6 Hubspot Features You May Not Know About

With everything Hubspot is capable of it can be easy to overlook some of its features. This could either be because there isn’t a lot of information on these features or the links to them are not in obvious places. No matter the reason though here is a list of some useful but possibly lesser known features and options in Hubspot.

1. Change File URL’s Domain

By default Hubspot uses their CDN domain (cdn2.hubspot.net) for linking to files. However, you and your company may want them to link to your own domain for SEO or brand reasons. You can change the URL across all files in the settings. In the settings sidebar menu navigate to Web Site  > Pages and then choose the SEO & Crawlers tab. Under “Default File Manager Hosting Domain” there’ll be a dropdown to choose what domain you want your files listed on.

Some companies that have multiple domains and brands may want each of their files associated with different domains. Unfortunately, in this instance, when uploading to the manager it’s not possible for it to know which domain to use. So, this can’t be done domain-wide per domain. You can however change the URL per file in the File Manager. To get to the File Manager, in the main menu, open Marketing > Files and Templates > Files.

To change the domain of an uploaded file, click the file in the File Manager to open the file details. There’ll be a dropdown in the details under ‘File URL by domain’ to change the domain.

2. Proxy Redirects

On occasion you may need a file to be set at the root of your domain. For example, when you need to upload a service worker to your domain for an external script to work. You can’t reach the root through your portal or even in FTP but you can fake it with a Proxy Redirect!

Proxy redirects essentially mask a URL to make it appear as if it’s coming from a different URL. You can add a proxy redirect in your settings in Domains & URLS, under the URL Redirects tab. Click the ‘Add a Redirect’ button and open ‘More Options’. Choose Proxy as your redirect style. When inputting the URLs for a proxy redirect the URLs will be switched around as opposed to when creating a regular URL. So, the ‘Original URL’ will be the one you want the URL to actually come from and the ‘Redirect to’ will be what it currently is.

3. Google AMP for Blog Posts

Google AMP is a framework for creating mobile pages that load fast and smooth. This is done by removing Javascript and stylesheet files, forms, and header/footer HTM. This will cause pages to appear to load almost instantly. You can turn on Google AMP for your blog posts to give your users a quick loading experience when viewing your blog. This is great for keeping mobile users on your blog, reading your content.

To turn on Google AMP for your blog you will need to head over to settings and navigate to Website > Blog in the sidebar. Under the Google AMP tab it’s just a click of a button to turn it on and have a better mobile experience for your users.

4. Content Staging

Content Staging can go unnoticed by some due to it not being linked to in the main menu. Instead it can be found under More Tools in the sidebar of the Web/Landing Pages dashboard.

If you ever find yourself doing a complete redesign of your website, or even just making some big updates to a single page, content staging will be of great use. It lets you clone published pages to a siloed section of your portal. This way you can make changes without your users seeing any downtime or possibly unfinished updates. You can also create new pages in content staging that aren’t ready for publishing. This way you and your team can review the page before sending it live.

Once you’re ready to go live with pages you can open the Publish tab within Content Staging. There you’ll choose the pages you want to push live and then click the ‘Publish Pages to Live Domain’ button. Any live pages that were cloned will be replaced with the new page. Hubspot will be sure to list out for you what pages are being replaced or will be new and if there are any URL conflicts. This way you can ensure everything is good to go before moving on with the publishing process.

5. CMS Memberships

This is one of the Hubspot features that may be unknown to some purely because it’s only available in certain pricing plans. It’s quite a powerful tool for those who have reason to utilize it as it locks content behind a personal login. Note though that search engines can not crawl private content, so use wisely.

For developers this can be a great feature for personalizing pages with. Using the logged in state you can personalize content on your site specifically to logged in users.. You could even create a personal account page to give them info unique to them. For example, you could display information on their contact owners or list out resources they’ve downloaded before.

Be aware that Hubspot is not built to house sensitive information (payment information, social security, etc) and therefore should not be used to keep such.

6. Hubspot Community

Last but not least, not quite a feature pertaining to your portal, but a great resource nonetheless—the Hubspot Community! This is a forum for finding answers and asking questions about Hubspot. You can create or find posts about Hubspot features and ways to customize the portal and your website to your needs. There’s also a space for submitting and upvoting ideas you would like to see implemented in Hubspot. Be sure to check it out if you ever find yourself lost and needing help from your fellow Hubspotters.

From small subsection options in your settings to full fledged features, there’s much to find within your portal. Be sure to browse around and suss out all that you can do to make the most of your portal. Or look to the community for help in finding answers to any of your questions. You can start here by letting me know in the comments of any features you’d like to see an in-depth post about.