How to set up a blog on Squarespace

There are two types of Squarespace blogs.

There are websites that are dedicated solely to content, such as a news website that features hundreds of blog posts, often with multiple posts each day. 

Then there are the business websites that incorporate a blog as part of their wider site for SEO purposes, to build authority and attract more site visitors.

No matter what you want to use your blog for, setting up a Squarespace blog can be beneficial. 

I’ve put together this comprehensive guide to talk you through the full process of setting up a blog on Squarespace.

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Setting up a Squarespace blog

First things first you need to set up your blog and choose your template. There are hundreds of templates on Squarespace to choose from and I recommend searching through the Blog category to find one you like.

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Once you’ve found your template, click Start With This Template and go through the prompts, including giving your blog a name.

To add your blog to the website, in your main edit dashboard head to Websites and look for the page that has a pen icon. This pen icon tells us that this page is a blog collection page, aka it can be used as a blog.

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If your chosen template doesn’t have a blog collection page already, click the + icon next to Websites and add a Blog collection page.

Delete all of the template posts already in your blog collection and add your own blog post by clicking the + icon in the left hand sidebar.

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Adding a blog post on Squarespace

Once you’ve hit that + icon you can then begin editing your blog post in the same way you would edit any normal page on your website.

You can change the title of your blog post and add your blog post copy. Once you’ve added your copy, you can click the blue + icons that appear throughout the page and add elements such as images, embedded videos, galleries, buttons, newsletter sign ups… the list is endless.

Don’t be tempted to overfill your blog posts but always add at least one image for a better user experience.

Clicking the edit icon on the page gives you a whole host of editing options such as changing your text alignment, the width of your text, font colors and deciding what features you want to display such as tags, author, publishing date etc.

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Have a play around with the different editing options until you find the layout and blog post design that you want to go with.

Once you’re happy with the content and layout of your blog post, hit the save button in the top left hand corner to save your work so far.

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Editing the backend of a Squarespace blog

Next we want to edit the backend of our Squarespace blog. To do so, click the blog post title that appears in the header bar that runs along the top of the page. This will open the backend panel.

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Here you can add your featured image which is what will appear on your main blog page, an excerpt for your blog post, the post URL and the author.

Within the sidebar menu of the edit panel there’s different editing options such as SEO (here you can add things such as your meta description and meta title), Options where you can add categories and tags to your blog post and Share where you can edit your sharing settings for the post.

Also in your option menu you’ll be able to save your blog post as a draft or schedule it to go live on a future date.

Publishing a blog post on Squarespace

Once you’re happy with both the main content of your blog post and the backend settings, you can publish your blog post.

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To do so, simply hit the black Publish button in the top left hand of the screen. 

Hey presto, your blog post will be published to your Squarespace website!

Editing a blog page on Squarespace

Next you want to edit your main blog page. This is the page where all of your blog posts sit and where users can browse through to find the post they want to read.

Head to your main blog page and click the edit icon. You can then edit the different sections of the page just like you would a standard page on a Squarespace website.

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You can change the layout of your blog posts, options include a grid layout, side-by-side, single column and horizontal alternation. 

I usually opt for a grid layout as I think this looks best and you can then edit aspects such as how many columns your grid has and the spacing between each item.

You can also edit features such as whether your featured images appear above or below the blog post title and the alignment of your titles and excerpts. 

Once you’re happy, hit save.

And that’s how you set up a blog on Squarespace. I’ve covered setting up a blog, adding and publishing blog posts, editing the backend of posts and editing the main blog page, phew. 

If you do have any more questions about setting up a Squarespace blog however, you can always give me a shout over on LinkedIn or YouTube!

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I'm Sam, an award-winning Squarespace web designer. I have worked with every type of business, building platforms for solo entrepreneurs through to multi-million dollar corporations. If you want to discuss a potential project, you can email on sam@bycrawford.com or get in touch with me here. Alternatively, you can book in a free 15-minute consultation call here.

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