Squarespace is good for blogging and content marketing. It has all the on-page SEO features you need to build a blogging business by creating blog posts that rank and get organic search traffic.
I’ve created a website and blog with Squarespace and found it either on par with any other Squarespace alternative or better. You can watch my full-length Squarespace tutorial on how to create a website with a blog using Squarespace.
Website builders used to be poorly designed regarding blogging because they could not change the URL structure, had no control over the metadata for your pages, and even didn’t logically organize your content.
But because blogging is in such high demand from consumers, website builders cannot provide the features people and small business owners want, need, and expect.
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that combines web hosting, domain name registration, a content management system, website builder, ecommerce, and email marketing features under one company.
It’s an excellent choice for someone non-technical who does not want to use a wide range of services and would prefer the convenience of having all their assistance and support with one company.
Squarespace provides you as a content creator with everything you need to create a website, blog, or online store, from designing a high-converting webpage using one of their professional design themes and customizing it with their structured page builder.
You’ll be surprised by how easy Squarespace is to use to create a professional website for commercial purposes. On top of that, you can use Squarespace for free to try it out.
How to add a blog with Squarespace
Many themes from Squarespace come with a blog page already built in. Still, if you select a theme that does not have a blog or decide to develop and design your Squarespace website from scratch, you’ll need to add a blog page.
Navigate to pages
Once logged into your account, open up your “pages” menu in your Squarespace dashboard. Then hit the + sign, and you’ll see under “collections” an item called “blog.”
Click blog, and then you’ll be prompted to add a blog archive page to your website.
Add a new post
You now have a blog on your website. The blog archive page is where all your latest posts will be accessible to your audience.
Now when you want to add a new post, you’ll need to navigate to your blog page under the main navigation. Your blog page will open up, and you must hit the + sign again to create a new post.
Once you hit the + sign the blog post editor will open up.
Blogging with Squarespace for beginners
If you’re coming from another blogging platform, Squarespace may not make sense at first glance, but trust me; it’s simple and easy to use.
First, understand that with blogging on Squarespace, everything works through blocks. Text blocks, image blocks, video blocks, and so forth:
To blog all you need to do is add in text blocks. To have titles like headings and sub heading those are simply text blocks where you designate the text to be a title or sub title.
How to add new blocks
Naviagte your mouse over a block, it will highlight blue and tell you what the block is (text in the above image as an example). You’ll notice a blue plus sign:
Click these blue plus symbols and a box will pop-up with a wide variety of blocks you can add:
Click on the block you want to add, and it’s as simple as that. If all you want to do is add in text blocks, that’s fine, but Squarespace is quite powerful in it the creative options it gives you as a blogger.
You can easily add videos, forms, a call to action to sign up for a newsletter, markdown language, a space, or a button to direct people somewhere.
On-page SEO for Squarespace
Once you’re done creating your professional-looking blog post, you’ll want to edit some of the blog post settings before you hit that publish button.
Click on the author name of the blog post, and your “blog post settings” lightbox will appear:
Here you can easily set a featured image, write a meta description, change the URL structure to something else, add in an image when people share your content on social media as well as organize the blog post into respective categories and tags.
So is Squarespace good for blogging?
Yes it is. You can create beautiful, dynamice looking blog posts that are media rich with images, galleries, videos, maps, spacers, quotes, forms, CTA for a newsletter and more.
On top of that you’re able to properly structure from an on-page SEO perspective your blog posts with correct title tags, meta descriptons, feature images and category organization.
Squarespace is not just good for blogging, it’s outstanding.
Other Squarespace features for bloggers
I love the essential blogging features on Squarespace. However, you should be aware of a few other key features that are equally important to bloggers. Let’s get to it:
Mobile friendly
At the click of a button, you can view what your blog will look like on a mobile device. Not only that, you can make real-time changes to your design exactly in the same way you can edit the desktop design of your website.
Over 50% of my traffic to davidutke.com is people on their mobile devices, so optimizing for mobile is incredibly important as a blogger.
Add styling with custom CSS
If you know and understand CSS or are willing to learn the basics you’ll be happy to know that you can add custom CSS to your Squarespace blog in order to customize in a specific way outside the default features.
Built-in analytics
Squarespace has a built-in analytics feature that lets you track and view the stats of your website. While you have the option to use third-party tools like Google Analytics, Squarespace offers all the analytics features you need on the same platform.
Unlimited storage space
All plans provide unlimited storage space for content you want to put on your website including images and files. You are limited to 30 minutes of video though so you’ll need to embed your video content from YouTube or Wistia.
But with regard to file storage and bandwidth, there are no set limits.
Basic email marketing
Squarespace does provide decent email marketing features that integrate perfectly with your site. Their email marketing service is best for anyone wanting to run a weekly newsletter or someone who wants to set up a simple funnel.
By no means is their email marketing features equivalent to Convert Kit or Active Campaign (see my guide on the best email marketing providers), but it is adequate if all you want to do is send a email broadcast to your list or set up a simple, sequential funnel.
Squarespace Pricing
How much does Squarespace cost you may be wondering. They provide straightforward pricing and all plans are for one website only. If you want two websites, then you’ll need to pay for a second account.
Personal (best for blogging beginners)
Personal is the best plan if all you’re looking to do is start a blog on Squarespace. You can design your website with one of their numerous themes (or design your site from scratch) engage in content marketing, and make money from affiliate marketing once your content ranks.
You get all the on-page SEO features you need, their drag-and-drop editor, an SSL certificate, analytics and Squarespace extensions.
Business
Business includes everything in the personal tier, but you get more detailed analytics, fully integrated ecommerce (with a 3% transaction fee however) and a checkout process.
Business is ideal if you intend to sell digital products on your website like ebooks or physical products.
It’s not ideal if you’re wanting to sell online courses, however.
Commerce
Commerce is everything the business plan provides except the transaction fees are no 0%, you can provide customer accounts, customer testimonials on product pages, more advanced marketing features like displaying related products, or time-restricted offers to establish urgency and you can sell on both Instagram and Facebook.
Commerce Advanced
Everything in the “Commerce” plan but now you get abandon cart recovery, access to API’s, advanced discounts, more shipping options and you can sell subscriptions.
Blogging on Squarespace – Conclusion
While I personally use WordPress, I know it’s not for everyone. A lot of creators do prefer the simplicity, elegance and ease of use of an all-in-one solution.
That solution is Squarespace. They provide excellent blogging and content marketing features at a fair price. You can get started for free and then when you’re ready to publish go ahead and upgrade your account to the “Personal” plan.