The one trick to starting a Squarespace website
I help people design websites on Squarespace, one of the easiest do-it-yourself web design platforms available. But just because it’s billed as a do-it-yourself website builder doesn't mean it's not a little intimidating to get started. That's where I come in. I guide people through the overwhelm of decisions and designs when they are creating a website from scratch.
Your first design decision for a new website
When you get started with Squarespace, you are faced with a design decision before you even provide a domain name or a credit card number. Sure, you can change the design after you get started, and it's really easy to do that, but wouldn't you rather have some level of confidence that you're choosing something you'd like to get started with?
Squarespace hires professional graphic designers to create beautiful-looking website templates for their products. These templates have all the styles for text, buttons, headings, images, and pages already created in a way that the components look good together. If you don't have any idea how to make things look good on your own, this is welcome news and it's why it’s a great do-it-yourself website builder.
The pattern that differentiates design templates
As I browsed through many templates in doing work for clients, I started to realize that there was a pattern in the designs that could help me narrow down template choices for my clients. Whenever I start working with a client, I ask them to make two decisions about the design templates available. Then from what I know of their style preferences and their business, I can narrow down template choices to just a few. I'll tell you about the first decision in this post and will tell you more at a later date about the other one.
The first decision I ask clients to make is how big they want the main image to be — that's the image visitors will see when they go to the website. The two basic choices are to have a large image that goes the full width of the page or to have a smaller image with some "breathing room" on either side. Here are examples of both kinds of images.
Browsing through designs
If you like to test the water before diving in as I do, you'll probably find it helpful to browse through Squarespace templates before you click the "Get Started" button on either platform. With just a few exceptions, you'll see that the design choices either have the large full-width image or the smaller image. (By the way, the designs are categorized by function for convenience, but you can build a website from any kind of design and add the features you need.)
Squarespace 7.1 templates
Squarespace 7.1 differs from Squarespace 7.0 in that all templates you can use have the same underlying design structure. That means you can choose any Squarespace 7.1 template and change the image and navigation placement later without having to switch the template your website uses. If you change your mind about your initial design choices, you’ll adjust the settings for the Home page image and navigation, keeping the original template you chose.
So far, my clients have had clear preferences about one image choice or the other. After browsing through the designs, you may find you have a preference too. Write down the name of the Squarespace template you prefer and then give it a try when you get started with your brand-new website.
[Updated May 2021 for Squarespace 7.1]
