Adding Ecwid store via Instant Site on a subdomain

You can add an Ecwid store to any website. However, in rare cases, some technical issues might occur after adding ecommerce (e.g., on iFrame-based sites like GoDaddy or New Google Sites) that may interfere with your store’s work.

In this article, we will tell you about an unusual way you can use to add your Ecwid store onto any existing website.

Introducing: Instant Site on your subdomain

When you sign up to Ecwid, you get a forever free Instant Site with a built-in store. If you already have a website that you would rather continue using (e.g., it has high rankings and/or design that you put a lot of effort into), and you run into problems while adding your Ecwid store to it, you can simply link an Instant Site to your website. After that, customers will be able to access Instant Site — and store — by clicking a link on your website (e.g., via the site menu or action button).

To provide customers with a seamless browsing experience, you can connect your Instant Site to your site’s subdomain. For example, your site’s domain name is your-domain.com and you connect your Instant Site to the shop.your-domain.com subdomain. After you interlink your main site and Instant Site through navigation buttons, your site visitors will feel like they are switching between the pages of the same website.

You can additionally configure the design of the Instant Site so that it resembles the design of your main site.

Why connect Instant Site on a subdomain

Although untrivial, adding ecommerce via Instant Site on a subdomain has its own benefits:

• Flexibility. As we already mentioned, this way, you can add your Ecwid store onto literally any website.
• 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. Having your own domain helps build brand awareness, and adding a store to a subdomain allows you to keep all the elements of your brand under one umbrella — that is, your website.
• Ecwid’s SEO tools. Ecwid has a wide range of SEO tools that aim at promoting both Instant Site and store. You can rely on the default settings or tailor them to your needs. As your store is hosted on an Instant Site and remains independent from your main site in terms of SEO, it is easier to structure and manage optimization (and to experiment).
• Uptime. As your store is embedded into Instant Site, which is hosted by Ecwid, it will be available if some major issues once arise on your main website, making it easier for your customers to contact you — and, of course, to continue buying from you.
• Categories on subdomains. If you have a subdomain for your store, feel free to use more subdomains for different store categories. For example, kids.your-domain.com for your children's products. Such keywords will additionally improve your SEO.

Connecting website’s subdomain to Instant Site

Let’s say you’ve already connected a domain to your existing website, and now you want to connect your website’s subdomain to your Instant Site. For that, you need two steps.

Step 1. Setting up a subdomain in the Ecwid admin

To set up a subdomain in your store:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Website → Domain.
2. In the Site Address block, click Change Address.
3. In the Use your own domain name field, enter your subdomain name:
   

   

4. Copy the IP address that you see under the Use your own domain name field (you will see it after you place the cursor in this field).
5. Click Save.

That’s it!

To finish the subdomain setup, you should make changes in your domain registrar account. Below you’ll find general steps for making changes.

Step 2. Setting up subdomain in your domain registrar account

To connect subdomain to your Instant Site via your domain provider:

1. Log in to your domain registrar's account.
2. Create an A-record for your subdomain (shop.your-domain.com) and point it to the IP-address that you copied from your Ecwid admin.
   Make sure to delete other A or AAAA records for your subdomain (if you have them) so they don’t conflict with the A record pointing to your Ecwid Instant Site.
3. To make your Instant Site available at www.shop.your-domain.com as well, create a CNAME record for your subdomain shop.your-domain.com and specify www.shop.your-domain.com 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.

Now 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 an SSL certificate from Ecwid.

After that, once you link your Instant Site to your website – via the site menu, action button, or any other way that suits you – your customers will be able to shop from the built-in Ecwid store.