If you have your sales pages set up on an external site and would like to use the built in Thinkific checkout, we have a few recommendations to make sure the flow is seamless for your students!
In this article:
Course Visibility Within Thinkific
Page Redirects
If you have built all of your landing pages on your external site and don't plan on using any Thinkific pages, we recommend redirecting your Thinkific pages.
Redirect Your Course Landing Page to Your External Sales Page
Every course that you sell through Thinkific will have its own sales page. In Thinkific, we call this your course landing page! This page is created by default when you first create your course. If you are using an external sales page, we recommend redirecting your Thinkific course landing page to your external sales page.
Learn how to set that up here: Redirect Course Landing Page to an External Sales Page
Why do I need to redirect my Thinkific course landing page if I'm using an external sales page?
The reason why we recommend redirecting your Thinkific course landing page is because it is linked by default in various areas of your site. A simple redirect set up will ensure students can easily navigate to your intended sales page! To learn more about where the course landing page is accessed by default, check out: How can students access my course landing page?
Redirect Your Home Page
A Thinkific home page is also created by default when you first create your site. If you don't plan on using this page, you can consider adding a redirect to your Student Dashboard or external site.
The Student Dashboard is where students can access all of their available courses. If you set up this redirect, anyone who navigates to your Thinkific site will automatically be prompted to login to access their course. If your student is already logged in when visiting your Thinkific home page, they will be directed straight to the Student Dashboard!
Another option is to redirect your home page to your external website. If you go with this option, just make sure that on your external site you include a link to your Thinkific sign in page! This way students can still easily login to access their courses. Your sign in link will be formatted like this: yoursite.thinkific.com/users/sign_in
Learn how to set that up here: Redirect Your Home Page
Branding Recommendations
We have some additional site wide branding recommendations you can check out here:
How to Link Thinkific With Your Existing Website
Course Visibility in Thinkific
When using external sales pages, you might not want any of your courses displayed on your Thinkific site! Here are a few simple customizations we recommend.
Remove All Courses from Your Site Header
By default, there will be an All Courses link that appears in your header that is linked to a default page that lists all the published and non-hidden courses available on your site. Each course will be displayed with a course card that a visitor can click to visit your Thinkific course landing page.
You can remove this All Courses link to prevent visitors and students from viewing this default page. Learn how to remove links from your site header here: Customize Your Site Header
Set Courses and Bundles to Hidden
When a course is set to Hidden, the Thinkific course landing page will not be indexed by search engines and will not display on the All Courses page described above. We recommend setting your courses to Hidden if you are not using your Thinkific landing pages.
Learn how to set that up here: Private and Hidden Courses
Link Directly to Checkout
Now you are ready to link your external sales page directly to your Thinkific checkout! We recommend copying your Thinkific direct to checkout link and adding it to a buy button on your external sales pages.
Learn how to access your checkout link here: How to Copy Your Checkout Link