How Builder works
What is Builder?
Builder is a Visual Development Platform. It connects to your existing site or application and enables everyone on your team to create and manage content, all without touching a single line of code. The content created in Builder can then be published and synced to your live site or apps instantly.
How does Builder work?
To use Builder, first decide what parts on your site should be controlled by Builder vs. hard coded in your site or application. There are three main ways you can do this:
- Builder pages - full drag and drop control between your site's header and footer
- Builder sections - make a part of a page visually editable in Builder and use our targeting and scheduling to decide who sees what
- Builder data - fetch data from Builder and use it anywhere in your application (e.g. menu items)
Use pages to Build to manage entire pages, like:
- Homepage
- Content pages (about, partners, etc)
- Blog pages
- Landing pages
Use Sections to Build and parts around your site or app, like
- Announcement bars
- Product detail descriptions
- Collection heros
- Cart upsells
Use Data to control structured data like
- Navigation links
- Product data
- Blog post authors
Integration
Builder integrates with your existing site or app, and renders content much like your developers do when writing code by hand. This allows you to easily leverage your existing SEO, analytics, and core user flows but add visual control. You can also easily connect your frontend components and backend data to Builder as well.
Integration is automatic for Shopify hosted stores. For all other sites and apps, a simple developer setup is required.
Hosting
Builder pushes content to your site or app via APIs. You control your site, code, and hosting - we only pass content to your site or application.
Structuring your site
One of the easiest ways to get started is to add landing page building to your site. Once you have that, you can start adding editable sections across your site, and use targeting to choose the right content for the right users
Here are some examples we recommend for how to structure various pages on your site
👉Tip: for a more technical overview of Builder - see here
