Adding Ecwid store via Instant Site on a subdomain

You can add an Ecwid store to any website. However, some technical issues might occur after adding your store on iFrame-based sites like GoDaddy or New Google Sites.

In that case, you still can have an online store on your website by adding a free Ecwid Instant Site with a built-in store to your site’s subdomain. A subdomain is an “additional” part of the “main” domain. For example, your domain name is my-site.com and you create the shop.my-site.com subdomain where you can add your online store.

To add your Ecwid store on subdomain, make sure your provider supports creating subdomains.

Introducing: Instant Site on your subdomain

When you sign up to Ecwid, you get a forever free Instant Site with a built-in store. That Instant Site can be easily added to a subdomain of your existing site. That way, you are safe from any iFrame-related issues on your GoDaddy or New Google site since you are not using any code to embed your store.

After adding Instant Site, all you have to do is create links or buttons that navigate from your main website page to your subdomain. For example, add the Our Store button to the navigation menu or the Shop Here link to the text. For your site visitors, it will feel like they are switching between the pages of the same website.

Why connect Instant Site on a subdomain

Adding your Instant Site on a subdomain has its benefits:

• Flexibility. Adding an Instant Site to your website will work even for platforms with iframe-related issues like GoDaddy or New Google Sites.
• Time efficiency. If you already have a website that is up and running, with a structure that is working for you well, reorganizing the content and moving to another platform can take time. You can keep your site as it is and simply empower it with a store. No need to move your content anywhere.
• Branding. When you already build your brand awareness, you can keep that brand name for your site and just add a store on it. For example, you can start selling merchandise of your music band.
• Customizing SEO for the store. The SEO settings for your website and subdomain are different. That means, you can set up different SEO settings for your site and store. Ecwid has a wide range of SEO tools so you can experiment with search optimization for your main page and online store’s page.
• Uptime. Since your online store is on the Instant Site hosted by Ecwid, that protects your store in case of a major issue affecting your main website. Even if your website won’t work, customers still will be able to buy from you.

Connecting website’s subdomain to Instant Site

Subdomains can be created after you buy a main domain. You can find the instructions on how to create a subdomain in your providers’ help center.

Once you have a subdomain, you connect it to the Ecwid Instant Site the same way as connecting a custom domain.

Step 1. Setting up subdomain in the Ecwid admin

You need to specify your subdomain name in your Ecwid admin:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Website → Domain.
2. In the Domain name and address block, click Connect Existing Domain.
3. In the field, enter your subdomain name (without www).
4. Click Next Step.

Step 2. Setting up domain in the domain registrar account

Make changes in your registrar account. Below you’ll find general steps for making changes. You can check the list of domain registrars, find your third-party service and follow the precise steps of setting up.

To set up subdomain in your domain registrar account:

1. Copy the IP address that you will see in your Ecwid admin.
2. Log in to your domain registrar's account. If you do not know who your domain registrar is, check it out in online domain checkers like whois.domaintools.com.
3. Create an A-record for your subdomain and point it to the IP-address you copied from the Ecwid admin.
   If you have A or AAAA records for your subdomain, make sure to delete them so they don’t conflict with the A record pointing to your Ecwid Instant Site.
4. (optional) To make your Instant Site available at www.your-subdomain.com as well, create a CNAME record for your subdomain your-subdomain.com and specify www as a name/alias for it. You will need to add the following to DNS record:
   www.shop.your-domain.com IN CNAME shop.your-domain.com
   If you are not sure how to make these changes, contact your domain registrar support for more detailed instructions.

Wait for the changes to propagate. It can take from 2 to 48 hours for domain changes to propagate.

Once the setup is complete, and the changes are propagated, your Instant Site will become available at the specified addresses via a secure HTTPS connection encrypted by a TLS certificate from Ecwid.

Make sure you have links redirecting from your main domain to the subdomain with the Instant Site. It can be a link in the navigation menu, button, or link in text.