02: Squarespace 7.1 Page Types π
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00:01 The term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace, Incorporated. This content is not affiliated with Squarespace, Incorporated.
00:12 Welcome to Think Inside The Square, a podcast full of quick tips and tricks that will help you create a Squarespace website that you're proud of.
00:18 I'm your host, Becca Harpain, creator of Insidethesquare.co, and in this episode, you'll learn about the four types of pages in Squarespace 7.1.
00:27 For a transcript of this episode, along with
00:29 the links to any resources mentioned, visit insidethesquare.co/podcast
00:35 A quick overview of the four types of pages available in version 7.1, the latest version of Squarespace.
00:43 We have standard pages that are made up of different page sections.
00:46 Then we have collection lists. These showcase a list of collection item pages with nested URLs.
00:52 And don't worry if you don't know what that means, I'll explain it to you.
00:55And then we have a collection item page, and each one of those has different editing options.
00:59 To be super clear, a collection List or an example, I should say, is a blog.
01:04 And then the collection item would be the blog post, or a collection list would be a store, and the item would be a product.
01:10 We'll get into more of those details later, but I just want you to wrap your head around the concept real quick before we moved on.
01:15 The last type of page that we'll talk about today are auto pages, like a search results page or a checkout page.
01:21 These are automatically generated based on a visitor's behavior on your website, and they have limited styling options.
01:28 So now that you've got the overview there, let's go ahead and kick things off with standard pages.
01:34 Standard pages are the most common type of page in Squarespace, and they're made up of page sections.
01:39 Now, there are fluid engine sections and auto layouts. Both of them contain content, but in different ways. Now, standard pages have their own URL, their own SEO metadata, like a title and a description, their own social share image, and their own page header code injection.
01:56 If you want to customize them individually with CSS, like any page in Squarespace, you can add these to the not linked section of your site and do cool things with code, like remove the header and footer to make it a landing page.
02:07 That's what I do with a lot of the content on my site, like for a sales page or a lead magnet.
02:12 Lots of opportunities here that I'll save for a future episode.
02:15 But standard pages again have their own URL. So if you have yourdomain.com whatever the URL is that you want it to be, a good example might be an about page.
02:26 yourdomain.com/about - odds are that'll just be a standard page with content blocks that are about you or your business.
02:32 Let's talk about the other three types of pages and what they can do.
02:36 The next type of page that I want to talk about is the collection list.
02:40 When you make a blog, it's the page that lists all of the posts.
02:43 A portfolio lists all of the projects. An event listing lists all of the events that you have scheduled. A store will list all of your products. Any collection page starts at the list.
02:54 Inside Squarespace 7.1, you can add page sections above or below the list. But the display settings for each collection list varies by type.
03:03 Now, usually, you'll have a few different layout options, but each one of them is a little bit different. But the actual settings for the collection list are similar.
03:11 Inside the settings for the collection list, you'll have that main URL that's used for all items in the collection.
03:17 It's the top level of your nested URL. For example, a blog post on your site might be yourdomain.com/blog/post.
03:27 Blog in this example will be where your collection list is the list of all the blog posts.
03:32 The collection page is that first URL layer past your domain and it's used by every item in the collection.
03:38 Another example is that online store you've got a URL slug for your collection list, maybe yourdomain.com/store.
03:46 And then the nested URL for the product would be yourdomain.com/store/product
03:52 Following so far? Awesome.
03:54 Now, I do have a list of Squarespace and website related terms available for free on my website. If you want to follow up on any of these or see some real examples, it's insidethesquare.co/glossary
04:06 Now, let's keep going. Before we get into collection items, I do want to mention a few other settings for the collection list page.
04:12 Under the collection list settings, you can add SEO metadata, like a title and description for the actual list page.
04:19 And then you can also add Social Share image that's unique to that page.
04:23 This is also where you add custom code for the list and the individual list items.
04:28 Collection items like a blog post or a product, they don't have their own page header code injection.
04:35 It's the same for every item in the collection. So the settings for your collection list is where you add it.
04:41 To be clear, there are some settings unique to a collection item.
04:44 It's just the page header code injection that can't be item-specific.
04:48 Super important to know if you plan on using custom CSS or have any plugins or tracking codes that you want for the individual items.
04:55 So let's go ahead and jump into those. Speaking of collection items, let's talk about what they have in common and what is oh so different.
05:02 Now, what they have in common are a few base settings. Every individual collection item has its own URL, and then it also has individual SEO, title and description options and a social share image.
05:15 But that's pretty much where the similarities end.
05:18 Now the collection item page itself, they all have different editing options for projects inside a portfolio, you've got page sections for blogs and events and products we have some classic editor sections mixed with some other features.
05:32 Video - totally different, not a lot of flexibility at all.
05:35 But again, each one of the collection items, they have different editing options, but they all have a unique URL, unique SEO title and description, and a unique Social Share image.
05:46 Now, the last type of page I wanted to talk about in this episode are auto pages. These are really important and often overlooked when you're thinking about your website because they're automatically created.
05:56 You don't make them yourself. Things like a search results page, a tag or a category page, a checkout page, they are all created automatically based on the activity on your site, and they do not exist in your page's menu.
06:10 Now, being auto generated, it means we're pretty limited in options when it comes to things like customizing them.
06:16 You can make some changes to your checkout page using the settings built into Squarespace, and there are a few limited options that we can explore with some custom CSS.
06:25 But it's important to know that the checkout page, search results, tag, and category pages, none of them can have custom metadata.
06:33 None of them have a Social Share image. Those are missing because we can't access the settings for those pages.
06:39 So I wanted to keep these episodes quick, and I totally went over my five-minute mark. So I'm just going to wrap this up really quick again. If you want more information on anything I talked about, head on over to Insidethesquare.co/podcast.
06:51 But here we go. Quick recap.
06:53 We've got a standard page made up of page sections. We've got a collection list that shows a list of all the items in that collection.
07:00 We have a collection item, and then we have an auto page. You can't control the layout of the content on an auto page because it's automatically created.
07:08 Collection items are super unique when it comes to the way that you add content there.
07:12 We're talking about projects in a portfolio, products in a store, or a post on a blog. Collection lists also have very unique design settings.
07:21 And then standard pages, again, are made up of individual page sections that are stacking on top of each other to create the entire page.
07:29 Now, standard pages, collection lists, and collection items.
07:32 Each one of them has its own URL slug, its own SEO, title and description, as well as a Social Share image.
07:39 I want you to keep in mind that the collection items are nested URLs inside the collection list. Standard pages have their own URL. A standard page URL example is yourdomain.com/about.
07:52 A collection list example is yourdomain.com/blog, and a collection item example is yourdomain.com/blog/blogpost
08:03 I think that was a pretty efficient recap, so I'm going to call this episode finished.
08:07 Thank you so much for listening to this shorty episode of Think Inside the Square.
08:11 I have a lot more tips and tricks to share with you about making an amazing Squarespace website that is uniquely yours.
08:17 so be sure to subscribe to this brand-new podcast wherever you happen to be listening for this episode.
08:21 Thanks again for listening and most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website.
08:26 Bye for now.
