Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
How to Blog With Squarespace if You Don't Know What You're Doing
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items I've been a social media blogger for over 15 years and when Yah told me it was time to run an actual blog, I tried Wordpress and Wix, but neither worked as well for me as Squarespace has. Here's tools and guides I've used to help me create a Squarespace blog that I really, really love. ♥️
Sections
7
Getting Started
Blog Templates
Squarespace Hacks
Legal
Marketing Tools
Design Resources
Getting Started
Stop procrastinating, stop making excuses for why no one will read what you write— stop it. Face the fear and dive right in.
This is where you begin. Click the link, hit the “Get Started” button, and you're on your way. When you face the fear and bet on yourself and what you have to say, it's just that easy.
Squarespace Website Builder — Create a Website in Minutes
If your excuse is that you don't know what you'd call your blog, you can easily start with just your name and make yourself your brand. If you don't feel comfortable with that, THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER! I've used it to come up with ideas for Th...
Namelix — Business Name Generator
I've done GoDaddy and ditched GoDaddy. Too expensive after a while. Namecheap will be the only place you go to register for quality domain names for now on. I promise you.
Namecheap — Buy cheap domain names from $0.99
Blog Templates
You're going to find your dream website template right here.
You might not have to look anywhere else after this. I mean it.
Kate Scott — 20+ Premium Squarespace Template Shops
Now I created my blog's template from scratch because like I said, I have blogging and CSS experience. If I hadn't done that, I would have gone with Kseniia. Hands down. Her “Creative Studio” template has me absolutely in LOVE, and I'm a huge fan of the “Jolla” and “Colorf...
Kseniia Design | Squarespace Templates For Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs
This studio's “Avante Garde” template speaks my love language. I mean, once you take a look at it and the other designs from their shop, you'll see why their website templates are a recommendation on my list.
HERSTED HERTZ — Custom Design Squarespace 7.1 Templates
I know Big Cat Creative was already mentioned on Kate Scott's Masterlist, but if it weren't for this design studio's wealth of knowledge, I wouldn't have been so confident getting started with designing my own blog. I didn't have the funds for a template (because I was more concerned on spending that cash on essential legal templates) and it was the vault of information this design studio just gives away for FREE on their blog that let me know I had the skills (especially with my previous blogging experience) to do this. Their templates are 🔥 and if you haven't already checked them out, do it yesterday.
Big Cat Creative - Squarespace Templates & Resources
Squarespace Hacks
Now these are design guides, CSS tutorials, and useful tips and tricks you can use to brand your blog, make it more accessible to your audience, and overall create a blog that you love.
This is the best resource to find plugins (many of them FREE) and templates specifically designed with Squarespace bloggers in mind.
Ghost Plugins - Over 500+ Free Squarespace Plugins and Templates
Station Seven is where I slept, cooked my meals, and showered while building my blog. I mean it. Their tutorials? (Because I was only familiar with Wordpress & Wix, remember?) Couldn't POSSIBLY done what I did without them. From their tips on how...build a free resource library, their knowledge on mastering Squarespace SEO, to how to create your own sidebar? I owe this team a hundred coffees or more for freely sharing their wisdom, surely.
Station Seven — Blog
This is another masterlist of plugins and squarespace hacks that helped me during the design process of my blog. I love it and it's a list you're going to want to bookmark for your own coding projects.
Beatriz Caraballo • Squarespace CSS tricks and plugins for designers
The sidebar plugin aloneeee is a great reason to check these guys out.
SQSP Themes: Squarespace Plugin, Template and Integration Directory
This video tutorial, along with Station Seven's breakdown, is by far the best guide on how to build your own sidebar for your blog if you don't have the means or want to purchase the sidebar plugin.
How to Create a Faux Sidebar in Squarespace
Sooooo I saw this font being used on a Showit template, found out what it was using this tool (which you can also find in the App Store for Safari), downloaded it… but didn't know how I was gonna be able to use it. This quick tutorial had me up and running in minutes.
The Simple Site Shop | How to Upload a Custom Script Font to Squarespace 7.1
This took me less than 5 minutes to do after watching their step-by-step tutorial.
Pair of Ducks | How to Add Custom Social Icons to Your Squarespace Site
This is EXTREMELY important when it comes to broken links or moved pages. If you've already shared the link with others, you can simply map the former link to its new location. Time saver, game changer!
URL Mappings
Legal
This was the scariest part for me because it was the area I knew least about. Before you officially launch your Squarespace blog, this is a must shop stop for you. Period.
Her testimony made my decision to trust her expertise a no brainer. To protect yourself (and your business), you need contracts and policies in place. The starter bundle is enough to ensure you have peace of mind when you're just getting going, but and you can upgrade from there at discounted rates once you're one of her customers as you grow online. ◡̈
Legal Templates to Protect Your Online Business
This is my next big blog investment. It's necessary. After reviewing other accessibility widgets (and even trying out a free widget temporarily), this is my no brainer choice to meet the new rules and regulations rolling out on websites and bloggers.
accessWidget - Accessibility Widget for WCAG & ADA Compliance
If you're just starting out, click and save this link for later. Seriously. Don't stress if you haven't made your blog a business yet. But when you do, this tell all on how Jenna saves herself some hassle on taxes by writing off expenses she pays to ...
Jenna Kutcher | Ten Tax Write-Off Investments to Make For Your Biz
Marketing Tools
These will help with email marketing, SEO, and give you the 411 on the best blog marketing tips and tricks. But most importantly? Help drive traffic to your blog.
If you look at my blog, you'll notice that on the side (or at the very bottom if you're on mobile) you'll notice these social share buttons. And they're customized. I really love them because it makes it easier for my audience to let others know they love the articles I p...
Shareaholic | Social Share Buttons and Icons for Websites
If you don't know now you know! This is how so many creators and bloggers are ahead of the game each year! This tool will help you, the new Squarespace blogger, strategically create searchable content for your blog that people actually are actively l...
Pinterest Predicts — Meet This Year's Emerging Trends
Tailwind Communities is where it's at. I schedule my own Pinterest posts manually but when looking for other blogs in my niche to shout out, I go to Tailwind. I can schedule the posts and with their browser extension, if I'm just randomly (or not so ...
Tailwind Social Media Management Tool | Create, Schedule & Optimize
If you don't have the money to invest in a course to better understand how to use Pinterest to boost your blog, don't worry. This covers everything, and I mean E V E R Y thing you need to get your Pinterest going.
Superhero Design Co. | How I optimized my Pinterest SEO to get my Website 3 Million Impressions in 30 Days
This is the service I use. It was really quick to learn and great for beginners looking to get into email marketing.
Mailchimp | Turn emails into revenue
One of my biggest dreams, ever since I got into blogging, was to one day create a Buzzfeed type quiz to put on my site because growing up, I was just utterly obsessed. When I heard about Interact, I knew when I took email marketing seriously, this wo...
Interact Quiz Maker | Create Quizzes to Generate Leads and Recommend Products
Now if you've got a eCommerce store attached to your blog, don't sleep on this. Don't do it. Offering an affiliate marketing program (and I know this from experience) is one of the BEST ways to market your products or blog, and this website gives you...
Peach’s – #1 Squarespace Plugins for Word of Mouth Marketing
Design Resources
Let's be real: you want it to look pretty. It's not necessary, because I've read plenty of blogs religiously that drove me nuts with their layouts and design, but… let's just do it for the aesthetic, no??
This is your one stop shop for creating blog graphics, Pinterest pin templates, social media graphics, you name it.
Canva: Visual Suite for Everyone
I first found out about the app through one of the founders, who I followed when I was on social media. I didn't realize that years later, I would actually ditch VSCO for their PAID app (paid?! PAID?!) But it's just that good. And when I'm trying to ...my blog, this is 210% my go to.
A Color Story | Make your colors pop!
There are other royalty free image and video sites out there, but this is the one that I go to without fail. I honestly don't use anything else and it always presents me with beautiful images and video I can use to create content for my blog.
Pexels — Free Stock Photos, Royalty Free Stock Images & Copyright Free Pictures & Video
This is one that has come up on my radar recently (because I'm not really a fan of Unsplash) and I love how modern and authentic the stock photos are!
Stocksy United
There are some things that you just want… branded. You want them customized so that when people see your images or content on the net, they know it's you without even having to look to see if it's you. Creative Market provides great templates, tools,...
Creative Market: High-quality Stock Photo, Graphics, Fonts, & Design Templates
Courses
Once you've done the basics, it's time to come up higher. These are some of the best courses that I've personally taken to level up my game in the blog space.
Email is not my forté. It's where I had the least amount of knowledge and I continue to reference Jenna Kutcher's guide as I prepare to get my own email list rolling. It's a must. It really is. If social media went down tomorrow (like the threat of t...
The List to Launch Lab: Your Essential Email List Building Blueprint
Taylor Stanford really changed my life. I was nervous because I'd done plentttyyy on Pinterest with success just fooling around (and not knowing what I was doing) but had never monetized it or looked at it as a way to drive traffic to a blog and sust...
Pin It To Win It