Instant Site is a free website with a built-in e-commerce that is included in every Netcash Shop account. It enables you to instantly create your own website for free and start selling online at any time.
Instant Site benefits:
- Forever free: Instant Site is included in any Netcash Shop plan. It essentially means a free site, free hosting for it and its full maintenance by Netcash Shop.
- Mobile friendly: Instant Site has adaptive design and works well across different devices — mobiles, tablets, and widescreens.
- Search engine friendly: Instant Site is naturally indexed by Google and there are ways to further optimize Instant Site for search engines.
- Customizable: You can fully personalize your Instant Site to express your brand style and tell your brand story.
To view and change your Instant Site settings, go to your Netcash Shop admin in Website or to Overview > Instant Site > Manage Instant Site.
Choose a design theme
No coding skills are required to craft a website — Instant Site has an intuitive editor with lots of design options that help you make the site your own. Choose the layout, typography, colors, images and more to personalize your site and reflect your business style. You can also further tweak and tinker your site & store design by adding CSS codes in your Netcash Shop admin.
Learn how you can configure the design of your Instant Site >
Add your brand story
Instant Site consists of several blocks that help you present your company and explain to your customers who you are, what you offer, and what sets you apart. These blocks are Cover, Store, Company’s Mission, About, Testimonials, Location, Contact Information. You can choose which blocks to show and how to arrange them in Instant Site to better tell your business story. Learn more about how you can add and edit the content of your Instant Site >Use built-in e-commerce
Instant Site has a special block where your Netcash Shop appears.
You can set up your store – add your products, configure payment and shipping methods, etc. – and start selling online on your Instant Site right away.
Connect your own domain
Initially, Netcash Shop Instant Site is available on a free subdomain like https://12345.company.site where 12345 is your store ID.
You can replace your store ID with your store name or connect your own domain to Instant Site if you have one (custom domains can be used on paid Netcash Shop plans).
You will get a free SSL certificate for your site address in both cases.
Ways to use Instant Site
Here are some ideas on how you can use your Instant Site. It can be:
- A website with an online store. Your Netcash Shop is pre-added in your Instant Site. Feel free to use it as your main selling channel.
- A website without e-commerce. If you are still working on your store setup or running a seasonal business, you can hide the block with the store via one button click and use Instant Site as a plain site. While you are working on the store setup, your brand is exposed and the site is getting indexed. When you are ready to start selling, you can easily display the block with your store again.
- Landing page. You can use your Instant site as a landing page if you sell and promote a few products and need a streamlined converting site design.
- Online catalog. Your Instant site can be your online catalog where your products are displayed but not offered for purchase. For this, you can disable checkout.
Best practices for site design
Here are some tips on how to craft a website and fill it with content:
Break content into chunks. If you have large sections of content such as About or Company’s Mission, break them down into small chunks to help the customers digest.
Make the headline snappy and meaningful. The text that you enter as your Instant Site headline and description will be used for the site’s meta data. This means that customers will see this text not only when they visit your site but first in Google search results and will act there upon it. We recommend using keywords that are relevant for your business to attract the right audience. Learn more about SEO for Instant Sites and ways to improve SEO.
Use high-quality photos. Effective photography helps to explain the brand message and showcase the catalog. Upload hi-res pictures for your site cover and product images. Learn more about photographing your products on the Netcash Shop blog.
Add customer reviews. Ask your customers for feedback about purchased products and pepper up your site with their reviews to show how your products have helped them. You can add up to four testimonials to your Instant Site.
If you choose to use another site platform at some point (for example, you need a content-heavy blog), you can keep the progress you made and add your existing Netcash Shop to your new site in a few button clicks. Learn more about adding Netcash Shop to any site.