If your website is already on WordPress, you do not have to move it. Connect it to Beside and your agent works on it directly: rewrite a page, swap a photo, fix a menu link, add a callback form. Your site stays on WordPress, at its current address, with your hosting and your theme.
Nothing goes live behind your back. Beside prepares the change, shows you your live page next to the new one, and waits for you.
Before you connect
You need three things:
A WordPress website you administer, reachable at an https address
A WordPress account that can edit published pages. For lead forms and theme designs, that account needs to be an administrator
An application password created for Beside. This is a WordPress feature, not the password you log in with
📌 No Application Passwords section:
If Users → Profile in WordPress has no Application Passwords section, your site does not offer the connection Beside needs and cannot be connected this way. This is common on hosted WordPress.com plans and on sites served without https.
Connect WordPress to Beside
In WordPress:
Go to Users → Profile
Scroll to Application Passwords, name it Beside, and create it
Copy the password that appears. WordPress shows it once
In Beside:
Open Settings → Connectors and select WordPress
Fill in Website URL, WordPress username and Application password
Select Connect WordPress
From the connected WordPress card, Open Website Builder takes you to your pages. You can also just ask for a change in chat.
💡 Who can do this:
Connecting WordPress and approving changes to it are account owner actions.
Change your website by asking
Select one of your published pages in the builder, or describe what you want in chat. There is no page editor to learn.
What you can ask for | For example |
Page copy | Rewrite the top of the home page, we do not do boiler installs any more |
Photos | Put the team photo I just sent on the About page, take the old storefront picture off |
Sections | Add a services list under the intro, move the testimonials above the gallery |
Links and menus | Add Contact to the navigation, point the Book button at my new booking link |
Site details | Change the tagline, make Services the homepage |
New pages | Create a page for emergency callouts |
Forms | Add a callback form that asks for a name, phone number and message |
Forms on your pages become leads
Beside can add a callback request, contact or quote form to a published page, and you choose the fields. When a visitor fills it in, it does not sit in WordPress: it arrives as a lead in Beside and goes to your connected customer system like every other lead.
Headers, footers and theme designs
Your agent can also work on how the site looks, not just what it says. Templates, headers and footers from your block theme, and your global colors, typography and spacing, work as soon as you are connected.
Additional CSS, Elementor and Divi layouts need one extra step: the Beside Design Bridge plugin, which Beside gives you from the connected WordPress page. Download the file, then upload and activate it in WordPress under Plugins. Elementor Pro and Divi licences stay yours, Beside does not supply them.
Review it before it goes live
Beside saves what it prepared as a proposal. Open Review & publish and you get the summary of what changed, your live page next to the draft, and the button to publish it.
Before it changes a published page, Beside saves a copy of that page first. Under Version history, your saved versions are listed newest first with their titles and save times, and Review restore brings one back as a change for you to approve. Review undo reverses the last change you applied.
💡 After publishing:
Text changes are read back on your live page automatically. Changes to images, layout or design are saved but not checked visually, so use Open website to look at the result yourself.
🟡 If you edit in two places:
If the same page is saved in WordPress while Beside is preparing a change, Beside stops and asks you to review again rather than overwriting that work.
Troubleshooting
"WordPress could not connect"
Check the full web address including https://, check your WordPress username, and make sure you pasted the application password exactly as WordPress displayed it. Sites that are not served over https cannot be connected.
"Check your WordPress application password and permission to edit published pages"
Beside reached your site but the connected account is not allowed to make that change, or the application password was revoked in WordPress. Create a new application password from an account that can edit published pages.
A page is listed but Beside cannot edit it
Your pages are listed before Beside looks inside them, so a page can appear and still turn out to be built with something Beside does not edit. Shortcodes, Spectra blocks and SEO plugin fields are outside what the page editor touches. Elementor and Divi pages are handled by design editing instead, with the Beside Design Bridge plugin.
The change is saved but the page looks the same
That is usually a caching plugin or a CDN still serving the old version. Open your website in a private window, or clear your cache, and check again.
A form was added but nothing arrives
Forms need the connected WordPress account to be allowed to save unfiltered HTML, which normally means a single-site administrator, and visitors need JavaScript enabled. Beside checks that permission before adding a form and before publishing a page that contains one.
FAQ
Does connecting WordPress move my website to Beside?
Does connecting WordPress move my website to Beside?
No. Your site stays on WordPress, at the same address, with your hosting and your theme. Beside edits it where it is.
Is this the same as the Beside website?
Is this the same as the Beside website?
No, they are two different things. The Beside website is a site Beside builds and hosts for you. This is your existing WordPress site, edited in place.
What happens when I ask for a change in chat?
What happens when I ask for a change in chat?
If you ask for the change, Beside prepares it and applies it. If you ask for a draft, a preview or something to look at first, it stays unapplied and waits for you in Review & publish.
Can I undo a change?
Can I undo a change?
Yes. Review undo reverses the last change you applied, and Version history holds the saved copies of your pages from before each change. Those saved versions survive new drafts, and they come back if you disconnect and reconnect the same website.
What happens if I disconnect WordPress?
What happens if I disconnect WordPress?
It removes the saved connection and the current draft from Beside. Your WordPress pages stay exactly as they are. Your saved versions remain available if you reconnect the same website, and you will need an application password again to do that.
Is my application password safe?
Is my application password safe?
It is stored encrypted and never shown back to you or to your agent. Create one dedicated to Beside rather than reusing another, and revoke it in Users → Profile whenever you want to cut access.
Can Beside delete a page?
Can Beside delete a page?
It can move a published page to the WordPress Trash once you have reviewed it, and put it back while it is still there. It never deletes anything permanently, and links or menus pointing at a removed page still need fixing yourself.