Essential settings before launch

Before announcing your site, a few essential settings make all the difference: a clear identity, an HTTPS address, Google and Bing notified, complete legal pages and a well-protected account. This lesson reviews each point, then ends with a launch checklist to tick off.

The 8 Settings tabs

Settings are reserved for administrators, and everything there is preset for a fast, SEO-friendly site. For a launch, three tabs hold the essential settings: General, SEO and Advanced.

Give your site a clear identity

Open Settings › General and check each field:

• Site name: “Atelier Nova”.
• Tagline: a sentence that says what you do, such as “Ceramics studio in Lyon”. It appears in the home page title.
• Homepage description (meta description): the text Google shows below your home page title. Aim for 110 to 160 characters, with a clear promise.
• Official site URL: used for canonical URLs, the sitemap and shares. Choose the version with or without “www” once and for all.
• Site language and Time zone: the time zone is also used to publish your scheduled posts at the right time.

Click Save. If you change the official address, Éclair checks that it really leads to your site; if it doesn't, Éclair warns you and redirects nobody to it until it's verified.

How do you switch your site to HTTPS?

1. Turn on the free Let's Encrypt certificate in your host's customer area, then open https://atelier-nova.fr.
2. Log in to the admin over https://.
3. In Settings › Advanced, check Force HTTPS, enter your password if asked, then click Save. The official address also switches to https://.
4. On the dashboard, Site health should show “Site served over HTTPS”.

If you installed Éclair directly over https://, Force HTTPS is already checked. Otherwise, Éclair refuses to turn it on until you're logged in over https://: it's a safeguard. The HSTS option goes further, since browsers will never use http:// for your site again for a year. Only turn it on once HTTPS works perfectly.

Connect Google Search Console and Bing

1. In Google Search Console, choose Add property, then URL prefix, and enter https://atelier-nova.fr.
2. Choose the HTML tag method and copy the <meta> tag shown.
3. In Éclair, open Settings › SEO, Webmaster tools section, and paste the whole tag into the Google Search Console field: Éclair extracts the code from it. Click Save.
4. Go back to Search Console and run the verification.
5. Do the same with the Bing Webmaster Tools field.

Also check that the IndexNow option is ticked: each publication is then reported immediately to Bing, Yandex and other compatible engines. Finally, in Search Console, you can submit your sitemap, generated automatically at /sitemap.xml.

Complete the legal notice and privacy policy

The installation created two pages with placeholders in square brackets to replace. Open them from Content:

Replace each placeholder, such as “[Provider name]”, then click Update. The privacy page states that the site uses no tracking cookies and no third-party analytics: if you ever add one, update that passage. If in doubt, have these pages reviewed, as you're legally responsible for them.

Turn on two-factor authentication

1. Click your name at the bottom of the menu to open My profile, Two-factor authentication (2FA) section.
2. Click Enable two-factor authentication.
3. Scan the QR code with an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 1Password, Bitwarden…), or enter the key manually.
4. Type the 6-digit code shown, then click Confirm and enable.
5. Copy your 8 backup codes with Copy codes: they're shown only once. Store them in a password manager, or print them.

From now on, Éclair asks for your app's code after your password. Lost your phone? A backup code replaces it, and each one works only once. After 10 wrong codes, two-factor authentication for the account is locked for 15 minutes, and you're notified by email.

Download a first backup

1. Open Security, Backup section.
2. Click Download a backup. If you logged in more than 15 minutes ago, Éclair asks for your password again.
3. Store the ZIP archive away from your hosting: computer, external drive or online storage.

The archive contains your content, settings, accounts and images, that is, the data/ and media/ folders. The AI assistant's API keys are excluded from it. Without the zip extension, copy these two folders via FTP. Make a new backup before any major change.

Your essential settings checklist

Key points

• The essential settings take 30 minutes: identity, HTTPS, visibility, legal pages and security.
• Force HTTPS can only be turned on once the certificate is in place and you're logged in over https://.
• Paste the whole Google Search Console or Bing tag: Éclair extracts the code.
• Replace every placeholder in square brackets in the legal pages before launch.
• Turn on two-factor authentication, store your 8 backup codes and download a backup.

Going further

• Everyday security: sessions, the log, the integrity check and a monthly routine.
• SEO with Éclair: live analysis, redirects and the method to aim for 100.
• Settings reference: every option, tab by tab.
• Official sources: Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and the CNIL, France's data protection authority, for your obligations regarding personal data.

All the lessons of this path