How do I set up my public website?

Your Buildium subscription includes a free, public facing website where you can advertise listings, link to your online rental application, include your company contact information, and allow tenants and owners to log into their own portals.

The public site is responsive, so it can be viewed on any device.

This is a helpful feature if you don’t have your own website.

In this article, you’ll learn how to:

1. Update General Settings
2. Update pages and appearance
3. Add content to your site

1. Update general settings

Site settings let you indicate what features you want to enable on your public site. 

To configure your site settings:

1. Navigate to Communication > Public site.
   
2. On the General settings page, you have several options to customize the public site.
3. You can change your website URL, edit branding preferences and create a customizable link to add a link to another website.

   The link appears in the upper right corner of your screen, and you can point this link to any website you choose. For example, it could point to the home page of your public website to easily direct customers back, or if you use an external website, your home link might link back to that external site's home page.

   

4. To enable the resident portal so your tenants can log in, check their balances, submit maintenance requests and pay online, under Sign-in options select to Show sign in form and link for residents.
5. Click Allow rental owners, vendors and staff members to sign-in to their accounts to allow them to log in through the public site. 
   
6. Under Contact information, Buildium will default to the information entered when you signed up for your account. You can update the information, and choose whether or not you want to display the company information in the footer of the public site.
7. Use the Analytics section to insert javascript into the head of each page of your Buildium public site. Web analytics allow you to track many things, such as the number of visitors to your website. 
   
8. If you use Google Webmaster Tools, use the Meta tags area to paste in meta tags provided by Google. If you know how to write properly formed html meta tags yourself, you can paste them here, too. Meta tags can help search engines properly identify what type of content your public site contains.
   
9. When you’re done filling out the home page settings, click Save.

2. Update pages and appearance

Your public website is mobile responsive, and Buildium gives you a site preview for both mobile and desktop so you can ensure everything is set up as you'd like it.

To change the look and feel of your website:

1. Navigate to Communication > Public site.
   
2. Click the Pages and appearance tab.
3. There are 5 default pages created by Buildium on the public website: Home, Rentals, Documents, Contact us, and Apply now. With the exception of the home page, all can be hidden from your public site if necessary.

   • The Rentals page will feature all of the listings you post through Buildium’s listing syndication feature.

   • Documents shares downloadable files with visitors to your site. These files can be uploaded to your public site using the Files button in the top right corner of your Buildium menu bar. When you upload a file to this area, click Share with public site to have the file appear on your documents page.
   • The Contact us page allows site visitors to communicate with you. These communications appear as Contact requests under the Incoming requests section of the Tasks menu.
     
     
   • Apply now links to your customized rental application. You can link to this page to have prospective tenants fill out the application and have it delivered right in Buildium.
4. Drag and drop items to change the order of the pages.
5. You can use the toggle button to the right of the page name to enable or disable that page from your site.
6. Rename a page by clicking on the current page and editing the page title.
   
   

3. Add content to your site

When you’ve decided on the pages to include on your public site, it’s time to add content.

To create content on custom pages:

1. Navigate to Communication > Public site.
   
2. Click Pages and appearance.
   
3. Select which custom page you want to add content to by clicking on the page name.
   
4. Use the editor to enter the content you’d like to appear on the page. You can use the toolbar to format the text, insert links, and add photos. If you prefer to edit your public site page content using HTML, click the Source button on the toolbar.
   

To add photos to your public site:

1. Navigate to Communication > Public Site.
   
2. Then click the Images and assets tab.
   
3. Click Upload file to drag and drop the image you’d like to add, or click Choose file to select a file from your computer.
   
4. When you’ve selected your photo you can enter a description if you want to, then click Save.
   
5. Once the file has been uploaded, click on the Sharing URL to select it, then copy the URL by right-clicking on it and selecting Copy, or by pressing Control + C if you’re using Windows or Command + C on a Mac.
   
6. Click the Pages and appearance tab, then click the pencil icon next to the page you want to add the photo to. In the editor window, click your mouse where you’d like to insert the photo, and select the image button, which is in the second row of the tool bar. In the pop-up window, paste the URL by right clicking in the URL box and selecting Paste, or by pressing Control + V if you’re using windows or Command + V on a Mac.

You can adjust the width and height of the image, and if you’d like to adjust the image properties on a more advanced level,  you can add a border, adjust the alignment of the photo, and adjust the vertical and horizontal buffers around your image.

When you’re done making adjustments, click OK and your image will be inserted into the editor. You can continue to enter text above and below your photo, and when you’re finished entering content, click Save.