How to hide or disable a product in your Squarespace online shop
Welcome back to another glorious blog post about Squarespace SEO… we’re at it again and this time we’re talking all about e-commerce!
I know many of you have a online shop/store that’s hosted by Squarespace so this might be particularly interesting to you as we move into the busiest shopping month of the year. Literally everyone and their cat is at home right now, shopping their brains out so you want to make sure your Squarespace shop is all set to pop off!
Whether you use Squarespace’s e-commerce platform to sell digital products, physical products, services, event tickets or something else, there’s A LOT to consider. Between the design, layout and content of your product descriptions and also SEO factors for how your product will be found online, this info could truly help you get in front of your ideal clients/customers AND make more sales! $$$
In this blog post, I’m going to give you a (short & sweet) tech video tutorial that shows you how to hide or disable a product in Squarespace. We’re also going to talk what that means from an SEO point of view. Double whammy :)
Alright without further ado, let’s jump straight in!
Related posts:
SQUARESPACE SEO SERIES
I have so many tips to share on the subject that it would have been crazy to put it all in one article! There are many misconceptions about Squarespace SEO which is why I've dedicate so many posts to this topic. Enjoy!
Click to view all posts in the Squarespace SEO Series
Visit my Squarespace SEO page for lots more resources.
How to hide or disable a product in Squarespace
This video tutorial shows a website using the Rally template (Brine family, Squarespace 7.0) but the process is the same if you’re using Squarespace 7.1
Hide or disable a product in Squarespace
Hide, disable, temporarily remove, unlist… it’s all the same thing here!
To temporarily remove or unlist a product from your Squarespace store:
Option 1:
Log in to the back end of your Squarespace website.
In the Home Menu, click Pages.
Click a Products Page.
Double-click a product to open the product editor.
Change the status from Visible to Hidden.
Click Save.
Option 2:
Log in to the back end of your Squarespace website.
In the Home Menu, click Inventory.
Double-click a product to open the product editor.
Change the status from Visible to Hidden.
Click Save.
Re-list or enable a hidden product in Squarespace
Once you decide you want to re-list, enable, show or display the product that you have temporarily hidden, it’s as simple as flicking an on/off switch! All you have to do is change the status from ‘Hidden’ to ‘Visible’.
To re-list or enable a hidden product from your Squarespace store:
Option 1:
Log in to the back end of your Squarespace website.
In the Home Menu, click Pages.
Click a Products Page.
Double-click a product to open the product editor.
Change the status from Hidden to Visible.
Click Save.
Option 2:
Log in to the back end of your Squarespace website.
In the Home Menu, click Inventory.
Double-click a product to open the product editor.
Change the status from Hidden to Visible.
Click Save.
When would you want to hide or disable a product in your Squarespace shop?
There are many reasons why you want to “hide” a product in your Squarespace online store. First of all, you might still be working on the product description and aren’t ready for it to be visible to customers quite yet. This allows you to update/edit the item in iterations without tinkering around with a live product listing.
Secondly, the product might not be something you want to sell all the time. Maybe it’s a digital product that you only want listed several times a year during a launch period. Or perhaps the product is basically a ticket to a workshop/masterclass that you host occasionally. In these cases, you don’t want to have to delete the product entirely and then re-create/re-style the product each time you want to use it. Instead, it’s better to keep the product hidden until you’re ready to use it again, maybe make a few small tweaks then you’re good to go.
Personally, I use this feature all the time (as you can see in the screenshot above)!
Let’s use my Squarespace SEO Masterclasses as an example. I created a basic product for a “service” which essentially acts as the tickets for anyone who wants to attend the paid Masterclass. But obviously, I don’t want the Masterclass product listing to be live all the time, because I don’t host the Masterclass on-demand LOL! So, I just keep the product hidden and then whenever I’m ready to host a new Masterclass, I simply update any variable information (e.g. date) and then turn it live.
Same thing goes for several other offerings I sell via my Squarespace online shop. My group program, the Squarespace SEO Intensive, is another great example here. I only teach this program live once or twice a year so obviously I don’t want the product listing to be live all the time… because I don’t want people to just randomly purchase it since it’s not self-study. So, similarly to what I explained above, I set up the product as a “service” and then customized the sales page for the offering. I keep it “hidden” until I’m ready to re-launch the intensive, at which time I update any important info and then turn the product to Live.
Hiding products and Squarespace SEO
Note: “Hiding” products only means that they will not display in public view (e.g., on your Products page or online shop). Search engines will still crawl and index these hidden products and may still reveal them. In most cases this isn’t something you need to worry about but I still think it’s worth noting because it might have an effect on SEO and how the hidden products appear in online searches.
If you absolutely do not want the hidden product to show up anywhere online or in any online search results, then you would have to fully delete the product listing and re-create/re-list it again in the future. Again, this is probably not necessary but it’s something to keep in mind :)
Final Thoughts
And there you have it, a simple tutorial on how to hide or disable products in your Squarespace online shop. Super simple, right?
I love this built in feature because it saves you time and effort since you won’t have to re-add or re-style/format a product listing that you use occasionally…. instead, it just kind of sits on pause, hidden from public view until you’re ready to push it live again!
Now it's your turn to tell me, do you have an online shop as part of your Squarespace website? Have you ever used this feature before? Have you ever had a hidden product show up in online search results?
Leave me your questions down in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them. As people are spending more time online than ever before, it’s SO important that your website shows up properly in search results so that you can reach your ideal audience online - but you can’t do this without SEO! If you follow my tutorial and keep my tips in mind, you’ll have the foundations in place to start growing FAST and seeing results.
If you want more SEO goodness, be sure to check out my Squarespace SEO page for all resources on the topic.
My signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO, will be opening for enrollment again soon - sign up for the TSS waiting list here!
You can also sign up for my newsletter (right here or below), where I often share Squarespace SEO tips, tricks and high-quality exclusive content. I send out emails to my list every Wednesday, mostly focused on Squarespace websites and SEO, and I can guarantee that you’ll find the newsletter topics interesting, entertaining and worth your time. #humblebrag
Finally, shameless plug: hit me up with any specific questions you have about Squarespace SEO and your website because I’m your girl. You can reach out to me directly if you’re interested in working together on your website and we can talk about whether or not you would be a good fit for my consulting and ongoing services. I can’t take on every request to do Squarespace SEO consulting but I do pick a few websites and businesses to work with every month and I’d love for you to be one of them.
You may also be interested in:
Top Squarespace SEO - online course details and enrollment
Squarespace SEO for Affiliate Marketing - masterclass
