How to Use ClickFunnels with Squarespace

When building an online business, you will need a strong website design platform and premier marketing software to optimize the user experience and convert as much traffic to sales as possible.

The problem is that there are no all-in-one products that are both elite website builders and marketing tools, which has left many entrepreneurs wondering if they can use the popular website builder, Squarespace, with the sales-generating platform, ClickFunnels.

Businesses can create a dynamic online presence by using ClickFunnels to send traffic to their Squarespace website. However, as there is no native integration between the two, the process for hosting ClickFunnels pages under a Squarespace domain is quite involved.

If you can integrate ClickFunnels into the same domain as your Squarespace website, users will have the impression that they are navigating through one cohesive site as they move through the sale process. While this may be better than having two separate websites, owners must be advised that the process is not as simple as installing a ClickFunnels plug-in or app on Squarespace and may require a professional web developer’s assistance to complete.

Using Squarespace to Generate Income

For those entrepreneurs looking to build a business website or online store, there are many options available, such as Weebly, Wix, Shopify, or GoDaddy, to name a few. However, Squarespace is one of the most common web-building platforms that ranks at the top of the list for online businesses in terms of functionality and ease of use.

With Squarespace, users will get both website building and hosting (the service of providing storage and World Wide Web access for sites), which features a wide selection of pre-designed templates and drag-and-drop options, allowing entrepreneurs to modify and customize the website as they see fit.

While Squarespace has evolved over the years to incorporate some marketing and e-commerce tools, these are mainly just additional features that add some insight for the owner and do not have an extraordinary ability to influence consumer behavior or increase sales. Squarespace will come with—or provide apps or plug-ins—for the following marketing features on the platform itself:

Banner and Promotion Ads

Using banners and other pop-up ads, the entrepreneur can highlight important sales, discounts, or featured products being offered through the website. These promotional advertisements are useful for calling attention to single items or products when customers are already at the site but do not effectively optimize revenue from traffic as funnels that can upsell products throughout the visit.

Email Lists

Like most website builders, Squarespace offers the ability to create mailing lists from the email addresses of customers who have made a purchase on the site.

The power in this is that once customers have already made a purchase, they are more likely to repeat business, so entrepreneurs should have a high success rate of emailing products and promotions to these addresses.

In addition, email lists allow the entrepreneur to easily send news and content updates found on the site to interested users without them actually having to visit the web page.

Analytics Data

Another essential marketing feature provided with Squarespace is analytic data. This will give the site owner information such as the number of visits, number of clicks, items sold from the store, and total revenues.

Savvy entrepreneurs can use this information to help make informed decisions about what kind of content drives traffic to their site and which sales or promotions led to the largest increases in sales revenue.

SEO Features

An essential aspect of contemporary digital marketing is search engine optimization (SEO); this is the principle that your website or content is among the first results that show up when consumers do an online search in a given area.

To have an SEO friendly site, it is crucial to have trending snippets and content phrases, and Squarespace offers hints on how you can make your website rank better in searches.

Social Media

Businesses in the 21st century do not have much success without a strong social media presence, as platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are browsed hours each day by billions of eyes waiting to be marketed to.

In addition, it is often much easier to quickly get out information about your business via social media than by updating your site, so Squarespace offers features that build buttons to all your business’ social media platforms. Furthermore, Squarespace even has a feature that allows customers to buy a product directly through Instagram, which appeals to a younger user base.

Why Use Sales Funnels with Squarespace?

While the marketing features mentioned above are a bonus of building a site with Squarespace, marketing is not the site’s bread-and-butter. These features are generally offered by all contemporary web-building platforms and do little to influence customer behavior in terms of making more profitable purchase decisions.

This is because the marketing features included on Squarespace are limited to the landing page model. The landing page model is where the customer is directed to a specific sales page (landing page) and is generally left alone to complete the purchase process.

Through this landing page model, the business owner gets no real chance to build a relationship with the customer or gain information about their purchase preferences. By directing customers to a landing page, businesses are basically saying, “Here is what we are selling. Buy it if you want, but if not, see you later.”

While it is inevitable that all web traffic will “land” on a specific page, astute digital marketers know that this is not enough to optimize sales, so the use of sales funnels were created to help build relationships with online customers and guide them through their purchase experience. Enter: ClickFunnels.

Using ClickFunnels to Generate Income

ClickFunnels is an industry leader in the concept of sales funnels in digital marketing. Effectively employing digital sales funnels allows you to create an entire marketing campaign, and all you have to do is sit back and let the software do the work for you.

Most digital sales funnels, sometimes referred to as conversion funnels, will have some form of the following characteristics to snare traffic and get them to engage with a product:

• Traffic Sources – This refers to the various ways that customers may arrive at your business’ website, either through a search engine, social media link, or referral from another site.
• Top of the Funnel – This is where the customer is aware of your business’ products or services; this is likely to be the traditional landing page that is basic to most business websites.
• Middle of the Funnel – This is where sales funnels start to separate themselves. The software gets a feel for the products in which the customer is interested and guides them to click through related options and add them to the cart.
• Bottom of the Funnel – This is the point in the funnel where the customer has chosen all the products they are interested in, and the sale is finalized. For poorly planned marketing campaigns, the sale would be the end goal, but astute marketers know that the sale can be the beginning of a fruitful relationship.
• Re-Engagement – The software will get as much contact information as possible at the close of the sale and cultivate repeat business through email campaigns and tailored advertisements; this can also be a time for the company to try to recapture prospects that did not close on their purchase earlier.

While the steps mentioned above are some general concepts you will see in digital sales funnels, ClickFunnels has some specific features unique to its industry-leading software.

Sales Pages

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

This is the meat and potatoes of the ClickFunnels marketing campaign in which customers are given all the information necessary to make a purchase. Typically consisting of three pages, you can use a combination of text, photos, and videos to market your products to an online audience.

This content should answer all questions about the products or services your website offers and leave the consumer confident of the benefits of purchasing from your business.

Opt-in Section

Another term for re-engagement, this section entices potential customers to provide some contact information; this is usually an email address so that future marketing content can be directed at them. In return for this valuable information, you will typically give them something in return, such as a free video or PDF download.

Gathering prospective customers’ email addresses is essential for ClickFunnels’ users because the software allows for the automated generation of marketing content to be blasted out to the company’s mailing list.

Webinar and Membership

ClickFunnels allows you to create landing pages with specific details of any video courses or downloadable material you may be selling. The software provides the option of charging a one-time fee or a recurring subscription for this content.

While ClickFunnels does provide the user with the ability to create a website with its software, marketing remains the platform’s specialty. The websites generated through ClickFunnels do not look as professional as those originated on Squarespace, which is why many entrepreneurs want to use Squarespace to develop a professional website but incorporate the market prowess of ClickFunnels to direct traffic to their sales page. 

Why Use ClickFunnels Over Other Funnels?

While sales funnels have been present on the Internet for a long time, the chief reason that ClickFunnels has become so popular among online entrepreneurs is that it allows people to build funnels without an advanced knowledge of website coding quickly. All you have to do is bring a saleable product to the table, and the ClickFunnels software will do the rest.

However, while ClickFunnels can help you make great sales pages, opt-ins, and memberships sections, these are far from the only tricks that make ClickFunnels a must-have marketing tool for businesses.

ClickFunnels allows you to perfect the art of funnel hacking, which is the technique of using what appears to be working for your competitors and testing it against your own marketing efforts to come up with the ideal funnel strategy. The funnel hacking process involves several steps, all of which ClickFunnels can help you perform to perfection.

Track the Competition

It should be noted that funnel hacking is not the process of simply copying competitors but using a blend of competitors’ marketing strategies and adjusting them against your own to come up with the perfect sales funnels.

As such, the first step in funnel hacking is to make a list of all the competitors in the same market or niche as you. These can be direct competitors that offer similar products or services as you or indirect competitors who address a few of the same points as your business.

After you have a list of the competition, add a screenshot of their site pages to your competition folder, adding to this folder as you gain more information about the competitor. A great way to gain knowledge is by getting added to their email list and seeing what kinds of ads they are using and auto-responses they are getting.

Make a Note of the Strategies You Want to Test

After you have a clear idea of the funnels your competitors are using, you will be able to modify and test funnels of your own. When deciding on the strategies you want to use, some points to keep in mind are their site design and landing page elements, the type of content being used, and copywriting strategies.

An important point to remember is that you are not trying to completely revamp your funnel based on an observation of your competition. You want to keep your original funnel based on your strategy and make small adjustments to see what works and what does not.

Delve into Advanced Competitor Analysis

While the first two points form the general grounds for funnel strategy, you will need to dig deeper to get advanced insights on your competition. Among the many tools to help you accomplish this include:

• SEMRush – This helps you learn about the competition’s backlinking strategy and organic SEO traffic.
• Ghostery – This detects web bugs, trackers, and pixels your competitors use so you can get an idea about their conversion tracking strategies and remarketing efforts
• ADBeat – This lets you know how competitors spend their advertising money.

While these pieces of software are excellent for performing in-depth competitor analysis, the best thing you can do is actually purchase a competitor’s product; this will give you direct information about how the competition is upselling, cross-selling, and carrying out customer service.

Revamp Your Efforts

After you know what funnel efforts you want to hack from your competitors, it is time to make changes to your ClickFunnels. An easy way to do this is by choosing the templates on ClickFunnels that look most like the competitor you are trying to hack, customizing it to your liking, and employing it on your own page.

While your new funnels may contain hacks at any level of the funnel, some of the most common components of your competitors’ funnels you may want to incorporate into your own include landing pages, email sequences, and/or upsell offers.

Test the New Funnel

Once your new ClickFunnel is created, you can start driving traffic and see how the changes impact conversions and other marketing goals. If the changes do not have the desired effect, go back, and repeat the funnel hacking process for a different funnel element.

If the new funnel was successful, remember that competition is constantly evolving, so it is essential to keep a close eye on your competitors to ensure that your funnels remain strong.

Why Use Squarespace with ClickFunnels?

As mentioned, there is no shortage of website options for businesses to create their online presence. There are different platforms to choose from to integrate with ClickFunnels, so why do companies often go with Squarespace?

Squarespace tends to be at the forefront of the public consciousness and atop many lists for best web designing platforms. Although it is not necessarily the most affordable platform on the market, there are several reasons why Squarespace is a top web development option to combine with ClickFunnels.

Templates

While some drag-and-drop platforms create an end product that looks exceedingly amateur and little more than a customized social media page, Squarespace has long provided the sleekest, most professional-looking templates on the market.

Furthermore, with the latest Squarespace 7.1 update, users have full access to all the customization options available with each template, leaving owners little doubt about what the final web page will look like upon completion.

Editor

The latest Squarespace update allows users to incorporate pre-built sections into the layout. Not only does this expedite the process of building a page, but it gives the user the ability to visualize what the final page will look like as editing unfolds.

The text editor is also extremely user-friendly, as you simply have to click on the text on the page and make the changes as you go; this differs from the text editing features on other platforms that require the content to be entered into text boxes on the side, with text not able to be seen on the page itself until the text box is updated.

Blog

Squarespace offers one of the best blog features on the market, which helps businesses that want to produce new content frequently and have it appear as professional as possible. It is one of the only web builders that creates blog content on par with that of WordPress.

Using the blog builder on Squarespace, users can conveniently view all posts at a glance, schedule posts for release on specific days, and create drafts to be saved for later editing.

Final strong points for Squarespace’s blog feature are an easy-to-use app that allows for remote blogging and a podcast streaming feature that will enable you to submit content created from your website directly to iTunes.

Integrating ClickFunnels with Squarespace

As the marketing tools included with Squarespace are not strong enough and the web building abilities of ClickFunnels are lacking, entrepreneurs want the best of both worlds by finding ways to integrate the two platforms into one comprehensive online presence.

While the process is doable, it is not necessarily easy. As ClickFunnels is not a business partner of Squarespace, no ClickFunnels app or plug-in can be added to your website’s layout that will seamlessly link ClickFunnels to your business’ sales page.

Therefore, to make ClickFunnels and Squarespace work in conjunction, your ClickFunnels account must be written as part of the web page coding on your business’ sales page.

This process can best be handled by a professional web designer who is adept in web coding script, but as long as you have an active account for both platforms, the general process can be done with the following steps:

1. Create a new ClickFunnels folder in your website storage on Squarespace.
2. Add your ClickFunnels content to this folder. Remember, this is not an automated process and will take some time and patience to do.
3. Build your website on Squarespace, making sure all the details are just how you want them. Some standard pages for a typical business website include Home, About Us, Products, Privacy Policy, and Contact.
4. Build your marketing page using your ClickFunnels account. The content on this page will be used to influence customers to make a purchase, so be sure to include all relevant marketing text, photos, and videos on your ClickFunnels page.
5. Add buttons that will drive traffic to your Products page on the Squarespace website. Common buttons found on ClickFunnels marketing pages might say “BUY NOW” or “CLICK HERE.” By clicking on these buttons, the customer will be taken to your Products page where their selections will be added to the cart, with instructions on how to proceed to checkout.

By stopping after these first five steps, you will have a functioning Squarespace website and separate marketing page through ClickFunnels that drives traffic back to your main website.

However, some entrepreneurs may want to integrate the two platforms more seamlessly and host the ClickFunnels page under the same domain used for their Squarespace site. This requires an additional level of computer savvy, with access to the DNS server and a strong understanding of computer coding, HTML, and web development language.

The main advantage of going through the additional steps of hosting ClickFunnels under the Squarespace domain is the impression that the two platforms are operating as one site, which can perhaps validate your marketing page and make the whole layout seem more professional.

However, taking these extra steps does not add efficiency to your marketing campaign or drive more customers to make a purchase decision.

Cons of Using ClickFunnels with Squarespace

While combining how you use Squarespace with ClickFunnels offers plenty of benefits, it is worth noting one significant disadvantage before deciding to integrate the two.

One downside in using ClickFunnels in conjunction with Squarespace is that you will be paying a good chunk of money in terms of subscription fees. While this can be an issue for young businesses that have not secured a steady stream of revenue, it should be a drop in the bucket for those businesses that have effectively formed synergies between the two platforms to increase sales on their website.

• Squarespace Fees – Although there are many different plans and combinations of plans to choose from that will come with varying price points for web building and hosting using Squarespace, you will likely be looking at the cost of anywhere from $12 to $40 per month.
• ClickFunnels Fees – ClickFunnels charges more for its marketing services, with its start-up plan costing $97 per month; this gives the user the ability to build 20 funnels that use up to 100 total pages. The elite Etison Suite (ClickFunnels Platinum), which provides unlimited funnels and pages, will cost $297 per month. (Source: ClickFunnels)

As such, the cheapest combination of these platforms will cost over $100 per month, with the most luxury option having a total cost of over $300 per month. However, many entrepreneurs find that the amount of revenue you can make by integrating both is well worth the price.

Conclusion

When building a business online, it isn’t easy to find a do-it-all product that scores well in website development and product marketing features. Therefore, entrepreneurs often try to combine the elements of the web building leader, Squarespace, and online marketing juggernaut ClickFunnels, to create a comprehensive online presence that converts traffic into sales at a high rate.

On the one hand, using these platforms in conjunction is difficult because there is no native integration between the two. On the other, if you use Squarespace to build your website and ClickFunnels to market the content on that website, each can play an essential role in creating a dynamic online presence for your business.

For those with access to the DNS server and experience in web coding and HTML, it is possible to get your ClickFunnel pages under the same domain as your Squarespace site, which can give both your site and marketing a uniform appearance online. However, this will require significant extra work (and perhaps the assistance of professional know-how) and is not shown to generate additional traffic or purchases from your ClickFunnels.

If you’re ready to get started, click here for a two-week FREE trial for ClickFunnels, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!