So you’re going to DIY your website to save money? Please read this first.
New year, new website? I am celebrating you. No seriously. I’m all team DIY, especially if you’ve got the time, energy and actually get a kick out of sitting down and building things out exactly how you want to. But I ain’t going to sugar coat it, whilst it may seem like a piece of cake, there’s a few things you need to be mindful of, even if you are tech savvy. As I am a Squarespace designer, I’m going to focus a lot on certain features that are consistent with the platform, but please know that most of these things mentioned can be applied across the board. The aim of the game is to make your DIY website journey smoother, more streamlined and hopefully give you an end result you’re really proud of.
Design, build and edit in desktop version, but make sure you always double check your mobile version before launching.
You should always be designing in the desktop version, this goes for both new pages and ones you’ve already created and just need to edit. It will give you the most amount of freedom and design capacity. It’s also significantly easier to use the desktop version. You just need to make sure that no matter how big or small the edits you do, that you always go into the mobile version and adjust as needed. You won’t have the same design and it may not feel ‘as beautiful’ but remember, you’ve only got so much you can do with a narrow long view. Whenever you make changes, especially when you’re working with a site that is already published/live, you NEED to go in to the preview feature. You can do this by clicking ‘save’ and then using the arrow in the top right corner. Alternatively, you can always check your website on your phone too if it’s live.
Upload your Favicon - wait, your what?!? Let me explain.
A favicon (short for “favorite icon”) is the small icon that represents a website, usually displayed in a browser tab, bookmark list, or address bar. It’s typically a tiny square image, usually 16×16 pixels or 32×32 pixels, that helps users quickly identify a website visually. If you don’t upload one, you’ll get a grey cube as your logo and honestly, it just looks like you don’t care about the finer details. Here’s how you’re going to upload your Favicon.
Upload your logo to a Favicon generator. You can tap here for the one I use! I recommend uploading a light version and a dark version of your logo.
Download your Favicon to your computer.
Upload your Favicon into Squarespace. Use this tutorial here!
It can sometimes take a little while for your Favicon to load and work, but give it 24 hours max and you should be good to go!
Check your URL slugs - especially important if you’ve duplicated already exisiting pages.
What we don’t want to be seeing is www.sophiespencer.com.au/about-4 when it’s actually your services page, plus that number has gotta go. We want to make sure this is always matching the appropriate page, not only because it looks professional, but it also has impact on your SEO. For my Squarespace users, you can simply go into your page settings and change the URL slug. Make sure that if you change any of these urls that you update any links otherwise it’ll end up leading them to a 404 page.
Speaking of 404 pages, make sure you add one!
If you’re thinking ‘what the heck is a 404 page?!?’ then we’re simply talking about a ‘Page Not Found’ page. This typically happens when there is a broken link. You can create your own 404 page so you can redirect people back to where they need to be. Squarespace has an easy tutorial here to follow.
Get that SEO added in & not just for your pages.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. You can think of it as the tool you need to utilise in order to get ranked and noticed on Google Search and should really be a part of your digital marketing strategy. The goal is to increase organic (unpaid) traffic to your site by making it easier for search engines to understand your content and present it to users searching for relevant information. This is a great place to understand how to best increase your visibility.
Text and image alignment - let’s get that spacial awareness feeling all slick and sexy.
It’s all well and good to use different text alignment on your website, I mean, I do it, but there’s definitely a way TO DO IT and a way NOT TO DO IT. Really, what we want to avoid is using left aligned paragraphs, with say the next paragraph underneath being justified (stretching all the way left to right), then jumping back to left aligned. It looks messy but it also makes it harder on the eyes. Have a look at the sections above too and see where your photos are sitting. Can you line these up so they are the same size or if they are different, can you make it obvious that they are different?
BONUS HOT TIP
Create a few really banging sections (or a page), make sure they work on both the desktop + mobile version AND then hit the little love heart icon in the section settings. Here’s why…
When you click that little love heart, what you’re doing is saving that section to your own template library, which you’ll find in ‘Saved Sections’ when you go to create new pages or add new sections. It makes it SO much quicker and easier, but it also helps keeps things consistent across your website. There’s no need to always build from scratch.
Hopefully with all these tips and suggestions, you’ll be able to nail your Squarespace DIY website like a pro. This is honestly why I love Squarespace so much. It’s been designed to be simple, minimalistic and aesthetic whilst not compromising on the very important needs of a website platform. If you’re yet to get started on Squarespace, but know you want to, then I encourage you to check out my Squarespace Template Shop. I have even made specific website’s designed to industry specifics, so if you’re a holistic healer, retreat host, embodiment facilitator or are an owner of a service led business, I have got you well and truly covered.