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Circle Website Builder: How I Built a Full Site in Circle

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Meet Rachel

I help creators and founders build memberships and digital businesses on Circle, and I write here about what's actually working.

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Your community is set up in Circle. The spaces are organized, the paywall works, the welcome sequence is written. Then someone asks for a link to your sales page, and it lives somewhere else entirely, on a platform you pay for separately and log into twice a year.

Or it doesn’t exist yet, and your “landing page” is the Circle login screen.

That’s a lot of tools for one front door.

When I launched coCreator Society, I built the whole public site with the Circle website builder instead: a landing page, a pricing page, a waitlist, and an affiliates page. By the end of this, you’ll know what to set up first, which blocks do the heavy lifting, and the small workarounds that make a Circle site look like yours.

Can You Build a Whole Website in Circle?

Yes. The Circle website builder handles landing pages, pricing, waitlists, and opt-ins, with custom HTML for anything it doesn’t do natively. That’s enough for a full branded site without a separate web platform.

You’ll find it in the left sidebar: open the caret, go to Content, and you’ll see Pages. Hit New page and it opens a template library, which is the fastest way to get something on the screen.

I built four pages for the launch:

  • The main landing page
  • A pricing page that sits quietly in the background
  • A waitlist page for people who wanted in before we opened
  • An affiliates page for people who wanted to promote it

It isn’t a full web design tool. You can’t center everything you’d want to, and there were no anchor links when I built mine. But for something out of the box, it goes further than most people expect, and it keeps your front door on the same platform as your community.

What Should You Set Up Before You Build a Page?

Set up site settings and your brand first: navigation, SEO, code snippets, logo, colors, fonts, and buttons. Do it once, and every page you build after inherits it.

This is the step people skip because it isn’t fun. It’s also the reason my pages matched each other without me fixing every block by hand.

Header navigation

Circle gives you two navigation bars: one for logged-in members and one for logged-out visitors. The logged-out one is your public website menu.

What that looks like:

  • Add a link for each public page (mine are the society page, the waitlist, and affiliates)
  • Title it, add the URL, and save
  • Check the defaults, which decide what logged-in and logged-out people see

SEO settings

Two things to switch on before anyone visits, and one to check.

  • Turn on your sitemap
  • Add your Google site verification (the code itself goes in code snippets)
  • Set up redirects if you’re moving pages over from somewhere else

Code snippets

This is where anything site-wide lives. I added my custom font import and my Google tag codes here, so I can see who’s landing on the site and what they do once they’re there.

Brand and theme

Upload your logo, favicon, and social preview image. They feel like busywork. They’re also what shows up in a browser tab and every time someone shares your link.

Then set your site theme: brand colors, text sizes, fonts, and button styles. I used ChatGPT to help me work out the heading font settings. My actual brand font, Poppins, comes in through the code snippet, but I still wanted the heading hierarchy set properly in the theme.

Which Blocks Make a Circle Landing Page Feel On Brand?

A hero header, a stats block, a few custom GIFs, a custom HTML embed or two, a pricing table, and an FAQ. The blocks are standard. What you put in them, and the backgrounds between them, is what makes the page yours.

Adding anything is the same move every time: hit the plus, pick a block or element, and drag it where you want it.

The hero header

This is the first thing anyone sees, so pick one that carries weight. I chose a hero header with a large image on one side, then added my heading, a line of supporting text, and my logo up top.

Make that heading name what someone gets, not a list of features. It’s the same shift as selling the outcome instead of the access.

Stats blocks

Under Blocks, the Stats section has several layouts. I used the second one, then changed the background color and added an outline on each stat so it matched my brand.

GIFs made in Canva

The piece people asked me about most was a row of three animated post-it notes. That’s a GIF I made in Canva.

What that looks like:

  • Build the design with your brand fonts
  • Add an animation (I used typewriter on enter for a text one)
  • Match the GIF’s background color to the block’s background
  • Export as a GIF and upload it like any image

Matching the background is what makes it look built into the page instead of pasted on top. I did the same for a feature list with custom icons, and for a short GIF of myself next to my intro.

Custom HTML for everything else

When the builder doesn’t do something, custom HTML usually can. Hit the plus, scroll to Custom HTML, drop the block in, and paste your code. That’s how I added a widget built in Elfsight, and the ROI calculator from the video linked below.

Pricing and FAQ

A pricing table links out to each tier, and the FAQ block handles the questions people would otherwise DM you. At the very bottom, I built a makeshift footer with links to my terms of service and privacy policy.

Between all of it, I alternated background colors and background images. Every block can take its own background image, and switching between white space and brand color is what gives a long page rhythm instead of a wall.

Build a separate pricing page and point every Join Now button at it. It does the job of an anchor link until the builder supports them.

When I built this, the website builder had no anchors, so a Join Now button couldn’t jump down to the pricing section on the same page. I didn’t want people scrolling around to find it.

So pricing is its own page, and it isn’t in the navigation. It uses the three-option pricing template, with the background changed to match my brand and the icons swapped for Google icons in my colors.

Every Join Now button on the landing page drops people straight onto it. They click, they see the tiers, they choose. Nobody has to hunt.

If the tiers themselves still feel fuzzy, sort that out before you design around them. Start with how to build an offer that sells.

How Many Pages Does a Circle Website Actually Need?

Fewer than you think, and they can share a layout. I reused the same hero block on three of my four pages and changed the words, the images, and what each page asked people to do.

A waitlist page

Before launch, we wanted to collect people who weren’t ready to join yet but wanted to hear when we opened. The waitlist page uses the same hero block as the homepage, because I love the big photo.

I played with text size, big then small, so it reads as a flow instead of a block. Then I added custom HTML for a Flodesk opt-in, so anyone who signs up goes straight into my existing email pathway.

An affiliates page

Same hero block again, then the affiliate perks listed below. There’s an Apply Now button that goes to the application, and link text to the affiliate portal for people already in the program.

It has its own FAQ and its own footer, so an affiliate never has to leave the page to get an answer.

Why reusing the block works

It isn’t laziness. It’s what makes four pages feel like one site. A visitor knows where they are before they read a word.

And once someone joins, the logged-in side takes over. That’s where your Circle onboarding course picks up the job.

Try This Prompt

If you’re staring at a blank page in the builder, this gets you a block-by-block plan to build from.

“I’m building a landing page in the Circle website builder for my [type of community] for [who]. The offer is [describe it], it costs [price], and the one action I want visitors to take is [join, apply, or join a waitlist]. My available blocks include a hero header, text blocks, stats, images and GIFs, custom HTML, a pricing table, and an FAQ. Plan the page from top to bottom: for each block, tell me which block type to use, what it should say in one or two lines, and where any button should point. Give it back as a numbered list I can build from in order.”

It drafts the layout. You decide what earns a spot on the page.

Your Community Deserves More Than a Login Page

A website doesn’t need a stack of integrations or a web design degree. It needs to say who this is for, what they get, and where to click, in a way that sounds like you.

Start simple. Get the settings right and build one clean page. Then layer in the touches that make it yours: the GIF, the stat, the photo of you.

The builder is still evolving. You don’t need to wait for it to finish.

The first page someone sees should already feel like the community they’re about to join.

Watch the Video

New videos go up every Thursday on Your Community Strategist.

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More Like This

Watch: The $1 Trial Strategy That Doubled My Circle Community Conversions. Your pricing page gets people to the door. This is the trial setup that gets them through it.

Listen: Free vs Paid Community: Why Free Rarely Converts. Decide what your pricing page is actually charging for before you design it.

Watch: How to Use Invitation Links in Circle Free Access, Paywall Trials & Member Tags!. What happens on the other side of the Join Now button.

Listen: How to Choose a Community Model: Free, Paid, or Hybrid. The decision that shapes how many pages your site needs in the first place.

Keep Going

coCreator Society is where community builders and membership founders work through this together, with the templates, the walkthroughs, and people who are one step ahead of you. Join coCreator Society

If you would rather not do this part alone, Rachel and the team build, migrate, and run communities for founders who need it done properly the first time. Talk to the team

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Meet Rachel

I help creators and founders build memberships and digital businesses on Circle, and I write here about what's actually working.

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