How to set up your Squarespace site navigation for members

The way you want members to move through and interact on your website is usually subjective, but there are some good common options to consider.

Below are the three main options MemberSpace customers have successfully used to ensure their member experience is intuitive.

Option 1 - Enable the Member Menu

Option 2 - Create a member dashboard page

This is one of the more popular approaches MemberSpace customers use.

1. First, create a page in your Squarespace site (e.g. "/dashboard") and design it however you want. See this case study for a visual example.

2. You could also choose to have this dashboard page appear in your top navigation by moving it here:

   
   

   

   
   
3. Add the page URL to a product in MemberSpace.
4. Make sure to include links on this dashboard page to the various other protected pages on your website so this acts as the home base for your members to get anywhere else they need to go on your website.
5. We recommend you also make this dashboard page the After Log In and After Signup page URL for all your plans so new and returning members are taken there automatically.

Option 3 - Create a dropdown in your top navigation

1. If you prefer to have links to every protected page easily accessible in your top navigation, we recommend you add a dropdown folder.

2. You could set the navigation folder title to something like "Member Navigation" and then you would add links within the dropdown folder to your various protected pages.

   
   

   Here is an example of how it would look (the styling varies by template):

   
   

   

3. You could also include a Member Link popup in the dropdown folder.

Option 4 - Create a dropdown that's NOT in your top navigation

Assuming your template has sidebar navigation available, you can set up a dropdown folder (see Option 3 above) and move it to the Not Linked section instead of the Main Navigation section in Squarespace.

This will automatically create a sidebar navigation only on the pages contained within the dropdown (which would only be your protected pages). This allows your members to easily navigate between pages without cluttering up your top Main Navigation.

We strongly recommend you still place a link (on a publicly available page) to one of the protected pages in the Not Linked sidebar just in case someone gets lost and doesn't know how to get back. For example, adding a link in the footer would do the trick.