I've sporadically spent time writing basic code in HTML Editor in the past (entirely self-taught and bumbled through), and have bumbled my way through a few sites with Site Designer. These are only for my own use and one for an organization that I volunteered to build a site for, so nothing extravagant or that anyone is paying for.

While I do have a few struggles that I'm trying to sort out currently, the one that is most frustrating me at the moment is that I have some changes that are not uploading as they appear in Site Designer or in the preview. As one example, I have a link button on a page that will only upload as a link.
Page link (at the bottom): https://www.theavmsite.org/membership.html
Screenshot of SD view attached.

I am 100% certain that I am missing something basic as my understanding of the software is admittedly limited.

I am familiar with the resources for learning SD, but I honestly just have to fit this work in when I can and haven't been able to dedicate time to really digging in to learn all of it.

Thanks for any thoughts.

First do a forced cache clearance on your site
Ctrl+f5 at the same you may have to do it a couple of times

If that fails you need tell us how you uploaded the site to the server. It could be the css hasn't updated on the server

Actually do you want the user to upload the form?

Actually I am very confused

You have a membership page, with the link to a PDF which if a visitor clicks on it, it "DOWNLOADS" the pdf, which the visitor then can complete it and send the form back to someone,, In what way is the CSS not being updated when you FTP the project?
On another note
You have a page https://www.theavmsite.org/contact.html
with a contact form embedded which works ok (I tested it)

You also have a page
https://www.theavmsite.org/AVM%20Contact/AVM%20Contact.html
This URL also contains a space, which isn't a good thing, but then perhaps you are not intending to use that page, in which case you should delete it, or declare a "No Index" "No follow" in the page manager tab, of Site Designer.

This page has the same form as on the "Contact" page,, BUT THIS PAGE is just a page on it's own with no header/links or anything? which isn't a very good thing to have and can be a bit of a problem (not a serious one but also not a good experience for anyone who happens to land on it.) there are other errors throughout the site far more serious which can potentially put the website at a risk from those nasty spammers (real or robots)

Having an _blank on a link without adding the noopener and noreferrer attributes, can also be used by some of those nasty spammers/bots, who know how, to get a back door way in to your website (some modern day browsers, have started to stop this automatically, but it's not yet 100% guaranteed yet.)

The list goes on and on, however most of the errors don't actually stop your website from displaying, but it can seriously effect it and possible keep it from search engine results page listings (which by the very nature of the website, may not be too important a factor.) but is considered "Good Practice" for website designer/developers to follow.

Having said all that, I am still confused as to why you thinks the CSS isn't being updated when you upload the project,

The PDF

Thank you for all of that, I will have to work my way through that when I have time.

I don't believe the CSS is being updated because, at least for me, the link I included in my post does not match the screenshot of what the page looks like in SD that I included in my post - it is supposed to be a button, not a link. It's not a critical thing, but similar things have happened several times and I would like to understand what I am missing.

I did have the Membership form as an embedded form, but after I made some updates to that form, that also will not work as, instead of using the 2025 php file, it is trying to use the 2024 php file, no matter how many times I have removed the element and re-added it, following all of the Web Form Builder instructions to embed it. So I scrapped that for now and just wanted to have buttons. Which is also not working.

I assume the Contact page with the space is because I FTPd the higher level folder, as well as the files I was supposed to upload when I made that form in Web Form Builder. Otherwise, I have no idea how that came to be, as it does not exist in the project (see screenshot attached to this reply).

I am absolutely open to any and all feedback- as I said, I have been trying to teach myself how to use these things as I have time, which is obviously not the best method, but I can't quit my job to focus solely on this.

Thanks again for your time.

I don't believe the CSS is being updated because, at least for me, the link I included in my post does not match the screenshot of what the page looks like in SD that I included in my post - it is supposed to be a button, not a link. It's not a critical thing, but similar things have happened several times and I would like to understand what I am missing.

So you changed the "Button Link" to just a "Button" ? Then saved and exported the Site Sesigner file, then you uploaded the exported folder with all it's files etc (all of them) to the hosting service using FTP??

Which FTP App did you use ?

No, I used the "Button Link", but when I view the web page it is just a link, no button to be seen on any browser that I have used.

Yes, saved, exported, uploaded all files (all of them) using CoffeeCup Direct FTP.

I want the "Button Link" to open the pdf. I would like a button because a button is more visible than link text, and because that's how it is designed in the project that I saved, exported and uploaded no less than 5 times.

It is a button link and it downloads the PDF form bcs it's a document not a form

here is the HTML code
for that "Button-Link

<a class="link-button AVMbutton" href="docs/2025-AVM-Membership-Meeting-App.pdf"

Have you done a forced clearance of your browser cache?