Internet Marketing

Squarespace Website Show & Tell: March 2012

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Squarespace Websites March Show & TellMarch's edition of the Squarespace Website Show & Tell features nine new Squarespace websites created by as many designers. This month there were two main themes: blogs and professional services websites -- you'll see Squarespace websites created for makeup artists, financial services professionals, community health centers, and more. Thank you to all the talented designers for submitting your work this month!

March's Squarespace Show & Tell

Take a look at this month's entires, then explore the Show & Tell archive. We have a growing list of Squarespace websites that may give you a little inspiration on your next project.

  • Jamie Brittain is a web designer, graphic designer and aspiring developer. He created his personal website and blog using Squarespace.
  • Ashly McKessock is a makeup artist looking to showcase her work and her knowledge of her craft. Our friend Shane Boyce created her new website, In Your Face.
  • Hunter Cordell created Blog is the New Black, a blog about fashion, art, and design, among other things. I really liked Hunter's use of the fixed position navigation on the homepage of this Squarespace site.
  • Bored Factory is a popular culture and entertainment blog created by Luke Abell of Abelltech.com.
  • The Community Health Center of Austell, Georgia needed a website. Zach Aten of the CHC stepped up and built a website using Squarespace.
  • Dad in Prayer is a blog by Venezuelan father, blogger, and website developer, RJ Silva. 
  • Jonny Rowntree is a UK-based blogger and website designer. Jonny studies IT in Newcastle, and builds Squarespace websites like Lemon and Li.me for fun when he's not studying.
  • Like Tom is the investment resource website of Mark Sharman. 
  • MYD Studio is a architecture company in southern California. U.C. Berkeley graduate and architect, Lauren Moss, created their website.

Show & Tell Your Squarespace Designs

There's nothing on the web as beautiful as a new Squarespace website. We really want to share your work with the Squarespace community and readers of the Big Picture Web Marketing blog. If you'd like to be featured, take a moment to fill out the submission form in the right column of this blog. The goal is to feature all website submitted each month. 

Squarespace 6: Multiple Authors and Community Blogs

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Squarespace multiple authorsSquarespace has always supported multiple content publishers and editors per each website on the current version of their web publishing platform. That said, Squarespace support for multiple authors hasn't always been as comprehensive as it could be. Squarespace 6 promises new functionality for blogs and websites with community authorship. Take an exclusive look at how Squarespace has simplified permissions and beefed up support for member profiles.

Streamlined Support for Multiple Editors

Squarespace has always done a decent job of providing multiple levels of permissions and access to a website. According to Brandon Davenport, founder of the popular multi-author tech blog, Okay Geek (and co-host on the unofficial Squarespace podcast, Content, Structure & Style):

"The Squarespace system has been spot on when it comes to managing larger teams of people. You can easily create different “audiences” which contain a set of specific permissions. These could be things like which pages are visible or different editing capabilities for certain authors. You can then assign specific people to an audience and give each person the abilities attached to the assigned audience."

The new interface for creating editors appears to be much more streamlined than what is currently in Squarespace v5. Contributors are created based on the major groups of tasks on your website, not by each grouping individual permissions together one-by-one. 

Squarespace editor permissions

By the looks of things, Squarespace has been listening to its customers' feedback. Roles created specifically for billing, administration, and even comment moderation will simplify the task of defining permissions for multiple editors on a website.

Creating Rich Member Profiles on Squarespace 6

Squarespace currently supports multiple authors on Squarespace blogs and websites, but customers have been pushing Squarespace to add more social features and profile information. Davenport commented,

"Something that threw us a curve ball was profiles. We really wish we could have a profile page for each of our editors that they would be able to edit and build upon (add bios, photos and social networks)."

Squarespace 6 brings robust new features and controls to highlight editorial staff and provide greater opportunities for their recognition, enagement, and the growth of your blog's community.

Editing a Squarespace author profile

Squarespace will now support custom avatars for editors right out-of-the-box. Your authors will also have the ability create a custom profile and attach their social media profiles to their Squarespace profiles. I'm not sure about photos, or how robust the profile pages will be, but the new features will be welcome additions.

Squarespace author bios

Squarespace even seems to be exploring the relationship between authors and location. With the new location tab, authors can share their home base with your audience. It's exciting to see Squarespace push their platform to the limits of how people are using their websites today and into the future.

Squarespace location details for authors

The social web is about creating greater opportunities for personalization and engagement. The new profile and permissions features contained in Squarespace 6 will provide greater opportunities in these areas for community blog/websites with multiple authors. What features are you hoping to see for Squarespace user profiles in version 6?

The Squarespace Show & Tell Launches

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February Squarespace Website Show & TellWhen surveyed, Squarespace website users and designers said that seeing other examples of Squarespace websites was among the most valuable type of content we could publish on this blog. And in an effort to satisfy this demand, today we launch a new series called Squarespace Websites Show & Tell, which will showcase monthly websites created by Squarespace designers in the Big Picture Web Marketing community.

February's Squarespace Show & Tell

The innagural Squarespace Show & Tell features seven websites featured in the month of February created by five talented Squarespace designers. Take a look at these fresh new sites:

Show & Tell Your Squarespace Designs

There's nothing on the web as beautiful as a new Squarespace website. We really want to share your work with the Squarespace community and readers of the Big Picture Web Marketing blog. If you'd like to be featured, take a moment to fill out the submission form in the right column of this blog. The goal is to feature all website submitted each month. 

Will the Squarespace 6 Import/Export Support Your Site?

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Squarespace 6 import and exportsMany Squarespace users are excited about the upcoming release of Squarespace 6, the intuitive web publisher's next generation platform currently in beta testing. Squarespace website owners wonder if they'll be able to export content off of their old site and import it into Squarespace 6. I've had a chance to test out the import/export features of Squarespace 6, and I'm happy to share the details with you.

Importing Content from Squarespace 5 to Squarespace 6

As a beta tester for Squarespace 6, I've been keeping an anxious eye on the progression of the import features in the new platform as the Squarespace team releases ongoing updates. I've been trying to import my blog on BigPictureWeb.com to my beta site since the Holidays, but I until recently I was met with bugs that would cause my import to crash. 

Last week I tried to complete my import again and had complete success! Sure enough, I was able to import over two year's-worth of blog posts onto ContentScientists.com (my Squarespace 6 beta site).

The import worked very well overall. Entire posts came across, along with images, styling, and comments. The import wasn't yet perfect, but I believe the Squarespace team will polish out the quirks in no time as they ready Squarespace 6 for launch.

Squarespace blog import results

Squarespace 6 Import/Export Support Plans Outlined

In addition to the abilty to import content from Squarespace 5 to Squarespace 6, the company plans to support many forms of import and export with the new Squarespace 6. Founder and CEO Anthony Casalena has confirmed in an email that Squarespace 6 will support:

  • Squarespace 5 blogs and pages
  • Galleries are not possible right now, but it's easy to re-drop images on Squarespace 6 galleries.
  • Support for Wordpress blogs and pages
  • Tumblr, including most post types
  • Dropbox (Casalena reports this will work more like a sync)
  • Plans also exist for Blogger and photo services

Casalena's email update was music to my ears. The Squarespace team realizes platform mobility will be a huge factor in the success of Squarespace 6. Curious Wordpress, Tumblr, and Blogger users, which combined make up the vast majority of Internet bloggers, will be more likely to try out Squarespace if they don't feel trapped. I'm sure many of them will never look back to their old systems once their content has been imported to Squarespace 6.

How important is the import/export features of Squarespace 6 to you? Are you more likely to start new projects on Squarespace 5 knowing that the import is working so well in the Squarespace 6 beta? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

How Squarespace 6 Mobile Sites Will Make Your Life Easier

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Squarespace on mobile and desktop websitesAs the Internet becomes available on a greater number of screens, the necessity to develop mobile versions of our websites has introduced even more complexity to web publishing. A full 8.5% of the world's Internet traffic is now mobile. Squarespace 6 mobile sites will be nothing short of amazing because they'll look great on any screen without extra effort on your part. Take a peak at Squarespace 6 and the future of mobile websites in this week's post.

Squarespace 6 and Responsive Design

Squarespace 6 utilizes responsive design, a progressive development approach where the content and presentation of the website change automatically based on the device being used. You won't have to build different mobile versions of your website for each device. Squarespace will adjust seemlessly to look great across computers, tablets and smartphones alike. This cuts down on time and effort for you, and improves the experience for your visitors.

Squarespace on Desktops, Tablets, and Smartphones

Let's take a look at responsive design in action. Below are three screenshots from the same URL, a blog post on ContentScientists.com, my Squarespace 6 beta site. Each screenshot is taken from a different device: a laptop, an iPad, and an iPhone. Notice how the content automatically changes to fit the device. This is responsive design in action, and why Squarespace 6 mobile sites will be amazing.

Squarespace 6 on a Laptop:

Squarespace 6 on a laptop/desktop

Squarespace 6 on an iPad:

Squarespace Six on an iPad screen

Squarespace 6 on an iPhone:

Squarespace 6 on an iPhone screen

Each device displays the content brilliantly, and with no additional effort on my part. I love responsive design, and I can't wait for Squarespace 6 and mobile sites powered by it. Hats off to the template designers at Squarespace!

Squarespace 6 is still in beta, but as you can see from the screenshots, the new platform is well on its way. This level of sophistication shows that the Squarespace development team is aiming for perfection with Squarespace 6. 

What do you think of the screenshots from ContentScientists.com and Squarespace 6? What questions do you have about Squarespace mobile sites on v5 and/or Squarespace 6? Let's chat mobile in the comments.