Squarespace Blogging Tips Roundup - 20 tips from 12 Squarespace Experts
There is no doubt that having a blog on your website is beneficial for many reasons.
A blog:
allows you to establish your authority on content that pertains to your business. This in turn establishes trust with your potential customers and clients
increases your chances of being found by search engines. You will not only have more content for Google to crawl, but you can also include more of the keywords that you want to be found for
Gets more potential clients into your sales funnel. For instance, if your first step in your sales funnel is to get newsletter subscribers, then you can offer a freebie or opt in relating to your blog post that users can subscribe for (just remember that they must give consent to be added to your newsletter list!).
The great thing about Squarespace is that blogging is included in the platform automatically. And of course, since it’s Squarespace, it is so easy to use!
Today, 12 Squarespace experts are weighing in with their tips for blogging, in general and specifically on Squarespace.
1/ Add related posts to keep your readers engaged
Use the category/tag feature for your posts then add a summary block at the end of your individual posts so you can link to related posts (give people a reason to keep clicking around and digesting your content) . (See my post on how to add related posts in Squarespace here)
Melanie Lea, https://www.melanielea.com/
2/ Brainstorm Topics
To start, brainstorm a list of 20-25 questions and topics you think your clients would love to pick someone's brain about.
Belinda Briggs
3/ Link to your other blog posts
Increase your traffic by linking to other blog posts you've done within your posts
Melanie Lea, https://www.melanielea.com/
4/ Include a graphic for Pinterest
Create a Pinterest graphic (Canva is great for this) and add it in the body of your post. Next, add an image caption (this becomes your Pin title), and select Do Not Display Caption if you’d like to hide the text in your post. Finally, make sure Pinterest Save buttons are turned on for your blog: Marketing > Pinterest Save Buttons > Enabled for Blogs.
Christy Price, christyprice.com
5/ Mind your blog post URLs!!
Go into the Squarespace settings and make it so that it only shows the blog post title (the Squarespace default is to include the date); also make sure your blog post page isn't titled something weird like /blog-2; and finally, try to keep your post URLs shorter and SEO friendly (example: /blog/an-easy-way-to-make-1000-bucks-this-month --> /blog/easy-1000). Shortening the URL makes it easier for people to remember and it looks so much better :)
Melanie Lea, https://www.melanielea.com/
6/ Look for opportunities to create links to other websites
Review your blog post to see if there is an opportunity to include links to other websites/resources you can share that will be helpful to your readers and find a way to incorporate them. These external links add validity and weight to your post in the eyes of the search engines. Also your readers will be thankful to you for sharing such valuable resources.
Belinda Briggs
7/ Get clear on your blog strategy
I see a lot of clients blog in fits and spurts with no strategy associated with these tactics. Instead, set a goal to post twice a month, focused on themes directly related to your ideal audience's problem that only you can solve. Get narrow, and include links to related content on your site, creating a well-developed "web" of information. This builds your authority, helps develop trust (because you've solved someone's immediate problem), improves SEO and give you an armory of information to send to potential clients/customers when they have questions. If you're ever stuck, just ask yourself, "How can I help someone today?"
Sarah Moon, https://sarahmoon.net/
8/ Optimize your new and OLD blog posts for Search Engine Optimization
When it comes to blogging, many people focus on creating digital content that is keyword rich and seo-friendly. And as a Squarespace SEO expert, this is music to my ears!
But don't forget about all your old blog posts that you wrote before you learned about seo strategies and how to create content that reaches your ideal audience online!
This is a wonderful opportunity to go back through you old blog posts, audit the content and improve each post - both from an SEO point of view AND to make it more valuable to your readers, potential clients, future customers, etc. Don’t just re-post same old blog post content and call it “new”. Instead, I recommend that you leverage what you already have but make it better!
Start with the written text - how can you improve it? Add additional, valuable information? Link internally to other content on your website or link externally to other websites online? During this step, you'll also focus on formatting the blog post - post title, headers, paragraphs, bullet points & numbered lists, text links etc.
After that's all set, move on to the visual content within the blog post. This might mean adding new images, updating the screenshots, creating new graphics that you can share on Pinterest, etc.
When it comes to updating all your old blog posts, your goal is to make these posts as good as or better than the content that currently ranks for the keywords you’re trying to rank for. Don't let that confuse you - all you have to do is Google search the keywords/terms that you'd like your blog post to rank for, and then see what the top results are. Review each post and see how you can make your blog post competitive and even more valuable, at least on their level or beyond!
There's enormous value in your old blog posts and you don't need to reinvent the wheel - just update what you have and make sure that it's even more useful, both to your audience and to the search engines who will be indexing your content!
Charlotte O’Hara, https://www.charlotteohara.ca/
9/ Amp up your Blog post SEO power
If you want to really amp up your SEO power, create a roundup blog post with multiple contributors. They'll likely link up to the post from their own blogs and will help drive traffic to your site.
Melanie Lea, https://www.melanielea.com/
10/ Start blogging yesterday!
For anyone who is brand new to business, just started a business this week or even hasn't started a business at all yet but is currently day dreaming about it, START A BLOG YESTERDAY!
Content creation (*fancy term for blogging) is the absolute best thing you can do to market your business. It will push you wayyyy up in the SEO rankings, help potential perfect ideal clients/customers find you, fall in love with you, and be queuing up around the block to work with you.
A very common mistake I see new business owners or wanna-be business owners make is to hold off on starting a blog until everything is just right. Until the website is perfect, the professional brand photoshoot is done, until the exact business plan is written, and until their product/service is ready to sell.
DON'T make that mistake too!
If you start blogging now you'll begin building your audience, so when your website is perfect, your brand photos are taken, the business plan is complete and the product/service is ready to sell, you actually have someone to sell to!
Blogging is key to building an audience. And an audience is key to successfully launching your business to the world. Content creation now will be the difference between launching your business to an empty room (and likely 0 sales) or a room full of people who love you and are dying to hand you their credit card details!
So start that blog yesterday friend!
Paige Brunton, www.paigebrunton.com
11/ Customize your blog fonts
To use a custom font for the blog post titles on the main page add this code to the custom CSS area (replacing the font family name with your font):
/*CUSTOM FONT FOR BLOG POST TITLE ON MAIN PAGE (BRINE)*/
.BlogList-item-title {
font-family: 'Photograph Signature';
}
To set a custom font for the post titles inside the post page:
/*CUSTOM FONT FOR BLOG POST TITLE ON INNER POST PAGE (BRINE)*/
.BlogItem-title {
font-family: 'Photograph Signature';
}
Beatriz Caraballo, https://beatrizcaraballo.com/
12/ Use any of the Brine family templates to allow the most flexibility in your blog post displays
Some of the old Squarespace templates do not allow you to change the format of your blog posts and you are forced to show entire blog posts on the blog page. This causes endless scrolling for your site visitors! If you want to stay on your current template then follow the tips on this post to create a custom blog page. If you are willing to update to one of the new Brine family templates you will have the option to control how your blog posts as displayed. You can show your posts either in grid or a stacked display (one on top of each other) but you do do not have to show the entire blog post.
The Brine family templates give you so much more control over your blog display:
Style: Grid or Stacked
Control how many posts per row (for grid style)
Set the text alignment
Show or hide the blog post image
Change the blog post spacing on the blog page
Set the display aspect ratio for the blog thumbnail image
Show or hide a blog post excerpt
Show a primary and secondary metadata area. You metadata options include none, category, author,date, location, tags, comments
Control over the styling of your text on the blog page
Control over the read more link
Pagination options
Control over how many posts display on the page before the reader has to go to the next page
the ability to display social icons at the bottom of blog posts and turn on/off certain social icons
These templates also have an “intro” section that appear before your blog posts that can used to add any of the possible content blocks that are available in Squarespace. This is a great place to include category buttons or a category dropdown (see my other tip in this post), a link to your freebie opt in or an introduction to you.
Jodi Neufeld, www.jodineufelddesign.com
*** update - Since Squarespace has released a new platform (7.1) I would recommend using any template on the 7.1 platform instead of using Brine. If you are on 7.0 and don’t want to switch then the Brine template would be a good option for you.
13/ Create your own blog post template
In Squarespace, create your own blog draft template. Here's what you do - design an ideal page layout. Use the image and video blocks as space holders. Once you're happy with the layout, click save. (Don't click save and publish!)
Creating your own blog template means that that each time you blog you won't have to re-layout your blog post. A big time saver. You simply duplicate your draft blog template and then 'fill in the blanks' with your new copy, images and video links. Having a draft blog template forces you to be consistent in both writing style and layout. Once you've proofed your post, click save and publish and voila. Your new blog post is ready to go viral!
A word of warning, after duplicating your blog template, make sure to click through to options and change your post URL, thumbnail image, and excerpt, too.
Kath O'Malley
14/ Create custom templates for blogging
I'm all about keeping branding consistent, and that even comes to blog post layouts. Rather than re-inventing the layout each time, create a template (or two) that will meet your needs before you ever begin blogging.
For example: Let's say you are a wedding photographer, you could set up two types of blog post templates.
#1. Educational. This could have 3-4 talking points to help educate your clients. A beautiful photo at the top followed by an organized list below it.
#2. Editorial. This is a way to share your work in a more editorial style, outside of your portfolio page. Create an intro paragraph, followed by a gallery of your best images, with a list of vendors at the end.
For both of these, make sure you also include a call to action at the bottom!
Now that you have the templates it place, it's as simple as saving and duplicating the draft for seamless, beautifully branded blog posts!
Nikki Fanshaw, www.madebynf.com
15/ Promote your opt in
If you have an opt-in you want to promote, create a graphic and post it multiple times on your blog posts. This can be a great way to add people to your list if you add it to your most popular posts
Melanie Lea, https://www.melanielea.com/
16/ Write blog posts that are optimized for Search Engines
To get the most from your blogging, you want to make sure your posts are informative, engaging and long. This helps both with SEO, and also shareability! Pro SEO tip- Also, when you write, make sure to use a lot of subheadings (using H2 or H3) and organize your content into easy to understand sections.
Emma Hall, retroeventsmarketing.com
17/ Easily change categories and/or tags globally
If you want to refine or clean up your categories or tags, you can use a built in option in Squarespace to change them all on your site without having to go into each individual blog post.
To access this, click on the gear icon beside you blog page to access “Blog Settings”. Next select “Advanced”. Choose either “Manage Categories” or “Manage Tags”.
To change the name of one category or tag, select it and then click on “Edit”. Type in the new category or tag name and select “Save”.
If you want to combine categories or tags, you can select multiple items from the list and then select “Merge”.
To delete tags or categories, select one or more from the list and click “Delete”.
Jodi Neufeld, www.jodineufelddesign.com
18/ Use a custom blog page
Don't use the standard blog page as your customer-facing page. Do create a custom blog page!
Use the "blog page" type as an article database.
Add 1 core graphic of the same size to the top of each article.
Add 1 category to each article. Give this some thought these will help you organize content as your blog grows. For example, as a web designer for small businesses, some of my categories are web design basics, branding, small business.
Then design a custom blog page using a blank page.
Add a cool banner describing the blog + list opt-in form.
Add a search block.
Add 1 summary block that pulls from the blog database. Do not set a category filter. This will display all recent blogs.
Charlie Birch, https://www.charliebirchconsulting.com/
19/ Create an audio option for your blog post
Record yourself reading your blog post and add it as an audio file at the beginning of your post. It allows people to "read" your post while they're commuting and will increase the amount of time someone spends on your page, which increases your SEO juice.
Melanie Lea, https://www.melanielea.com/
20/ Make your blog easier to read by using category filtering
There are 2 easy ways to add category links on your website. These are great to include on your blog page prior to your blog posts or in a sidebar or footer.
Creating category buttons:
Click on the insertion point where you want to include a category button
Select the button size you want and add the category name to the button
Click the gear icon in the “clickthrough URL” box
Select “Page”
Start typing “blog” or whatever the name of your blog page is then select it from the drop down menu
Click on the arrow next to categories and locate the category you want to link to
Select “Save” to return to the first pop up panel
Select “apply”
Continue with any other category buttons you want to add
Use the archive block to create a drop down selection list
Use the insertion point and find the archive block (under Filters & Lists)
Select your blog collection from the Content panel
On the Display panel select “Dropdown” from the Layout option
Change the Dropdown Title to whatever you like (ie “Explore by Category”
Change Group by to “Category”
Optional (sort by name of category, number of posts in that category or activity)
Turn on “show group count” if you want to display the number of posts in each category
Note: following this same technique you could also create drop downs for tags, authors, years or months as well.
Jodi Neufeld, www.jodineufelddesign.com
And there you have it! Did you learn a new one from this list of tips? Let me know in the comments below!
Happy blogging!