How To Build A Website With Squarespace
A website is often the focal point of a business. It is where customers will be directed to for information about your company, to learn about your products, and hopefully even make a purchase. A website is also where users can find what services are provided and contact information. These elements are essential to perfect since you want the consumer to have the best possible experience with your company. How can you do this? One easy way is with Squarespace. It is an all-in-one solution for anyone looking to create a website. It is user-friendly, and in a few steps, you’ll be well on your way to making a beautiful site, so let’s get started!
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is an American website building company that launched in 2004. It provides the software as a service to create websites, also providing users with pre-made templates to make aesthetically pleasing designs with minimal time.. There are countless templates for any style you prefer for your business, along with flexible portfolio schemes.
In addition, Squarespace offers blogging tools, built-in SEO features, analytics, mobile editing, and the ability to integrate popular apps into your website (for example, Google Maps or Dropbox). With these various benefits, Squarespace is an excellent option to build a website for either a beginner or someone more advanced. We’ll walk you through how to create a website with Squarespace so you’ll be a pro in no time.
How To Build A Website With Squarespace
Step 1: Get Started
The first thing you want to do when hopping onto Squarespace is to click Get Started. It will take you right into the process of beginning your website. Don’t worry; login information and payment options will come in later.
Squarespace luckily offers a 14-day free trial to any new user, so there’s no risk in signing up. You can create content, try out the features, and decide if it’s a good fit before committing to a subscription.
Step 2: What’s Your Site About?
Next, Squarespace will ask you to select a few ideas or examples that relate to your website. It offers a few options to choose from, such as photography, marketing, education, food, or travel, among many other options. It will also allow you to describe your site on your own if you don’t see an example that fits perfectly with your site. You also have the option to skip each step of customization and either decide or modify it later.
Step 3: Top Goals
The following section will ask you to select any goals that apply to your business, such as selling products, memberships, or collecting donations. Whatever your objective is, Squarespace will have a template that is right for you.
Step 4: The Process
To accurately understand the purpose of your webpage, Squarespace wants to know more about your objectives. At this step, you’ll select what level your company is at, whether it’s looking to grow a hobby into a business or growing an existing business. Once you’ve chosen this, press Finish and head to the next part.
Step 5: Template Time
Squarespace offers templates and the ability to customize them to suit your needs. At this point, you have the option to browse the templates and to sort by type or topic. The type consists of either a launch page, blog, membership, portfolio, or online store. The topic can be anything from fashion, entertainment to weddings, art, or beauty templates. Both of these filters will ensure you find the best template for you and customize it to your liking. You can choose to either preview any template to get an in-depth look at it or get started right away once you’ve found one.
Step 6: Sign up
Once you’ve selected the template, you need to create an account. Squarespace will give you the option to continue with an already established Google, Apple, Facebook, or email account. It’s best to create the account with the email you have dedicated towards your business or any other programs, such as a Google account, associated with it.
Step 7: Domain Name
Now you have your template and account ready to go! At this point, you should decide upon a custom domain name for your website (web address/URL). It will provide your audience with an outlet to find you online, ensuring the domain name matches your site’s purpose and highlights your brand’s keywords.
Step 8: Content, Content, and More Content
With Squarespace, the ability to customize your site is limitless. Instead, start with the basics of your site and work from there. It’s best to create an ‘About’ section along with a description of the business and a contact page. Then you can move on towards creating more pages, filling them with images, information, products or services, and any other details about your company. Squarespace allows you to decide on a design panel to customize the font, colours, spacing, and more. You can easily drag-and-drop content and make edits as you go along.
Step 9: Review Your Site
Once you’ve gone through your website and created the content, there are helpful things to check over before making it public. Take a look at these elements to make sure they are running smoothly:
Website URL
Your 404 error page
Header and footer
Design across all pages
Website SEO (page title and descriptions)
Information such as business name and contact details are accurate
Any extra features are functioning properly
Step 10: Publish and Promote
Once you’re satisfied with your website and reviewed it thoroughly, it’s time to publish. Unfortunately, the free trial of Squarespace only allows your site to stay private. Therefore, to publish your site to the public, you will need to upgrade your plan—more on Squarespace pricing here.
Once you’ve published your site, make sure to share it with your friends and family and promote it online. Take advantage of your social media platforms (if you have any), and let your followers know you have a website where they can find all the information they need about your business.
Tips for your Squarespace website
With your website up, there are many ways to enhance it even more. We’ll go through some valuable tips and tricks to get the most out of your website and Squarespace experience.
Google Analytics for Squarespace
Squarespace has a dashboard build into the website where you can view analytics on your performance. However, not every payment plan includes the full version of the Analytics, and the information can be somewhat limiting. For this reason, using Google Analytics with your website will allow you to see in-depth information on how users engage with your content. If you want to find out more about adding Google Analytics to Squarespace and the benefits associated with it, see here.
Content and Design
Since you are selecting templates chosen by countless other businesses, you want to ensure your site stands out and looks unique. From the beginning of designing your website, decide on the style you want to go with. Looking for inspiration online and creating a mood board (a collection of visuals that have a specific style) will help in the design phase of your site. Next, select the colour scheme and fonts you want to go with and keep track of what is being used. You can save this information in a document, spreadsheet, or anywhere where you can reference it easily.
It can also be helpful to keep your website copy on a separate document instead of writing directly in Squarespace. Keep a folder of all the copy from your site, from the about section to descriptions of products. That way, when the text has been edited and is complete, you can simply copy and paste it into Squarespace, adjust the formatting as necessary, and you’re ready to publish.
Takeaways
Despite the initial publication of your website, the work doesn’t stop there. You should always endeavour to perfect your site, updating it as needed, and evolving it as your business grows. Publish new content often, change up the design, or add new elements. Don’t overload your site with content and overwhelm the consumer, but also avoid completely redesigning the website every so often. Find a balance that keeps users coming back to your site while still benefiting your business.
With these ten easy steps and a few tips, you’ll master the usage of Squarespace and be on your way to creating a beautiful website for your business.
FAQs
Is Squarespace free to use?
Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial where you can take advantage of most of the features to design your site. However, your site will remain private during this time, and if you choose to go public, you will then have to upgrade your plan. Squarespace offers a variety of plan options that can be changed or cancelled at any time. The pricing options range from Personal, Business, Commerce, Commerce Advanced, with plans ranging from $12-$40/month USD. Each package includes different features, and it’s best to look at each one to decide what will suit your business needs.
What are alternatives to Squarespace?
Although Squarespace is an excellent and easy option for creating a website, you can also use a few other well-established services. Some examples include Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy, WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce. Each site has a free trial ranging from 14-30 days or unlimited with ads. Plus, the monthly payments start at $5-$29 per month, depending on the site.
Can I build a website on Squarespace myself?
Technically, yes. Anyone can build a website with Squarespace due to its easy-to-use platform and customization options. However, if you want your site to stand out, hiring a service can be very beneficial. Services can help with the overall design, colour scheme, layout, fine details, SEO and custom HTML. Some of these areas may not be your strong suit, and for this reason, hiring a service to assist you with creating and managing your website has plenty of advantages.
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