47: Squarespace Update Roundup: What’s New in 2024 (So Far. . .)
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[00:00:00] Music
[00:00:09] The team at Squarespace is always working hard to make sure that our websites not only look great, but have the latest and greatest features. With the internet constantly changing, they have to keep making updates to help us stay ahead. I wanted to spend this episode doing a recap of the updates that we've seen since January 2024, just in case you missed some of the awesomeness that they've rolled out.
[00:00:29] Welcome to Think Inside the Square, a podcast full of tips and tricks to help you create a Squarespace website that you're proud of. I'm your host, Becca Harpain, Squarespace expert and creator of InsideTheSquare. co. In this episode, I'm giving you a high level overview of some amazing updates that Squarespace has made in the first half of 2024.
[00:00:46] For a transcript of this episode, along with the links to any resources, visit insidethesquare.co/podcast
[00:00:53] The term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace, Inc. This content is not affiliated with Squarespace, Inc.
[00:00:59] Before we dig into this list of updates, we gotta talk about the elephant in the room.
[00:01:03] The old but still fun elephant known as 7. 0. This version of Squarespace is still used by a lot of people, and not all of these updates will apply to you if you're on the older version of Squarespace. Version 7. 1 was released in 2020. Yeah, that year, so you might have missed it, there was a lot going on.
[00:01:20] But that means it's about four years old. And in the last few years, Squarespace made the decision to focus on improving the latest version. So some of the features I'm about to talk about in this episode are not available for older sites built on version 7. If you're still on version 7 and you haven't updated your website in 4 years, let this be a sign that it's time, Squarespacer.
[00:01:40] From devices to software, tech has changed, and I honestly recommend that my own clients get a website refresh every 3 years. You don't need to redesign the whole thing, but if you're on an older version of Squarespace, I want you to strongly consider updating your site for these newer features. Okay, enough with the subtle hint that you should be on version 7.1
[00:01:59] Let's dig into the update list. What has Squarespace changed in the first six months of 2024? One of the big advancements was Squarespace AI. It got a lot more powerful with the introduction of what's known as brand identity. This new feature lets Squarespace AI use the information that you provide about your brand to create content that's tailored to your brand voice and target audience.
[00:02:23] For example, you can enter a website description and the tone you want to convey and Squarespace AI will use that information to generate content that's more consistent and in line with your brand. This can save you some time when it comes to creating the text content for your website, but as with any other AI program, I strongly recommend that you review the content created and update it so it truly is uniquely yours.
[00:02:47] In my case, I use the Squarespace AI feature to create filler text that my clients are then responsible for editing. That saves me some time in the website building process. If you watched my Squarespace Blueprint tutorial, then you [00:03:00] caught a glimpse of this AI content generator in action. It was pretty cool.
[00:03:03] I'll be sure to link to that demo video in the show notes for this episode. Now let's move on to some updates that have to do with how you use Squarespace itself. First, I have a few navigation related updates to cover, then some content specific updates, and finally, exciting e commerce related updates.
[00:03:20] In January, Squarespace made changes to the way that we edit a website header. In fact, they revamped the whole interface. I've got a tutorial about it that I'll link in the show notes, but here's what's new. When you're going to edit your site header, you'll see two new options. On the left hand side of the screen, you'll see that you can add elements.
[00:03:38] These include things like your social links or a call to action button. You can toggle these features on using the elements button on the left. Once they're there in your website header, you can click on the elements in Squarespace and that will open up their own settings and design menu so you can make changes to the content and the way it's displayed.
[00:03:56] Now on the right hand side of the screen is a new design option and when you click on that, you'll see the classic layouts that we had before but quite a few new design options built in there. There's a lot of fun stuff to explore, so if you haven't made any changes to your website header in a while, but you want to, definitely check out the training video that I'll link in the show notes.
[00:04:14] These new options are pretty intuitive, but if you're used to the old setup, it can be a little confusing. Another navigation related update from earlier this year is the ability to change the navigation settings of an individual page. Here's what that means. Squarespace will now let us hide the header and or the footer on individual pages, member pages, video pages, and course pages.
[00:04:39] This is a great way to create a landing page or a sales page. Now in the past, we would hide the header and footer in version 7. 1 using custom code. But a lot of users requested this feature, so Squarespace has now added it to the page settings. All you need to do is open up the page settings, click on navigation, and you can toggle off the header, or toggle off the footer or both.
[00:05:02] This will hide them completely along with any of the elements they contain like an account login button or your call to action button, your social media links and it hides them on all devices. Now if you want to hide those individual things instead of the entire header, you can use some custom code.
[00:05:18] But when you're creating an individual page like a landing page or a sales page and you want that stuff completely gone you can use that new feature. For those of you that used my custom code in the past to hide the header and footer on an individual page, you don't need to go back and change it. That code works just fine and it's not going to significantly slow down your site at all.
[00:05:37] There's no need to use this new feature if the code you have already works. But when you're creating new landing pages and sales pages, it can be a lot easier to just toggle those off while you're already editing the settings of that individual page, so definitely check that feature out. Now let's talk about some of the content related features.
[00:05:55] Editing text links got an improvement. In the new link editor, Squarespace will [00:06:00] automatically detect what type of link you're adding, saving you a little bit of time. You can also drag and drop uploads. If you want to link some text directly to a file like a PDF, you can just drag it over from your computer and it will upload to Squarespace.
[00:06:14] We also got some additional style options for specific content blocks. The blocks that got this update are text blocks, scrolling text, forms, newsletters, Quote blocks, summary blocks, and accordions. We can now add blur effects, blend modes, and strokes, also known as borders, to these individual content blocks.
[00:06:35] This gives us a lot more flexibility when it comes to creating a unique design in Squarespace. Another new feature that was released earlier this year that's available for any type of content block in a Fluid Engine section is what's known as pinning. You can pin a block to the top, center, or bottom of the browser window for the entire height of the section it's in.
[00:06:55] There's also some built in support for offset spacing so you can control the distance between that pinned block and the edge of the viewport. Now the more technical term for this is known as sticky or position sticky for my fellow code nerds who are listening to this episode. But Squarespace chose the term pinning because, according to them, they felt it was more user friendly than the technical term sticky.
[00:07:16] But regardless, this was a feature requested by a lot of Squarespace users, and it's a great way to create some unique designs that can help you do things like keep important calls to action in view while visitors scroll through your pages. I'll definitely be using this in some of the FAQ sections on my client sites.
[00:07:32] Now there's one more content related update. I saved the best for last here. This was such an exciting one. I had a few clients who were pumped about this. Have you ever wanted to collect more than just text with your Squarespace forms? Because now you can! Squarespace updated our contact forms so we can now add a file upload field.
[00:07:52] This is a great way to collect things like resumes, photos, or other documents from your website visitors. People filling out a form can upload a file using their computer. They can just drag and drop it right there into the form, and you can specify what types of file can be uploaded, and each upload field can accept multiple files.
[00:08:12] Such a cool new feature and I'm really excited that they've added it. All right, before we move on to e commerce, let's do a quick recap. We got an update to how we edit our website header and we can now toggle off headers and footers for individual pages in our Squarespace website. When it comes to content blocks, we have a new link editor available.
[00:08:30] We have additional style options for specific content blocks like adding borders. And we can now pin blocks, positioning them in a specific spot on a site while people scroll through our content. And we have the ability to upload files to a form block. Alright, on to the e commerce ones. Squarespace rolled out an important feature for anyone selling subscription products, renewal notifications.
[00:08:52] You can now set up automatic reminders, which means your customers will get an email 15 days before their subscription is up for renewal. You can [00:09:00] customize this email with your own messaging and branding, and I recommend using this opportunity to make sure your customers know why they should keep their subscription going.
[00:09:08] Right now, they're waiting for you. These notifications are only sent for subscriptions that renew every 12 weeks or more. But Squarespace is always working on adding and updating features here. I believe they're working on support for member sites soon. So stay tuned for that update. Another e commerce related update was big news in the Squarespace community this year.
[00:09:27] The blog paywall. This is a way that you can create a sub stack style blog that people can pay to access. without needing to create a member area. This lets you offer exclusive content to paying subscribers and it works just like any other paywall in Squarespace. You choose the price and visitors can sign up to access the premium content.
[00:09:47] You can also offer a few posts as a free preview to entice readers to subscribe, which I think is a pretty cool feature. There's one more paywall introduction that they created for people selling videos too. This new configuration is designed to be a little more user friendly than a member area. and help you convert more visitors into paying customers.
[00:10:06] In the past, this paywall for videos would cover the entire video details page, but with the new configuration, the paywall only covers the video player itself, which lets the visitors browse your entire video library to see what kind of content you offer before they have to commit to paying for anything.
[00:10:24] This new configuration is the default now for all new video collections. And Squarespace itself recommends that you update any existing video collections to this new configuration as well. Again, it's going to block the video, but not the content, so they can scroll through the entire library to get excited about all the content they'll be able to access inside your video collection.
[00:10:46] If you don't sell products or video collections or a blog, but you do offer services, and have used Squarespace invoicing in the past, you might have noticed that Squarespace invoicing got a big update earlier this year too. Now everyone on Squarespace, even those using a personal plan, can create and send invoices directly from their Squarespace website.
[00:11:05] This is a great way to get paid for your services, whether you're a freelancer, a consultant, or a small business owner. Squarespace charges credit card processing fees for every invoice sale, so there's no extra transaction fees to worry about. It's just the processing fee through Squarespace payments.
[00:11:21] I'll include more information about those processing fees inside the notes for this episode, so head on over to insidethesquare.co/podcast if you want more information about invoicing directly through Squarespace.
[00:11:33] Just a few weeks ago in June 2024, Squarespace made an update that e commerce folks got excited about.
[00:11:39] We now have more control over how your product pages look on your website without needing custom code. You can now change the layout of your product description page, often referred to as a PDP. You can choose where the actual description of the product appears. Is it below the price, below the add to cart button, or even below any add on options that you offer?[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] You can also change the position of that add to cart button, either having it next to the quantity selector or on a separate line. These options give you more flexibility for your PDP layout and it lets you create a product page that works best for your own unique design style. These are just a few of the great new features that Squarespace has rolled out recently.
[00:12:21] They are constantly working on new ways to make it easier for us to build a beautiful and successful website, so I think I'll be doing a review episode like this at least twice a year. Before I do a quick recap, I want to let you know that I made some updates, too. I have a new training series called Squarespace Made Simple.
[00:12:37] It's a nine video lesson course that teaches you how to create a site using the latest version of Squarespace, version 7. 1. I just finished updating it to reflect all of these changes and the new menu structure, and I'm pretty proud about how it turned out. So if you want to learn more about how to make your own Squarespace site, Or, just how to use the latest version, you can check out the course at insidethesquare.co/start
[00:13:00] You'll get lifetime access to this course content, which means all future updates. And if this episode is any indication, we're going to get some updates. So I wanted to make sure that anyone who signs up has the most up to date info they need. So again, if you want to check it out, that's available on demand at insidethesquare.co/start.
[00:13:19] We covered a lot in this episode today, so let's do a recap. Thanks for watching. We'll In the last six months, Squarespace amped up their AI, introducing a new feature called Brand Identity, which automatically tailors the content it creates for your brand voice. They've also revamped the way you edit your website header, and made it easier to edit text links.
[00:13:39] They've introduced a new feature called Pinning, which lets you keep important stuff in view as users scroll through pages, and they've added new style options for certain content blocks. Oh, and they made it possible for users to To hide the header and footer on certain pages. You can now collect files through your Squarespace forms and send automatic renewal reminders to your customers who have subscriptions.
[00:13:59] They've also introduced a paywall for blog posts and made improvements to the paywall for videos. They've upgraded their invoicing system and for those of you running an e commerce business, you now have more control over the layout of your product pages. All of these updates and more are designed to help you create an awesome website with Squarespace.
[00:14:16] And if you want some pointers, check out my training course at insidethesquare. co forward slash start. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Think Inside the Square. I truly hope you enjoyed it and that you're inspired to check out some of these new features. Be sure to look at the show notes for this episode for helpful links about all of the info we covered today.
[00:14:34] And most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website. Bye for [00:15:00] now.
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Squarespace Made Simple: insidethesquare.co/start
Squarespace AI Tutorial: youtu.be/FiISQ4jsjls
New header design: https://insidethesquare.co/tiny/header
Blog paywall: https://youtu.be/V69kvEUSQzk
Paywall support article: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404628246669-Paywalls-and-pricing-plans
How to create a landing page (hide header and footer): https://youtu.be/kWJtQB6ncdY
EPISODE SUMMARY
Squarespace Update Roundup: Powerful New Features in 2024
Squarespace is constantly innovating to make website creation easier and more effective. Here's a breakdown of some exciting updates they've rolled out in the first half of 2024, focusing on Squarespace 7.1 (the latest version).
AI Gets Smarter
Squarespace AI received a major upgrade with the introduction of Brand Identity. This feature uses the information you provide about your brand to create content that matches your brand voice and targets the right audience. Imagine entering your website description and desired tone, and Squarespace AI generates content that reflects that perfectly! This can save you tons of time crafting high-quality content for your website.
Updates to Make Building Easier
Editing your website header just got easier! Squarespace revamped the interface entirely. Now, adding elements is done with a button on the left, while layout and design changes are on the right. Editing specific parts of your header, like social links or the call to action button, is also a breeze.
There are also improvements to editing text links. Squarespace automatically detects the type of link you're adding, saving you time. Plus, you can now drag and drop files to upload them and link to them easily.
New Features to Enhance Your Website
Squarespace introduced "Pinning," a feature that lets you create sticky elements on your website. This means you can choose a block to stay visible as users scroll through your pages. This is a great way to keep important information or calls to action front and center.
Squarespace also added new design options for specific content blocks like text, scrolling text, forms, and more. You can now add blur effects, blend modes, and strokes for a unique and stylish website.
Squarespace listened to user requests and added the ability to hide the header and footer on specific pages in version 7.1. This is a fantastic option for creating focused landing pages without distractions.
Another exciting update is the ability to collect files through your Squarespace forms! Now you can easily gather resumes, photos, or other documents directly from your website visitors.
E-commerce Got a Boost
Squarespace is committed to empowering online sellers. Here are a couple of great updates for Squarespace stores:
Renewal Notifications: Never lose a subscriber again! Squarespace now lets you send automatic email reminders 15 days before a customer's subscription expires, encouraging them to renew.
Improved Video Paywalls: The paywall design for videos has been revamped to make it more user-friendly. Now, visitors can browse your video library and see what kind of content you offer before committing to a purchase.
More Control Over Product Pages: You now have more control over how your products look on your website! Squarespace lets you change the layout of your product description page, including the placement of the description, add-to-cart button, and any add-on options.
Squarespace Invoicing also got an upgrade; Squarespace invoicing is now available on all plans, including the Personal plan. This makes it easy to get paid for your services, whether you're a freelancer, consultant, or small business owner.
Stay Updated with Squarespace Made Simple
I updated my video course called Squarespace Made Simple. This 9 video training series teaches you how to build a website using Squarespace 7.1 & has recently been updated to reflect all the new features we covered. If you're interested in learning more about Squarespace 7.1 or creating your own website, check out the course at insidethesquare.co/start
This is just a glimpse of the exciting updates Squarespace has rolled out in 2024. They're continually striving to make website creation and management an enjoyable and empowering experience.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast for more Squarespace tips and tricks, and most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website!
