrong.

Before you start

• The login for the tool your site was built with. That might be a site builder like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, or WordPress, or an AI tool like Lovable, Bolt, or Replit.
• The one change you want to make, with the new wording or number written down.
• Your phone and a computer, so you can check the result on both.
• Fifteen minutes when you’re not rushed.

Want to do it yourself?

Difficulty

4 out of 10

Estimated completion time

20–40 minutes

Skills you’ll need: Find the right page in your builder, save a backup, and check one small edit on phone and desktop.

I’ll do it myselfI’d rather get help

How this helps your brand

Accurate hours, prices, and contact details help customers act with confidence. A checked, reversible edit keeps a small business update from disrupting the rest of your website.

1. 1

   Step 1: Save a copy before you touch anything

   A saved copy is your safety net. If the change goes wrong, you go back to it and nothing is lost.

   Most tools have a way to do this. Look in the menus for words like “version”, “history”, “checkpoint”, “backup”, or “duplicate”. AI builders often save a version after each change automatically. Some site builders let you duplicate a page or a theme before editing it.

   • If you find a version or backup option, save one and give it a name you’ll recognise, like “Before hours change”.
   • If you can’t find one, search your tool’s help pages for “restore previous version”. The official help pages show the current steps.
   • Either way, copy the text you’re about to change into a note on your phone. That note is your undo if all else fails.

   Tip: A screenshot of the page as it is now also helps. You’ll know exactly what it looked like before.

   Illustrated exampleSave the version and keep the old wording

   In your website tool

   Before hours changeSaved before editing

   Make the hours change next

   Give the saved copy a name you can find again.

   In a note you keep

   Original text · Contact page

   Saturday: 9am–5pm

   Copy this back if you need to undo the wording.

2. 2

   Step 2: Pick one small change

   For your first time, change one thing in one place. Opening hours, a price, a phone number, or a sentence on your About page are all good choices.

   Leave bigger jobs, like a new page or a new layout, for later. If one small change goes wrong, it’s easy to spot and easy to undo. If five things change at once, it’s hard to tell which one caused the problem.

   Check whether the same detail appears in more than one place. Opening hours often sit on the home page, the contact page, and the footer at the bottom of every page. Write down each place you find it.

3. 3

   Step 3: Make the change

   How you do this depends on your tool. Use the part below that fits.

   In a site builder: open the editor, click the text you want to change, and type the new version. Most builders don’t show your change to visitors until you press Publish or Save, so look for that button when you’re done.

   In an AI tool: describe the change in plain words, and be exact. “Update my hours” leaves the AI guessing. “On the contact page, change Saturday from 9am–5pm to 10am–4pm, and change nothing else” tells it exactly what to do. The prompt at the end of this guide gives you a version to copy.

   Tip: If the AI changes more than you asked for, like moving things around or rewording other text, undo it and ask again. Tell it to change only the one thing.

   Illustrated exampleOne request, one visible change

   ● ● ● Example · Contact page

   MAPLE & MAINCome say hello.

   Monday–Friday

   9am–5pm

   Saturday

   9am–5pm10am–4pm

   Sunday

   Closed

   Only this Saturday-hours line changes

   Example request to the AI

   “On the contact page, change Saturday from 9am–5pm to 10am–4pm, and change nothing else.”

   Same layout. Same other hours.

4. 4

   Step 4: Check it on a phone and a computer

   Open your live website, not the editor, on your phone. Then open it on a computer. A change can look fine on one and wrong on the other.

   On each one, check:

   • The new wording or number is there, and spelled correctly.
   • Every place you wrote down in step 2 shows the new version.
   • Nothing near the change has moved, disappeared, or broken.

   Tip: If you still see the old version, refresh the page. If it’s still there, wait a few minutes and try again. Sites sometimes take a little while to show updates.

   Illustrated exampleCheck the live result on both devices

   Computer

   Your live site · ContactOpening hoursSaturday10am–4pm

   Phone

   Live site · ContactOpening hoursSaturday10am–4pm

   Check these on both screens

   • Correct detail Saturday reads 10am–4pm.
   • Every location Check the home page and footer too, if you listed them.
   • Surrounding page Nearby text, links and layout still look right.

   Old hours still showing? Refresh, then wait a few minutes and try again.

5. 5

   Step 5: Know how to undo it

   If something looks wrong, don’t try to fix it with more changes. Go back to the copy you saved in step 1 first. Then try again from a clean start.

   In most tools, you undo by opening the version history and restoring the copy you named. If your tool doesn’t keep versions, paste the old text from your note back in and publish again.

   If it all looks right, you’re done. Save a fresh copy now and name it something like “Hours updated”. That becomes your new safe point for the next change.

I want to make one small change to my website. Please change only this, and nothing else.

Page: [which page, for example the Contact page]
What it says now: [the current wording or number]
What it should say: [the new wording or number]

This detail might also appear in other places, like the footer or the home page. If it does, list each place and ask me before changing them.

Don’t change the layout, the design, or any other text. When you’re done, tell me in plain English exactly what you changed and where, and how I can undo it if I need to.