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The announcement bar is one of my favourite marketing features that’s built into Squarespace’s platform.

It’s an easy and effective way to customize a website and make sure that visitors are presented with important information.

There are so many creative ways you can use Squarespace’s announcement bar but ultimately it comes down to promoting a specific call-to-action (CTA). It’s a wonderful way to get that information in front of your audience right off the bat, on every page of your website.

You can set it up in a few simple clicks but the real fun begins when you start customizing your message. Get creative and have fun with it!

Let’s take a look at 9 creative uses for Squarespace’s announcement bar.

Enable the Squarespace announcement bar setting

First thing’s first : make sure that shiz is enabled!

Before you decide how you are going to use the announcement bar, you must first make sure that the setting is enabled on your Squarespace website.

Click here to see my post & video tutorial on how to add and customize a Squarespace announcement bar.

Once you have the announcement bar enabled on your Squarespace website, you can go in and customize the colours, text and links as you see fit!

The announcement bar is most commonly displayed above the Navigation bar or main menu section so it's very visible on a website and can be eye-catching if designed correctly.

How to use the announcement bar creatively on your Squarespace website

There are many ways that you can use the announcement bar on your Squarespace website but here are a few of my favourite approaches. Some of these tactics will make sense for some websites/brands/businesses more than others but hopefully you see just how versatile this little marketing tool can be!

1. Promote products/services

Let’s start off by looking at one of the more popular uses for the Squarespace announcement bar.

The Squarespace announcement bar is a fantastic way to promote your offerings, whether that’s with products, services, or something else.

The CTA in the announcement bar should be something actionable, so think about what steps you want site visitors to take when they click on the link. Do you want them to book a your packages? Purchase a product? Take advantage of a certain offering? Basically the goal here is to drive clicks over to your business offerings on your website.

Get clear about what product/service you’re highlighting or focused on promoting through the announcement bar and link to it with a strong CTA. Use clear and direct language here e.g., “Book a session” or “Shop our yoga mats” or “View our monthly packages and rates”.

On my own website, I’m currently using the announcement bar as a way to promote my latest masterclass on Squarespace SEO for Affiliate marketing. See the screenshot below:

Charlotte O'Hara website squarespace announcement bar example

2. Offer a free discovery call

One of the best ways to convert someone from site visitor to paying customer is by offering a free discovery call. This is particularly effective for new businesses who are starting out and don’t have a waiting list of clients yet. Squarespace has an integration with Acuity scheduling so the entire process can be done automatically - all you have to do is show up :)

Free discovery calls are a really effective way to convert business leads from site visitors to paid customers and they don’t have to be a huge commitment either.

I’ve seen this work really well for services providers in all different types of industries, anyone from consultants to coaches to therapists to graphic designers etc. As a web designer/developer, I strongly recommend that services based businesses try it out and use the announcement bar as a way to highlight these free discovery calls.

Use the announcement bar to link to the page that has more information about the discovery calls and offers the option to book one automatically.

3. Sell or book event tickets

The announcement bar is a great place to link event tickets that people can purchase or book through your website.

Squarespace has a great integration with Eventbrite so you can easily promote events and sell tickets directly on you site.

Events can take many different forms and formats: in person, digital summits, workshops, webinars, livestreams, etc.

Whether you’re selling event tickets directly through your or instructing people to book their free spot for an event, the process is the same : include the link in the announcement bar and write out a clear CTA.

4. Promote a freebie or email newsletter opt-in

No matter what type of website you have, I’m a firm believer that every business or brand needs to start and grow an email list today.

But sometimes I see people make the mistake of simply asking someone to join their email list… with nothing in return. The fact is, that isn’t exactly an enticing offer for someone who lands on your website. Why would they join your newsletter when all you’re promising is something generic like “exclusive content” or “fun news” or a way to “stay up to date”? Honestly I wouldn’t give up my email address for that so you can’t expect your website visitors to do the same.

A much better approach that ALWAYS converts higher is to offer someone a valuable freebie in exchange for their email address.

This freebie is sometimes known as an opt-in gift or lead magnet, or you might also hear it called a content upgrade if it’s offered in a blog post. Essentially what you’re doing is collecting the person’s email address and giving them something useful in return. This could be a PDF, checklist, reference or resources document, templates, exclusive video training, basically anything under the sun.

You can use the announcement bar as a way to promote that email list opt-in or freebie. In the CTA, clearly identify your offering and link to a landing page where the site visitor can opt-in to get their freebie. For example, I have a very simple landing page for my Squarespace SEO Checklist (which is a freebie I offer people who then join my email list) and if I wanted to promote my freebie even further, I could like to it with the announcement bar.

Trust me, it works really well.

5. Promotion or discount code

This is a popular tactic for e-commerce or product-based businesses : they will use the announcement bar to share a promotion or discount code that site visitors can use on their first or next purchase.

There are a few ways you can set this up using Squarespace’s announcement bar.

First of all, include the promo or discount code directly in the announcement bar text. Easy, no fluff. Anyone who sees the code advertised on your site can use it whenever. For example “Get 10% using the code CHARLOTTELOVESU”.

The other option is get the site visitor to enter their email address and then you email them with the exclusive promo or discount code. This requires you to set up a basic email automation and it is an added step, but it can be useful because then you have their email address to add to your email list. For example, “Get 10% off your next purchase! Sign up here” or something.

6. Announce a sale

This is another way that many e-commerce or product-based businesses will use the announcement bars, but it could work for services based businesses too!

Let’s say you’re running a special holiday sale, like for Black Friday or Christmas or Memorial day - whatever.

You could set the announcement bar to say something like “BLACK FRIDAY SALE : GET 25% OFF UNTIL FRIDAY AT MIDNIGHT” or “TAKE 15% OFF ALL [ITEM NAME] FOR MEMORIAL DAY”.

These sales usually have a set start and end date so you must remember to update the announcement bar after the sale is over.

7. Launch the latest collection or item

I love this strategy because it works well for any brand or business that has several launches throughout the year.

Let’s say that you’re launching a brand new product collection on the first of the month. You would use the announcement bar to share the launch date and news and then link to the launch collection page where people can shop the items.

Once the launch period wraps up, just go in and change out the CTA in the announcement bar.

8. Share your schedule & availability for services

The announcement bar is a great place to share your availability as a services based business. For example, you might say something like “Now accepting clients” or “Booking now for June 2019” or “Two spots available for May 2019!” “or join the waitlist for Summer 2019”, something along those lines.

This way, site visitors have an idea of your schedule and whether or not you’re accepting clients. If they know that you aren’t taking on new clients or projects until later in the year, that will save them from enquiring about your services only to find out that you don’t have room in your schedule -essentially a dead lead for your business.

9. Latest blog post or video tutorial

If all else fails and you have no clue how to use the announcement bar, simply share a link to your latest piece of content! This could be a blog post, video tutorial, live stream, whatever :)

Keep it simple, nothing fancy here. This isn’t the most creative use for the announcement bar but it’s better than leaving it empty!

Final Thoughts

There you have it, 9 creative ways to use Squarespace’s announcement bar! No matter what approach you take, it’s a fun marketing feature to include on your website.

Stick to a strong and compelling call-to-action and you will see that the announcement bar encourages people to take action and click over to key parts of your website.

Now it’s your turn to tell me, do you have the announcement bar enabled on your Squarespace website? How do you use it right now? What’s your CTA and how is it working out for you? Have you changed up how you use the announcement bar at all? I’d love to know so leave me a note in the comments below!

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