Post on 12-Jan-2017
How to Create Your Own WebsiteA Beginner’s Guide to Squarespace
By Carlo Cruz
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This report is free. Feel free to share this report under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Create Your Own Website: A Beginner’s Guide to Squarespace Copyright © 2016 Carlo Cruz. All rights reserved.
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Disclaimer:The templates, images, logos, and trademarks captured in the screenshots used in this guide belong to Squarespace and Tumbr. I am also not in any way connected with these websites.
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In this guide, you will learn:• How to create your website with Squarespace
• How to set up your website
• How to create a webpage
• How to create your own blog and publish your first blog post
• How to make your website go live
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You can choose to create a Cover Page, a Website, and an Online Store
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Online store pertains to creating a full-feature website plus a fully functional ecommerce website (commerce only works in supported countries)
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You can review all the template’s features by clicking “Feature Index”
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Once you’re done reviewing the template’s features, click the “close button”
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When you’re okay with the features of the template you selected, click “Start with (Template)”
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… you can now create your website by entering your information …
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Congratulations! You have now created your Squarespace website.
Next: Setting Up Your Website
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… Squarespace guides you in setting up the basics of your website
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Select your site’s purpose (Business, Personal, eCommerce, or Non-profit) by selecting from the drop-down menu
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At this point, only you can see your blog as it is not yet live
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To make your blog live, you should upgrade your trial account to a paid account, which we’ll talk about later
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For now, let’s talk about the basics and continue setting up your website
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To set up your website, we’ll discuss:
• Adding a tag line to your website,
• Adding a description to your website, and
• Connecting your social media accounts to your website.
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In this menu, you can tweak the design of your template and even switch to another template
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We’ll talk more about this in another blog post; For now, let’s add a tag line to your website
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Next, we add a description to your website so people will know what it is about
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In this menu, you can update your account’s various settings such as billing, commerce, blogging, and social media
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For now, let’s focus on the basics: adding a description and connecting your social media accounts
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To add a description to your blog, click “Basic Information”
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This will help people and search engines like Google know what your website is about
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To finish setting up the basics of your website, let’s talk about connecting your social media accounts
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In this menu, you can connect your different social media accounts
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By connecting your social media accounts, your audience will know the links to your accounts and easily connect with you
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You can also share your blog posts easily through the accounts you connect with your blog
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A light-box will pop out listing all the different social media which you can connect with your Squarespace blog
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Select the social media account you want to connect with your blog from the menu
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… a new window will open prompting you to log-in to your account and authorize Squarespace to connect with your account
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The interface differs for every social medium, but click “Authorize” or “Allow”
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Once you allow your account to be connected, a window will pop out where you must confirm your settings
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To add more social media accounts, click “Connect Account” and repeat the process
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… a button linking to your social media account should now appear on your website
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Congratulations! You have now set up your website.
Next: Creating a Web Page
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Aside from your blog, you also need other web pages to tell people who you are and what you do and give them a way to contact you among others
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You have to create your About page, Contact page, Terms and Conditions page, Sign up page, and any other pages you need for your website
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In the Pages menu, you can create, delete, or modify web pages
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Depending on your template, you can also set what web pages are in your website’s “menu”
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Some templates have only the Top Navigation while others also have a Secondary Navigation which is like a second menu
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The template I’ve chosen, Avenue, only has a Top Navigation
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To add a web page to the Top Navigation, click the “plus sign” beside “Top Navigation”
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A box will pop out showing the different pages you can create with Squarespace
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We’ll explore the different kinds of pages in a separate blog post (or you can try experimenting with the different kinds of pages)
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For now, let’s create a web page by clicking the “Page” icon
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This will also add your web page to your website’s main menu
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You can modify your web page’s content by hovering over the content you want to edit
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This will display the “Page Content” wherein you can edit your web page and adjust your web page’s settings
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With Squarespace, you can see how your web page looks like as you edit it
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To edit the text in your web page, simply click anywhere on the paragraph…
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You can also add other elements to your web page by hovering over and clicking the callout buttons
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This will display the different content blocks which you can add to your web page
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For example, to add an image to your web page, click the “Image” block
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After uploading your image, you can choose to display or not to display the caption
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We’ll explore the other content blocks in a separate blog post (or you can try experimenting with the different content blocks)
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To make a web page your “Home” page (which is the page people see when they go to your website address)…
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… hover over the web page in the Top Navigation menu and then click the “gear” button
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It should also display a “home” icon next to it in the menu
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This will permanently delete the web page from the Top Navigation and your main menu
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You can also remove a web page from the Top Navigation without deleting it by dragging it from the Top Navigation…
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This is helpful for web pages that are rarely viewed (but important nonetheless) such as Thank You pages and Welcome pages for your subscribers
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For your audience to access these pages, you simply have to link to them on another web page or in a blog post
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You can also create web pages which are not linked to your main menu by clicking the “plus sign” next to the “Not Linked” menu
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This is helpful for creating web pages which you are not yet ready to share with your audience
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Congratulations! You now know how to create, modify, and delete web pages.
Next: Creating a Blog and Publishing a Blog Post
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Before you can even publish a blog post, you first have to create a “Blog”
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This will remove the Blog demo page from the Top Navigation and the main menu
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To create a Blog page, click the “plus sign” beside the Top Navigation menu
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This will open a light box where I can choose web pages to create
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This will create your new “Blog” page in the Top Navigation menu
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Enter the name of your blog on the space provided and then press enter
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Congratulations! You are now ready to write your first blog post
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This will open the editor where you can write, save, schedule, publish, and share your blog post
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Just like in editing your web pages, you can also format your text in your blog posts using the formatting toolbar…
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… and add certain elements such as images, videos, spacers, and line breaks to your blog post by clicking a callout button anywhere on the blog editor
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Once again, this will open the content block menu wherein you can choose what element to add to your blog post
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… and a category to your blog post by clicking the “plus sign” next to them
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These will help you organize your blogs into topics and also help your audience search blog posts with the same tags or within the same categories
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You can also turn the comments on each of your blog posts on and off
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To add a thumbnail image, write an excerpt, and adjust the other settings for your blog post, click “Options”
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To upload a thumbnail image for your blog post, click “Add an image”
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You can also purchase an image from Getty by clicking “Find the Perfect Image”
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You can add an excerpt for your blog post so that your Blog page will display only the excerpt of your post
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This is helpful for long blog posts so that your audience can easily see the other blog posts in your Blog page
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You can also customize your post’s URL (by default, it is set to your blog post’s title)…
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… and change the blog post’s author (for blogs with multiple authors and contributors)
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To share your blog post in social media through your connected accounts, click “Social”
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This will display the different social media accounts you connected with your Squarespace website
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Select which social media you want to share your content by toggling the share button on and off
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Once you publish your post, it will automatically be shared on social media through your connected accounts
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… publish your post and share it on social media now by clicking “Save and Publish”…
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Set the date and time you want your blog post to be published and shared on social media
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You can now see your blog post and its status in your blog collection
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This will allow you to edit your blog’s sidebar similar to how you edit your web pages and your blog posts
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For some templates, you can also remove your blog’s sidebar or place it on the left
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In the Style Editor, you can change the various elements of your website’s design such as the Font Color, Header Size, Site Padding, Link Colors, and more
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We’ll also explore these different style element in a separate blog post or you can try tweaking them for your own website
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Congratulations! You now know create a blog and publish a blog post.
Next: Making your website go live
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Once you’re happy with your website and ready to share it with the world, you can finally make your website go live
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Choose a plan that suits your needs and then click “Select”
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Congratulations! Your website is now live and you have finally
started with your blogging journey.
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You are now on your way to doing your best work
yet and creating your art.
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Feel free to share this free guide with anyone you know who wants to start a blog or build a website.
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Also, feel free to share your website and your art with us on the blog at www.carlocruz.ph/writing/
start-a-blog.
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To learn more about doing your best work yet and creating your
own art, visit my blog at www.carlocruz.ph