4 of the best Squarespace templates for bloggers
When it comes to an online blog, there are a lot of different platforms to choose from. From Blogger to Wordpress and everything in between, the options are seemingly endless.
But one thing you shouldn’t overlook, is using a Squarespace template for your blog.
Obviously, I’m a bit biased to the Squarespace platform, but from what I’ve seen in many years as both a Wordpress website designer and now a Squarespace website designer, the Squarespace blogging platform truly does compete on an equal playing field with many of the other platforms… and actually, it may just over deliver in some areas compared to other platforms.
Today I’m sharing...
3 reasons I love using Squarespace for my own blog.
My only pet peeve with blogging in Squarespace and how to easily overcome this.
And the 4 best Squarespace templates for a blog in 2020.
4 reasons I love blogging in Squarespace
Reason 1: It’s easy.
Ok, this one seems like it should be obvious, but I feel like we can’t overlook how easy it really is to blog in Squarespace. It’s as simple as starting a blog section, typing your post and formatting it, and publishing it (Pro tip: you can actually have MANY blog sections within the same Squarespace website with just a click of a button). The design is easy (it’s just like designing a normal page in Squarespace and the functionalities are great as well), the setup is easy, tagging and categorizing is easy, scheduling posts is easy, and making it look great is easy as well. So they’ve got the ease of use covered.
Here’s a quick video showing you exactly how quickly you can set up a blog section and publish your first post in Squarespace (this is my step-by-step set up process, so check it out if you’re wanting to start a Squarespace blog!).
VIDEO GOES HERE
Reason 2: It’s SEO friendly
You may have heard that Squarespace isn’t as good for SEO as other platforms, but I don’t believe that to be true. Not only have I seen many SEO experts debunk this, I’ve grown my own organic website traffic by over 800% (in just 3-4 months!) just by amping up my blogging game. And that was WITHOUT implementing any crazy SEO strategy or doing anything that the ‘average’ non-techy person couldn’t do themselves.
So, basically, Squarespace works everything that your site needs in order to be seen, crawled, and ranked by search engines like Google into your site already. So you don’t have to do anything to make SEO work with your Squarespace blog. It’s already ready to go when you start your site.
And if you want to take your SEO game to a new level, then you can add a few simple things here and there to make sure you’re accurately telling Google what your site is all about, so it in turn recommends your site to the right people. (Here’s my ultimate checklist to boosting your Squarespace SEO)
It’s really that simple!
Reason 3: I can write and edit on the go (there’s a mobile app!)
Squarespace has a great app that makes editing content on any page (or blog post) really simple when you’re on the go. You can just download the app, sign in to your account, and there’s a quick action button to “START A NEW POST” right there on the homepage of the app.
There have been many road trips where I sit in the passenger seat with my phone and write blog after blog or edit the pages on my site from my phone. I love this about Squarespace and it definitely makes blogging easier.
Reason 4: It has amazing blog features built in to each template
When it comes to setting up a blog page and making it look and function awesome, you are able to add many of the same features that you are able to put into a regular Squarespace page. Some of my favorites are…
The summary block: This allows you to easily pull from your blog section or image gallery. You can sort by tag or category so you can easily show other featured posts or posts that are relevant to the current post… And it will automatically pull excerpts, titles, and images if you would like.
Custom code blocks: I love the ability to easily add a code block into a blog to put my ConvertKit forms or any other integrations right into my blog posts. You don’t have to navigate to some remote section of your site to do this either… you can do this right within the blog post editing page and it's a breeze.
Sidebars: There are some Squarespace templates that have built in sidebars and others that don't. But the good news is that there are some amazing Squarespace developers out there who have created snippets of code to add a custom sidebar into ANY Squarespace site. I’ll talk more about this later when we get to the best templates for blogging in Squarespace… but for now, just know that having the ability to add a sidebar in your blog is a great feature.
You can have more than one blog within one site: I love that with Squarespace, you can easily set up multiple blog sections and use them for different things. I actually use a blog section for each of my self-hosted courses within my Squarespace site, I use a blog section for my portfolio page, I use a blog section for my actual blog, and I use a blog section for my testimonials. This means that I am also able to pull content from each blog section into any page in a Summary block. Pretty cool, huh?
Easy category or tag dropdown menus and search bars: You can easily put a dropdown menu in your main blog page so your viewers can sort through your blog categories quickly. A search bar is also easy to add anywhere within your site and you can limit the search to specific pages or specific blog sections as well.
Quickly duplicate posts and edit content to keep formatting: There is a duplicate button within a Squarespace blog post. So let’s say that you have set your post up with a featured post section at the bottom and there are certain parts of the post you want to stay the same every time, the ‘duplicate post’ button allows you to duplicate the entire post and edit the copy, leaving these sections already set up for your new post.
So what is my one pet peeve with blogging in Squarespace?
After 3 years of blogging on Squarespace, the ONLY thing that I’ve found difficult, is the fact that reordering blog posts takes some time. If for some reason you want to bring an older post to the top of your blog feed and put a newer post further down on your feed, you would need to go into each post and change the publish date. So, if you needed to change the order of multiple posts, this could take you a few minutes. Once you change the date, Squarespace then automatically rearranges your posts in order of publish date.
Pro tip: The only time this bugs me is when I’m batch creating a lot of posts at once and I want them in a very specific order. But here’s what I’ve learned… If you have a lot of posts you want to create, format and schedule all at once, make sure to create them in order from the ones you want to show up further down the scroll FIRST, then the ones you want to be at the top of your scroll LAST.
Now, in all fairness, Wordpress pretty much works the same way. If you want to rearrange a post in Wordpress, you will need to go into each post and change the publish date as well. The only advantage that Wordpress has going for it is that there is a plugin out there which allows you to easily click and drag posts around and it will auto rearrange the posts for you. But full disclosure… adding plugins to your site is like adding a backdoor for security issues. While a lot of plugins are great, the more backdoors you have, the more susceptible you are to something bad happening in your site. So, I guess in the end it all comes down to pros and cons.
Also, do you really need to rearrange blog posts that often? I’ve found that I don’t, so this doesn’t really bother me.
Alright, so that brings us to the main meat and potatoes of this post…
What are the 4 best Squarespace templates for a blog in 2020? (UPDATED FOR 2021)
If you’re brand new to Squarespace, then you will be starting on Squarespace 7.1 … Something to know about Squarespace’s updated version of their platform is that ALL of the template options function the EXACT same! WOOHOO!
However, if you are still on Squarespace 7.0 or want to start on Squarespace 7.0, here are my three top Squarespace templates (7.0) for a blog on Squarespace, plus an explanation of why I chose each template.
If you want to read more about Squarespace 7.0 vs 7.1 you can read this newer blog post here.
My #1 & #2 picks for choosing a template on Squarespace 7.0:
My favorite all time templates for blogging (or website building in general) is the Rally and Brine templates.
The Rally template is a part of the ‘brine family” of templates… basically, this is a grouping of templates that function the same, but look different. I talk extensively about why I love the Brine family of templates (and what all of this even means) in this blog post.
But, I’ll give a short summary here…
First of all, the Brine and Rally templates are the most versatile and customizable template family. It’s like setting a foundation for ANYTHING you might want your site to do in the future.
So, if you think you’re going to want to grow your site beyond just a blog, then this is the template for you. With either of these templates you can…
Arrange your main navigation in a variety of ways.
Add index sections which allow you to have full width images throughout your pages.
Lay your blog out in a grid OR a stacked format with a quick click of a button.
Easily set up an advanced ecommerce shop section to sell services, digital downloads, or products and this template gives you many customizations to a shop section that other templates leave out.
What I love about these templates:
They are super clean, simple, and it integrates the same advanced features and it looks good as a blog. The Rally template is set up ‘out of the box’ to look more blog-like, while the Brine template looks a little bit less like a blog and more like a website which promotes services or sells products.
So, you can take your pick based on design and know that they both will function the same and be extremely customizable in the future.
Pro tip: I use the Brine template (or any template in the brine family, find out what I mean by that here) for every custom website that I design. Every professional Squarespace designer that I know also designs almost every single site in the Brine template. There’s a reason for this!
So, where do the Brine & Rally templates fall short?
The main thing missing in the Brine template is a built in sidebar option. However, I use this sidebar plugin to add a sidebar to any site using Brine. It’s also what I’ve used in my website to create multiple different sidebars on multiple different pages. It’s a little code, but it works and it’s an easy fix, so I don’t really see the ‘no sidebar issue’ as an issue at all. If you want to use Brine but don’t want to install this plugin yourself, just contact us and we would be happy to do it for you!
My #2 & #3 picks:
The Skye or Tudor Squarespace Templates
If blogging is your thing and you’re sticking to it, then these templates might be great for you. They are clean and simple looking and are extremely easy to navigate.
They have a built in sidebar option.
They have fun, built in design ‘frills’ specifically for bloggers.
You can set up author profiles to pull into blog posts automatically.
You can still build any other pages on your site that you would like (Home, About, Contact, etc)
What I love about these templates:
They are clean and really great for showcasing your blog posts or podcast episodes. While your functionality isn’t as advanced as other template families, if blogging is your main thing and you want a clean and simple site that supports your blog, then you won’t be disappointed with these templates.
Where do the Skye and Tudor templates fall short?
First of all, if you want to rearrange your main navigation links and logo at the top of your page, you will be limited in this template.
Secondly, the Skye and Tudor templates are missing a feature called an ‘index section’, and to me, this is the biggest issue with using these templates. And index section allows you to have multiple full width banner images throughout your page, whereas the Skye and Tudor templates only allow a full-width banner image at the top of the page. To me, as a designer, this is very stifling. I prefer to be able to set my pages up however I want. Just look at the example pages in the image to the right, you can see how having an index section allows you to have a lot more design capabilities!
But if this doesn't bother you and you don’t see yourself wanting to add more design elements later, then this may be the right template for you!
Ok, so why does all of this even matter?
The Squarespace template you choose for your blog should not be based on looks alone.
The bad news is that if choose one of the templates that are not as feature packed and you decide down the road to beef up your website, add an advanced shop, integrate custom elements, or break up your pages with full-width banner sections… and you are not using a template that supports these things, then you will be limited in what you can and can’t do. While you can switch templates, doing so is a bit of a process and usually ends up resulting in a website rebuild.
Ok, so let’s say you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you just want to blog and that’s your main thing. Basically, if clean, simple, and easy is your motto, then the Skye or Tudor templates maybe for you!
Otherwise, I’m still a Brine fan through and through!
Always cheering you on,
Sandra
OTHER POSTS YOU WILL ENJOY:
>> Image Guide: Formatting your images for your Squarespace website
>> Ultimate Guide: Blogging for SEO in Squarespace
>> Squarespace Demo: Behind the scenes of MY website!
>> How to change the grid layout vs stacked layout in your Squarespace blog