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WebCMS Overview

The WebCMS (Website Content Management System) module in GatherCMS is the tool your church staff uses to build and manage your public website. From writing blog posts and managing navigation menus to uploading images and configuring your site's branding, WebCMS gives your communications team full control over your church's online presence — without needing a developer.

What You Can Do in WebCMS​

  • Build and publish pages — create standard web pages with rich content sections, set their URLs, and control when they go live.
  • Add content blocks — build page content using reusable, styled components like call-to-action sections, card layouts, accordions, and more.
  • Write and schedule blog posts — publish church news, stories, and announcements with author attribution, categories, and scheduled publishing.
  • Manage FAQs — organize questions and answers into libraries that can be embedded throughout your website.
  • Configure navigation menus — build your site's header and footer navigation with page links, custom URLs, and dropdown submenus.
  • Upload and organize media — maintain a central library of images and files used across all areas of your website.
  • Set your homepage hero — configure the prominent banner at the top of your homepage, including headlines, buttons, and media.
  • Customize your brand — set your site name, logo, favicon, brand colors, and social media links.
  • Select a theme — choose and activate the visual design of your website.
  • Configure SEO and social sharing — control how your website appears when shared on social media platforms.
  • Manage legal content — maintain your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

How WebCMS Is Organized​

WebCMS is accessed from the Staff Portal. The left navigation panel contains the following areas:

  • Pages — create and manage all pages on your website.
  • Blog — write and publish blog posts and manage post categories.
  • FAQs — build FAQ libraries, lists, and individual question-and-answer pairs.
  • Menus — create navigation menus and assign them to your site's header and footer locations.
  • Media Library — upload, organize, and manage all images and files.
  • Homepage Hero — configure the default hero section and any scheduled overrides on your homepage.
  • Brand Settings — manage your site identity, logo, colors, and social media links.
  • Theme — browse and activate your website's visual theme.
  • SEO — configure your site's social sharing image and metadata.
  • Legal Content — edit your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
note

Some WebCMS features — including Blog, Brand Colors, Hero Video, and Legal Content — are only available if enabled for your church's account. If you do not see one of these items in your navigation, contact your GatherCMS administrator.

Key Concepts​

Pages and Content Blocks

Pages are the individual web pages that make up your site — each with a title, URL, and optional banner. Content blocks are the reusable sections that make up a page's body content: cards, headers, call-to-action sections, accordions, and more. You attach content blocks to pages and arrange them in order. See Pages and Content Blocks.

Content Statuses

Most content in WebCMS uses the same three statuses:

  • Draft — content is saved but not publicly visible on your website.
  • Active — content is published and visible to website visitors.
  • Archived — content is hidden from the public website but retained in the system.

Scheduling

Pages and blog posts can be set to publish or unpublish automatically at a specific date and time using the Published At and Unpublished At fields. See Content Scheduling.

Feature Flags

Some features are controlled by feature flags — settings that enable or disable specific functionality for your church's account. Features that require enablement include Blog, Brand Colors, Hero Video, and Legal Content. If a feature described in this documentation is not visible in your WebCMS, ask your administrator to check whether it is enabled.