The starting website you choose gives your project its initial pages, sections, structure, and design direction. You can change the content, imagery, branding, links, SEO, supported styles, and supported structure afterward, so the goal is not to find a website whose demo content already matches your business.
Choose the website that is closest to what you want to end with.
Choose for the website you want to end with
Start with structure, not placeholder content.
A plumber website can become your plumbing business. A law firm website can become your firm. The example company name, photographs, colors, copy, and calls to action are meant to be customized.
Pay more attention to the parts that define the website itself:
- the overall page structure;
- the kind of sections it uses;
- how information is organized;
- the visual direction;
- the amount and type of content the design is built to accommodate.
A starting website that already organizes information the way you need will usually require less structural adaptation later.
Look at structure before content
When comparing websites, try to mentally replace the example content with your own.
A hero image can change. A headline can change. Brand colors can change. A team photo can change.
The more important question is whether the composition around that content makes sense for what you are building.
For example, look at whether the website emphasizes:
- services;
- credentials or trust signals;
- projects or portfolio work;
- team members;
- testimonials;
- frequently asked questions;
- contact or conversion actions;
- longer explanatory content.
Two websites may look equally polished while being designed around very different ways of presenting a business.
Choose the structure that fits yours.
Check the pages you need
Starting websites can be single-page or multipage.
Before choosing one, consider the information your finished website needs to organize. A business that needs separate pages for services, team information, projects, or other substantial content may benefit from a different starting structure than a simpler website built around a single primary page.
The selected starting website establishes the initial page architecture for that website.
Page titles, URLs, navigation, SEO information, ordering, and other supported page settings can be adapted in the editor, but StackLiberate does not treat the starting page architecture as a disposable theme layer.
If the page structure is important to your project, consider it before you choose.
Compare sections and design direction
Pages tell you how the website is organized. Sections tell you how each page communicates.
Look at the balance between large visual sections, text-heavy sections, lists, testimonials, calls to action, image-led areas, and other content patterns.
Also consider the broader design direction:
- typography;
- spacing;
- density;
- image treatment;
- visual hierarchy;
- motion where present;
- the overall personality of the website.
You do not need to preserve the demo branding. But starting from a design direction that already suits the project is usually more effective than choosing solely because one screenshot contains appealing colors or imagery.
Know what you can customize later
Choosing a starting website does not mean accepting its demo content as-is.
StackLiberate is designed for you to adapt the website after choosing it. Depending on what that starting website supports, you can customize areas such as:
- text and content;
- images and branding;
- links and calls to action;
- page information and SEO;
- colors and typography;
- supported sections;
- repeatable content;
- website structure and navigation.
Different starting websites can expose different editing options because they are not all built from one interchangeable layout.
That is intentional: the editor adapts to the website you selected instead of pretending that every design supports every possible structural change.
Preview before you choose
Use Preview to inspect a starting website before opening it in the editor.
Focus on the overall composition and ask:
Is this close to the kind of website I want to deliver?
Does the structure suit the amount of information I have?
Does the design direction fit the business or project?
Are the important parts of the website given enough emphasis?
Would I mostly be adapting this website, or fighting against it?
Do not reject a strong starting point because the demo company, text, photography, or colors are different from yours. Those are exactly the kinds of things the editor is there to change.
What happens when you open it in the editor
When you select Open in Editor, StackLiberate creates the website from that starting point.
Its initial pages, sections, and design become the foundation of that website. From there, you customize the supported content and structure rather than rebuilding the website from zero.
This is the key difference between choosing a StackLiberate starting website and simply applying a visual theme: you are choosing the foundation of the website you are about to work on.
Using a different starting website
A website does not switch to a different starting template after it has been created.
If you decide that another starting website is a better fit, create a new website from that option instead.
For that reason, spend a little more time comparing structure and design direction before opening a starting website in the editor. You do not need to predict every future edit, but you should choose a foundation that is reasonably close to the website you want to finish.
Where to go next
Once you have chosen a starting website, the next step is to learn how StackLiberate lets you adapt it.
Continue with Edit your website for an overview of the editor, or explore the dedicated guides for text (guide planned), images (guide planned), sections (guide planned), site styles (guide planned), pages (guide planned), and navigation (guide planned) as you need them.