A how-to Sitefinity training guide

Give your team the tools to harness the real power of Sitefinity

Training your team to use Sitefinity is not just about teaching them how to click a few buttons—it is about empowering your team to fully harness the platform’s potential to drive your digital strategy forward. A well-trained team can create dynamic, SEO-friendly content, streamline workflows, and personalise user experiences, transforming your website into a powerful marketing tool. Do not just skim the surface; dive deep into Sitefinity’s capabilities and make sure your team is equipped to use them effectively. Here are some areas you should focus on when planning your training strategy.

Think about their roles 

Your training will be easier if you separate it into customised sessions based on your team’s roles. For example, Editors will require more input on how pages, templates, and the editor in Sitefinity work. Your IT team will require more knowledge of how deployments, security, and roles & permissions work. You can mix and match the suggestions below to fit the needs of most of your team members. Find out more about our Sitefinity Training services.

Start with the basics

Regardless of your audience, anyone who uses your new Sitefinity CMS must understand how it works on a basic level. Start by introducing your team to Single Sign On (SSO) if it is implemented for your business, the dashboard, the interface, the different sections like pages, content & types of content, and administration (user roles and permissions). Educating your team on what they should and should not touch on the backend is also important. For example, Sitefinity users should not amend permissions or roles without the administrator's approval.

Focus on pages, templates and widgets

Once you have touched on the basics, you can start to hone into the system a little deeper. Start looking at pages, how users can set up a new page, then touch on all the functionality associated with setting up a page, i.e. how to change a title, update the SEO, etc. Then move to page templates and layouts and show your team how these features help maintain a consistent look and feel across your website. For example, one of the most common Templates is the Standard Content template, it will be important for your users to understand the purpose of this template and how to set it up, even at the most basic level.

Then you can touch on page widgets, these are the building blocks of any page in Sitefinity. These widgets allow your team to drag & drop items like content blocks, forms, images & lists onto a page. Remember that some widgets are built to be placed strictly within certain templates.

Content creation and management

Once your team understands the association between pages, templates, and widgets, it is time to drill deeper. Introduce them to the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), this is the main editor in Sitefinity, and the one component your team may be using the most. Show your team how to add text, images, videos, and links to your pages. The editor works like a word processor, so formatting content, adding headings, and creating bullet points or numbered lists is straightforward. To use the editor correctly, it is important to have a basic understanding of HTML, show your team the code view of the editor, and show them how they should only copy content here that is considered clean, i.e., not copied from Word.

SEO, Tags, Categories

Ignoring SEO is a costly mistake. Your team must learn how to use Sitefinity’s SEO tools effectively, from metadata management to creating sitemaps. Proper training on these tools will help your site rank higher in search engines, driving more organic traffic. Similarly, you should also educate your team on how the classification of content works, i.e. tags and categories.

Content Management and Workflows

In Sitefinity, workflows refer to the structured processes that define how content moves through various stages before it is published or reaches its final state. These workflows ensure that content is reviewed, approved, and managed according to your company’s standards and policies. For your training, you should describe how these are set up and configured for content approval, how to manage content versions and rollbacks, and look at the content personalisation features.

Troubleshooting and Support

When issues arise, many teams struggle because they do not know where to start. Provide training on common problems and how to solve them, such as dealing with publishing errors, placing widgets on the wrong page, or broken links. Also, ensure the team can access Sitefinity’s support resources for more complex issues.

Common Issues, Solutions and Support

Provide a guide on resolving common issues within Sitefinity, such as publishing errors or media uploads. Ensure the team can access Sitefinity support resources through online documentation, community forums, or by contacting Sitefinity support. Update the guide regularly so your team have more independence.

Find out more about our Sitefinity Training services.

More insights and resources