Getting started

Hello and welcome to WiscWeb! We’re happy you’re here and we like to help you get started with our service.

Scroll down to learn about the steps you need to get started in WiscWeb.

Step 1: Is WiscWeb right for you?

Our About Us page  provides an overview of what our service can offer with links to learn more. We’re able to support most groups, but there are certain limitations. Please review our Terms of Service for more information about what we can and cannot accommodate.

Additionally, the it.wisc.edu site has a website and web development services page that dives deeper into other campus offerings, based on your needs. Consider reviewing this documentation if you’d like to see what other options exists.

Please note that WiscWeb exclusively uses the UW Theme and we do not allow outside groups to contribute code, plugins, or child themes.

Step 2: Site title, name, and domain/URL

Determine what you’d like your site title, name and domain to be.

Site title

Your Site Title is the text that will appear in the header on every page of your site. For example, this website’s site title is “WiscWeb WordPress Service.”

Site name

The Site Name is the words that will appear in your preview URL (example: sitename.wiscweb.wisc.edu). All preview URL’s will be a fourth level domain under wiscweb.wisc.edu. This is where your site will publish until you are ready for it to be publicly viewable.

Production domain/URL

Your production domain (aka URL) is where your site will live once you have officially launched. This domain replaces the pre-existing “sitename.wiscweb.wisc.edu” URL and denotes that your site is now publicly viewable. You are encouraged to review the Domain Naming Guidelines for more information about choosing a domain name.

Step 3: New site request form

The next step is to fill our our New Site Request Form.

This will send an email to our team letting us know that you’d like to move onto our service.

New website request form

Step 4: Training

Once your new project has been created, you may want to learn a little more about how to get started with building your site:

Step 5: Start building your site

As you build out your site, you will find that our KnowledgeBase “Getting Started” documentation is an excellent resource.