15 Things to Update on Your eCommerce Website
I originally wrote a variation of this post as a series around the beginning of COVID. I was feeling somewhat hopeless and didn’t know what else to do but try to come up with all the ideas I could to help businesses that were struggling and just trying to find their footing online. As we settle into a new normal (one where eCommerce reigns supreme) I thought it was time to run through those old posts and pick out my favorite tips - plus a few new ones!
These are all actionable things that you can do yourself on your eCommerce website. Some of these tips are improvements that will just take you a few minutes to set up (#11 Display Limited Availability Labels), others are a little more long-form (#4 Work on Your Website’s SEO)... but all of these are things that will help you make sure you’re getting the most out of your eCommerce site on Squarespace.
1. Keep Customers in the Loop with Email Newsletters
Email Marketing Use email newsletters to directly inform customers and drive sales. With Squarespace Email Campaigns, beautifully designed and personalized emails are made simple.
Best practices include:
Send a monthly newsletter with promotions and new product highlights
Make signup frictionless with opt-in forms across your site
Customize coupon codes and product recommendations using customer data
Craft compelling subject lines that get opened
Test layouts, content types and timing to see what best resonates
Set up automated post-purchase and win-back flows
Email is your owned digital real estate. Use it to build relationships and boost repeat business from current customers.
2. Set Up Pinterest Rich Pins
Pinterest is pretty much the only “social media” platform I actively participate in as a business and that’s because it’s not really a social media platform at all - it’s a search engine! People are on Pinterest every day to find new things to try and research purchases so you should definitely make sure that this is part of your marketing strategy.
Taking just a little time to make sure your domain is verified will make sure that all pins from your domain are Rich Pins - making them full of data like price and links right to your shop, blog, or site!
3. Add an Announcement Bar
This is that little blurb or strip at the top of your site that can be used to communicate news, sales, discounts, or even just changes in business operations - like if your business hours are variable right now or you’re closed for a holiday. I would keep whatever you put in your announcement bar short and sweet! If you have a lot to say, link the announcement bar to a full page instead of trying to cram a fat note in a little space (Tommy Boy reference for the win)!
4. Work on your site’s SEO
SEO is definitely a long game situation and not something that you’re going to be able to see the results of tomorrow or even next week. But, if you keep working at it I promise your efforts will pay off - no special plugins or hacks required! If you want to learn more about eCommerce SEO, check out this post on my site all about it. Otherwise, the link below from Squarespace support has a pretty awesome checklist of all the things that you can be working on to make sure your site is getting noticed by search engines and humans alike!
5. Create Trackable Links
If you’re setting up ads on platforms like Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube, etc. there’s a tool from Squarespace that you probably didn’t know would make it so much easier to track your efforts! Using the Squarespace URL builder you can create unique tracking links so that in your analytics you can see cool stuff like how many visitors came from each ad and how much revenue was generated. This can really help you plan your advertising more strategically since you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about what’s resonating with your audience and performing well.
6. Create a Promotional Pop-Up
Love ‘em or hate ‘em - pop-ups can be effective when done right! The key is to switch it up often so that people don’t get fatigued by seeing the same thing all the time. You also don’t want to have a pop-up just for pop-up’s sake. Make sure the content you’re showing really needs to be in your face. It can also pay off to be more strategic about using a pop-up only when you have super cool stuff - like a sale or promo. Those links are much more clickable than repeated requests to sign up for your mailing list 😊
7. Sell Online Gift Cards
This is such an easy way to allow people to buy from you and lots of people are still in the habit of buying gift cards to use for themselves as a way to show support for their favorite small businesses. Gift cards are easy to set up on Squarespace and redeeming them is as simple as entering a coupon code!
8. Add Product Waitlists
If you have a product that isn’t quite ready for sale -- or one that’s been sold old that you want to allow people to be notified of when it’s back in stock -- product waitlists on Squarespace are for you! This system is pretty cool and automatic and it’s just based on the inventory count levels you set up - another reason to make sure your inventory counts are accurate in Squarespace. The one confusion that I see people often have with this is that it’s confused as a backorder system but this doesn’t actually process an order from the customer, just allows them to sign up to be notified when a product becomes available or is back in stock. They then have to visit the site again to make the actual purchase.
9. Mark a Product as Sold Out
This can go hand-in-hand with the tip above but the reason why I mention it separately is that it’s worth noting that you can modify that “sold out” label to say anything you want! So, if that wording doesn’t really vibe with what you’re selling or how your site works you can change it. For example, if you sell unique items that only have one quantity available for each changing the label so it just says “Sold” makes more sense than “sold out”. You could also make it say something like “Workshop Full” or “Coming Soon!” - whatever works for you!
10. Have a Sale
When you’re looking to drum up some fresh eyes on your brand, go with one of the oldest tricks in the book - have a sale! The best sales are planned strategically well in advance and the Squarespace help article linked below does a great job at laying out all the built-in tools at your disposal. You can also check out this post all about coupons, offers, discounts, and promos if you’re wanting to really dig into some of the deeper pricing strategy and buyer psychology behind sales and discounts.
11. Display Limited Availability Labels
Effectively merchandising your online store is an ongoing process but using tools like limited availability labels is a great quick win! These call outs can create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to not put off purchases. If you’re looking for another way to highlight products, check out this plugin created by yours truly over on Ghost Plugins! It involves a little bit of cut-and-paste code so that you can highlight any products you’ve tagged as featured.
12. Display Related Products
This tool offers two different opportunities to win. The first is obvious: helping people to discover more products that you offer that they might want to purchase. The second: keeping people clicking and on your site increases the length of time people spend on your site which is great for your SEO, even if they don’t end up buying anything. Something I like about this feature in Squarespace is that you can set up the related products for each product independently, so if it makes sense for one product to only show more products that are in the same category but another to show products in a related category - go wild!
13. Add a Scheduler to Your Site
I recently wrote a post all about how Squarespace Scheduling is the secret eCommerce tool you’re probably not using yet. (Check it out here!) The hidden power of this feature is that it is nearly infinitely customizable to fit any business type; you don’t need to use it to just set up Zoom meetings 😂 You can use Scheduling to set up in-store shopping appointments, sell tickets to workshops, create packages of services and more.
14. Train a Chatbot
A chatbot powered by LiveChat enables you to simulate real conversations to provide customer support, product info, and promotional offers around the clock. Rather than staffing live chat yourself, you can create conversational chatbot flows to engage site visitors.
For example, your chatbot can answer frequently asked questions about shipping, sizing, returns and more. It can also proactively reach out to start discussions, send coupon codes, get feedback through surveys, and capture email signups, leading to more sales. With predefined responses andredirects to human agents when needed, your customers get quick answers and you recoup hours previously spent managing live chat.
Key benefits of investing time in chatbot training include reduced strain on your customer service team, the ability to capture leads and promote 24/7 regardless of your real-life availability, and hyper personalized 1-on-1 conversations. LiveChat seamlessly integrates with Squarespace too, making setup a breeze.
Don't let your store go silent when you walk away. Implement a chatbot to keep quality conversations with customers going around the clock and drive more conversions.
15. Set Up Curbside or In-Store Pickup
I go into complete detail on how to set up in-store and curbside pickup on either Squarespace or Shopify in this post and also give some tips and caveats to keep in mind. Adding this as a “shipping” option can help your customers see your website and your physical location as related parts of the same business - which is a great thing! Traffic online can lead to traffic in-store and vice versa. Also, offering free local pickup can be a great way for your business to compete since it means people can get their hands on your products faster and cheaper than buying from someone else online.
