How To Create Gated Content using Squarespace Digital Products
If you’re looking to monetize your content and sell your expertise on your Squarespace website, then using Digital Products is the way to do that. Digital Products include course pages, blog pages, video pages, and member sites. These are online products that your customers can purchase and access immediately.
Store Product vs Digital Product
The difference between a Store Product and a Digital Product is that a Digital Product uses pricing plans placing the content behind a paywall. To access the gated content, your visitors create an account on your website and purchase a pricing plan.
There are three pricing plan structures:
Free
Fixed - Visitors pay a single amount or installment payments to gain permanent access to your content
Subscription - Visitors make recurring payments to maintain access to your content
Digital Product Options
Blog Pages
Monetizing your blog is perfect for bloggers and writers who want to sell access to their posts. When the blog posts are paywalled the visitor will see an excerpt and they are invited to sign-up before they can read the full content. There is the option to keep certain posts for public preview which encourages your visitors to sign up for access to the rest of your blog content.
Videos Pages
Video pages are perfect if the content for your members is only video. You can build a browsable library of videos for an ongoing series for a skill or lectures. This would be a great option for a Yoga teacher for example.
Course Pages
Course pages are great if you want to teach visitors a new skill and share your expertise. The Course page is more robust than the blog or video pages because you can organize your lessons into chapters and you can use video and other native Squarespace blocks such as text and button blocks.
Each course you create has a course overview page that lists the chapters and lessons as well as a navigation bar making it easy for your visitors to follow along and complete the lessons.
Member Sites
Member sites is a little different because it is not a single collection page like the other options. Member sites allows you to create a set of gated pages on your site, any type of Squarespace page and multiple pages if you’d like.
Important Note: Course pages, monetized blogs, and video pages are only available on version 7.1.
Digital Product Block
Visitors sign up and pay for your pricing plans with digital product blocks. You can add a digital product block to any page on your site to promote your gated content. You can also create a sign-up page with multiple blocks where visitors can compare and contrast all membership options.
