Why you Need a Cookie Banner on your Squarespace Website and How to Customize it (2024)
As small business owners, there are quite a few things we need to do in order to make sure that our clients and customers (and their information) are protected, and with websites being such a huge resource and form of income for so many people, Cookie Banners, Privacy Policies and Disclaimers are more important than ever before!
Displaying information about how you might be collecting your visitor’s data is not only good practice, it’s also legally necessary. So, what does this all really mean and how can you display these notices without compromising design aesthetic?
Keep reading to find out more!
What is a Cookie Banner and why do you need one?
Cookies (not to be mistaken for the delicious dessert) are small pieces of data that websites store on a device. They help your website remember visitor preferences and understand how people are using and interacting with different features.
Cookies are placed on your website by Squarespace to:
Help your site run more effectively
Personalize content and create the best experience possible for your visitors
Identify patterns and help you learn more about your site traffic
Certain laws require you to make your site visitors are aware of the fact that there are cookies present. The most prominent of which is the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) privacy law.
This law regulates how individuals and organizations may collect, use and retain personal data, and calls for businesses to not only provide clear information about the cookies that are present but to also obtain consent from website visitors to place them.
This is where the Cookie Banner comes into place.
Squarespace gives you the option of enabling a Cookie Banner on your site where you can display information about cookies and provide Accept, Decline and Manage buttons for your visitors to choose from - making things totally GDPR compliant.
How to customize your Squarespace Cookie Banner
Thanks to Squarespace, customizing your Cookie Banner is now easier than ever as they’ve recently implemented some highly requested design features!
First things first, to access and enable your Cookie Banner navigate to Settings > Website> Cookies and Data Privacy.
Tip: you can also click the “/” key on your keyboard and type in “Cookies” to be taken directly to the same window!
From here, you can toggle on the Cookie Banner option.
Now let’s walk through each of the customizable elements in this window:
Accept Button Label: This is what visitors will click to accept all cookies. You can change the button text to whatever you’d like.
Manage Cookies Button: Toggle this on to add a button that allows visitors to manage which cookies they want and don’t want to allow. Clicking this button will take visitors to a Manage Cookies pop-up window (this window is currently not customizable).
Manage Button Label: If turned on, you can change the text of the manage button to whatever you’d like.
Decline All Button: Toggle this on to add a button that allows visitors to decline non-essential cookies (cookies that don’t affect the navigation or function of your website such as analytics or performance cookies)
Decline Button Label: If turned on, you can change the text of the decline button to whatever you’d like.
Disclaimer Text: This is where you can write a blurb explaining why and how cookies are used on your website. Squarespace does offer a default message, but it’s pretty vague and impersonal, so we’d recommend writing your own. And since there isn’t a ton of room here, it’s also a great opportunity to include a link to your Privacy Policy/Cookie Policy page if you have one!
If you’ve enabled either the Decline or Manage buttons, visitors will be able to re-open the Manage Cookies pop-up window via a Cookie Preferences link. The following settings are used to customize that link.
Saved Preferences - Layout: This is how visitors will be able to access and change their cookie preferences at any time. Choose between a Subfooter layout, a Pill layout, or hidden.
Saved Preferences - Label: You can change this text to say whatever you’d like so that visitors know it’s where they’ll find their cookie preferences.
Once you’re happy with all of your changes in this window, be sure to click Save in the top right before exiting.
To further customize the aesthetic design of your Cookies Banner, you’ll need to navigate to your Site Styles Panel by clicking the Paintbrush icon in the top right corner of your screen.
You’ll then scroll to the bottom of your Site Styles Panel and click into the Miscellaneous tab. From here, choose Cookie Banner.
Here’s what you are able to customize in this window
Color Theme: Choose from one of your existing color themes. If you’d like to customize your themes further, you can do so under Site Styles > Colors, however, remember that any changes you make will affect the colors throughout your entire website!
Position: Here you can pick where your Cookie Banner will display on your site. Choose between Top, Bottom Left, Bottom Right, Top Left, Top Right, and Bottom.
Disclaimer Text Size: Adjust the font size of your disclaimer blurb.
If you’d like to customize the style of the buttons within the banner, you can do so under Site Styles > Buttons. The style of the banner buttons are mapped to the style of your website buttons like this:
Accept Button > Primary Button
Decline Button > Secondary Button
Manage Button > Tertiary Button
You can customize each button style individually if you’d like, but remember that any changes you make will affect all buttons across your entire website!
And that’s it! You now have a nice-to-look-at Cookie Banner that follows all GDPR regulations and helps maintain a trusted relationship between you and your site visitors.
Want more Squarespace tips? Check out the posts below! 👇
How to Connect a Domain to your Squarespace Website
How to Create an Opt-in Freebie Quiz for your Website
8 pages you should have on your website as a small business owner
How to customize your Squarespace footer and what to include in the design
How to backup your Squarespace website
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