How to build a website for your retail brand with Lightspeed eCom
A website serves as a hub for your brand, allowing you to establish an online presence and communicate your values, benefits, news and special offers.
Even if you have never created a website before, you can do it with Lightspeed eCom, an in-house E-commerce solution for Lightspeed Retail POS (X-Series). It offers a site builder with pre-designed templates for various business niches, easy-to-use tools for creating an information-based website, and ability to enable or disable an online shop with a single click.
On your site, you can share information about your benefits, list store locations to encourage people to visit your shops, provide tips and ideas on using your products, publish customer reviews, announce new arrivals, offer contact information for inquiries, and more.
Access the Lightspeed eCom site builder
To begin building a site, you need to enable Lightspeed eCom in your Lightspeed Retail POS (X-Series). After that, you will get a free website that you can customize to your liking in the site editor, or site builder, called Instant Site that provides you the following perks:
- No coding skills needed. You build a website by adding images, videos, and text content.
- Business-tailored site templates. Each template is ready for adjusting to your liking.
- Content variability. Add text, banners, images, videos, and case-specific sections such as customer reviews or special offers.
- Easy to add and edit pages. Add up to 100 pages to your site, or limit it to a single page.
- Ability to make your site multilingual. Translate your site to offer customers choose their preferred language.
- Setup-free domain connection. Buy a unique domain name that is automatically connected to your website without any manual settings.
- Single-click online shop enabling. You can always enable or disable an online store in one click.
To access the Lightspeed eCom site editor:
- Enable Lightspeed eCom.
- From your Retail POS, click Online in the menu on the left, scroll down and click Go to eCom.
- In the eCom admin, go to Website → Overview.
- Click Edit Site to open the editor.
Choose a template for your Lightspeed eCom website
When you first open the Lightspeed eCom website editor, you’re prompted to select one of dozens themes or templates created by professional designers. When choosing a template, focus on the layout and content arrangement, rather than the imagery since you will change images anyway.
A template is your starting point to build a site. You can customize it to your liking: add images, videos, text, buttons, carousels, promo bars, change colors, typography, and so on.
Learn more about choosing a site template →
Plan the structure of your Lightspeed eCom website
Before you begin designing your website, grab a sheet of paper, pencil, and write down what information you want to provide. For example, “I want to let people know about my brand, tell why it's better than competitors, and show where they can buy products”.
Good, now you have a ballpark outline of your site. This will help you to clarify the site structure and understand what pages to include.
In Lightspeed eCom website builder, you can add a separate page to each key topic. For example, you can have an "About Us" page to share your brand's story, a "Store Locations" page to display your shops on a map, and highlight the top three reasons you're better than your competitors right on the homepage. On each page, you can add sections with text and media content.
The exact site structure depends on your needs; there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Here are the most popular pages that retail brands add to their informational websites:
Homepage. Duh, obviously. The first page that people see when opening your site. It starts with the so-called ‘Hero Section’, the prominent, large area at the top that is designed to grab attention and convey key information about the brand or the page’s main message. Add video, or high-quality branded photos to encourage visitors to explore further. You can include a concise and compelling tagline that communicates your brand’s essence right on top of the video or image, or add a section below to share any important information. Be short and add just the most important information on the first page. You can tell more in detail on other pages.
About us. A storytelling heart of your site that helps build trust and connection with your audience by sharing your brand’s story, values, and mission. This page should include background information about your company, the people behind it, and what sets you apart from competitors. Adding photos, team bios, and a personal touch can make your brand more relatable and trustworthy.
Customer reviews. The testimonials page builds trust with people who are not familiar with your brand and provides valuable insights into product quality and performance, helping customers make informed decisions. Include not only positive reviews, but some with constructive feedback, and consider adding photos of customers using your products.
Store locations. A page with store locations helps customers find your physical stores easily. In Lightspeed eCom site builder, you can include an interactive map with pinpointed store locations, addresses, contact information, and store hours. Providing detailed directions and parking information can enhance the customer experience and drive foot traffic to your stores.
Legal pages. Even though your site is shop-free, you still might need to have legal pages, describing privacy policy, terms of service, and cookie consent notice. In Lightspeed eCom, you can customize your legal pages. Links to legal pages are displayed at the bottom of the site.
Special offers. The ‘Hot Deals’ page is essential for attracting and retaining customers by showcasing current promos and discounts. You will need to update this page regularly with new deals to keep customers in the loop and drive more conversions and sales. Instead of making an individual page, you can add banners or sliders on other pages to highlight special deals.
FAQ. The FAQ page addresses common questions and concerns, reducing the need for direct customer support and improving the user experience. Include answers to questions about materials, production, any specific product details, or anything that customers might want to know. A well-organized FAQ page can help customers find information quickly and make informed decisions.
Learn what pages to add on a site and tips on crafting each page →
When you have a clear site structure in front of you, you can start with designing a homepage, and gradually adding and editing more pages until you build the whole website.
Add text and media content to your Lightspeed eCom website
On each page of your site you add your custom text and media content.
Here is some advice on how to approach filling the site with text and media.
Creating copy for your website
Write in a text editor, not in the site builder. That way, it’s much faster to edit and easier to see any flaws.
Keep it simple when drafting copy. If you're struggling to describe your brand, imagine explaining it to a friend over coffee. Start with a clear, concise phrase that sums up what you do. Then, expand slightly by explaining how your products help people. You can refine the style later.
Be short. Try to keep it between 200 and 1000 words per page. On the homepage it’s best to mention up to 3 benefits or values of your brand.
Use strong calls to action. Encourage visitors to take specific actions with compelling and clear calls to action (CTAs). Phrases like "Learn More," or "Visit Store" can drive engagement and conversions.
Incorporate social proof. It’s always a good idea to include customer reviews and case studies to build trust and credibility. Highlighting positive feedback can reassure potential buyers and influence their purchasing decisions.
Optimize for SEO. Use relevant keywords naturally within your copy to improve search engine rankings. This helps attract organic traffic to your site and makes it easier for potential customers to find you online.
Adding images to your website
Real photos over stock photos. It's easy to spot stock images, and they don't build trust. It's better to take pictures of yourself and your team rather than relying on generic, pre-made images.
Use high-quality images. Ensure your images are high-resolution and professionally shot to create a polished and appealing look. There are many relatively inexpensive professionals on the market. Сonsider ordering a professional photoset of your team and products to use across a website, social media, merch, and so on.
Keep photos relevant. Select images that accurately represent your brand, products, and the message you want to convey. They should align with your content and enhance your storytelling.
Include alt text. Add descriptive alt text to each image to improve accessibility and help with SEO. This ensures search engines can understand and index your images.
Optimize your site for SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of making your site easy to find in Google. Since search engine robots need time to check and rate new webpages, older sites are more likely to be rated higher than new websites.
Below you will find general advice on how to adjust your site to drive organic traffic to your site. Please remember that even if you follow all tips, it may take 2-3 months to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented measures.
Creating SEO-friendly copy
Identify keywords relevant to your business. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to learn what words people use to search in your niche. Focus on long-tail keywords that are specific to your business and have lower competition. For example, instead of just "shoes," target "eco-friendly running shoes for women."
Be unique and substantive. Create only unique copy (images too, if possible). Optimize texts with keywords, but do not allow over-spamming. Avoid errors and typos since it lowers your site ranking in Google. Remember that texts are intended for people, so they must meet the needs of users. For example, if you describe how your brand stands out, aim for content that answers common questions or solves problems related to your products.
Use headings to structure your content. Incorporate keywords naturally into these headings to improve readability and SEO.
Break text into paragraphs. The easier it is for people to read your text, the less likely they will leave your site. Break text into short paragraphs for readability, add numbered and bulleted lists, highlight the main idea and the most important points. Insert images to simplify the perception of information.
Learn more about optimizing keywords in your store →
Optimizing site settings for a better SEO
Add meta descriptions. Meta descriptions are short summaries (about 150-160 characters) that appear below the page title in search engine results. They describe the page's content and are meant to entice people to click on the link. In Lightspeed eCom site editor, you can add unique and compelling meta descriptions for each page. Make sure to include long-tail keywords relevant to your audience needs. For example, “Trying on Running Shoes for Women in Portland”.
Create meaningful URLs. For each page on your site you create a unique URL slug. For example, “yourwebsite.com/about-us”. Keep URLs short, descriptive, and keyword-rich. For instance, “yourwebsite.com/hot-sauces-in-ohio”.
Optimize image names. When you upload an image from your device to your website, make sure to use descriptive, keyword-rich file names. For example, “eco-friendly-running-shoes.jpg”. You can also set up ALT text for each image. Image ALT text (also known as alt description, or simply “alt tag”) is a text that describes an image's appearance. It enhances website visibility in search results, ensures accessibility for visually impaired users, and improves user experience by providing descriptive text when images fail to load. ALT text also should be descriptive. For example, “Eco-friendly running shoes for women”.
By following these strategies, you can effectively optimize your Ecommerce-free website for SEO, driving more organic traffic and improving your online visibility.
Learn what Lightspeed eCom does for SEO by default →
Connect a domain to your Lightspeed eCom website
By default, your site is hosted on a free domain in a format of yourstore123.company.site. You can change the “yourstore123” part to any custom name, but the “company.site” part will remain unchanged.
Instead of using a default domain, you can connect your own. Connecting a unique domain to your website is a crucial step in establishing your online presence. It gives your site a professional appearance and builds trust with visitors, while also serving as part of your brand identity, making it easier for customers to remember and find you online.
In Lightspeed eCom, you can purchase a domain name right from your eCom admin. The best part is that you don’t have to set up the domain manually—after purchasing it is connected automatically to your website, with a free TLS certificate to protect your site.
Learn how to purchase a domain for your website →
Disable online store on your Lightspeed eCom website
By default, your website contains the online shop page with all the items that you’ve enabled for online. The link to the Shop page is also included in the site top menu. You will need to hide the Shop page and links to it in the top menu before launching a site.
You can always turn on the Shop page and start selling one or several items on your website.
To hide the Shop page and make site informative only:
- Remove the Shop menu item from the top menu.
- If you enable at least one product from your Retail POS to appear in your online store, then you have to delete the Shop page. If you haven’t enabled products for Lightspeed eCom, then skip this step.
Launch your Lightspeed eCom website
All the changes you make in the site editor are saved automatically. Changes won’t go live until you click the Publish button at the top right corner of the site editor.
While you design your site, you can click the Preview button at the top of the site editor to see how your site looks for visitors. You can switch between desktop and mobile views at the top to see how the site appears on different screens.
Before launching your site, it's essential to ensure everything is in perfect order. Here's a checklist to follow to make sure your site is ready for visitors: