Disqus and Squarespace Comments Together at Last

Anyone with a Squarespace blog will tell you that, traditionally, the Squarespace commenting system has left something to be desired. Luckily, Squarespace 6 will bring an end to clunky captas and limited commenting options. Not only will Squarespace offer a completely revamped commenting system to accompany their new platform launch, but they'll also be introducing a one-click integration with the popular commenting system, Disqus.

Installing Disqus on a Squarespace 6 Blog

Installing Disqus on a Squarespace blog has always been possible with a little tweaking, but now it couldn't be easier with Squarespace 6. The first thing you need to do is register your blog and create an account on Disqus. It's a simple process. Then, enter your Disqus Shortname for your blog in the corresponding field in the General Settings of Squarespace 6. That's it. Squarespace is going out of their way to make it easy to have an amazing blog or website with powerful features and extensibility. 

Seemless Disqus Integration with Squarespace 6

I recently tried out the new Disqus comments on Squarespace 6 on my KoiStory.com blog about koi fish. I have to say that I'm impressed so far. Squarespace pulled in Disqus without any effort on my part after simply pasting in my Disqus Shortname.

What do you think about the new Squarespace 6 and Disqus comments integration? I've started publishing on KoiStory.com, despite Squarespace's warning that everything is still in beta. I guess it's my way of wanting to use the new platform. Do extra features like one-click Disqus integration make it seem worth the wait? 

Squarespace Website Show & Tell: April 2012

One of the things I love the most about Squarespace websites is that rarely do you find two that look exactly the same, especially after a professional designer has had a hand in the design. This month's Show & Tell features ten uniquely beautiful websites created by six friends of our blog. Check out websites ranging from sites for consultants to heavy metal record labels. Vote for your favorite submitted design to crown this month's champ.

April's Squarespace Show & Tell

Squarespace offers some pretty great templates, but you can't compete with the polished and completely branded look of a custom site. Take a gander at these ten very unique websites.

• Big Blue Dahab is a PADI dive resort in the Red Sea. They asked Allie Astell of Manage My Website to create their beautiful Squarespace website.
• Campbell Salgado Studio is a senior portrait photography studio formed through the love and partnership of Kim Campell and Francisco Salgado. In addition to being a very talented photographer, Kim also happens to be their web designer.
• Terry Pappy created a website for Cambridge Performance Partners, a website for a business improvement consultancy. More of Terry's work can be found at Better3.
• Terry Pappy's second submission for the month is an informational website created to support the Compass Playbook, a guide that promises to create breakthrough success through creating clarity around the things that matter to you.
• Terry Pappy had a busy month in April, submitting three sites to this month's Show & Tell. Goonan Performance Strategies are healthcare business consultants based in Massachusetts. 
• My pal and owner of Creative Component, Alan Houser, submitted a gem of a site in Eonian Records, the online presence of a metal music label by the same name. I thought this Squarespace website rocked hard!
• Alan Houser's second website for the month of April was for San Francisco Real Estate Agency, Proximty Real Estate. They're no doubt loving the clean and effective website Alan built for them.
• Some of my favorite websites are for individuals looking to showcase their personal brands. Security and Technology expert Todd Morris turned to Alan Houser and Creative Component to create his online presence. I really like how Alan made it easy to learn about Todd and connect with him all across the web.
• Michael Bessig of Bite47 and Altendorf, Switzerland, submitted a portfolio website that showcases Sarina Arnold, a Swiss model who has graced the cover of such magazines as Vogue and Elle.
• Last but not least, Tech Terrier is a tech blog created and managed by Alex Lightman. Check out their coverage of the ODOC iPhone docking station to get a sense of the cool stuff Alex and his writers cover over there.

What was your favorite website in the Squarespace Show & Tell this month? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments or in our poll on our Facebook page We'll interview the designer you think submitted the hottest design. Also, if you're looking for futher inspiration, check out our Show & Tell archives. And if you need help with your site, don't forget about our Squarespace Designer Directory.

Squarespace Designer Spotlight: In Your Face

Lately we've been publishing monthly installments of the Squarespace Website Show & Tell, a chance for designers on the Squarespace platform to show off their website creations. Last month's edition earned high praise for a handful of designers, one of which was Shane Boyce of GetBoyce.com. I asked Shane a few questions about his In Your Face website project, a portfolio site for for a makeup artist. Here's what Shane had to say about the project.

Why Did Your Client Pick Squarespace?

This particular client was a referral from a client that I built a website for earlier in the year. She went through her needs for the website and they fit really well with Squarespace, so it's what I recommended.

What was the #1 Goal for This Website and How Did You Achieve It?

The main goal for the website was to show and promote her work to prospective clients. So in an effort to show work, we used the Gallery module with several galleries - each representing a different category/style of work. We've also included a pricing page and a journal for videos.

What was Your Toughest Design Challenge and How Did You Overcome It?

Well, when Ashly went over her wishlist for the website, one of the things she mentioned was infusing it with her personality and interests. One of the genres she is interested in and works with is the Horror genre. If you take a look at her galleries, there's some really cool things she does with special effects makeup. So we decided this is what we wanted to try to include.

For me, this was a bit of a challenge because the website needed to be immediately attractive and engaging for the target market of professional people - they would be the market that would contract work. So after some brainstorming, my idea was borrowed from the video game and movie industries.

My idea was to think of some of the movies, shows, and video games in the zombie genre. A lot of them start with the main character waking up and not knowing where they are. They stumble into the world and find it almost normal, but not quite. As they move around, they find more and more that things are not as they appear.

I wanted to take this feeling and add that to the website. So when you go to it, it looks like a normal, clean, professional website, but as you navigate around, there's small things that appear. It's a fun and creative way to add Ashly's interests and personality into the website, while maintaining a professional look!

What was Your Favorite Part About Designing this Squarespace Website?

My favorite part was the creativity of the project. It's always fun when clients give us parameters that allow us to be very creative in solving the website's problems.

Is There a Quick Design Tip You Can Share with Readers That You Implemented on This Website

One of the things I'm asked about often is how to change the look of the forms. If you look at Ashly's website, I've rounded the corners and changed the background color to better match the website colors. You can alter the forms by targeting the CSS in Squarespace's Custom CSS. Here is the code I used in Ashly's website to make these changes to the standard form:

input, textarea { background-color: #CACACA; -moz-border-radius: 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; border-radius: 3px; }

There's a lot you can do with CSS in your own websites to give forms more personality, you just have to try things out!

A special thanks goes out to Shane Boyce for his knowledge and time. What do you like best about the In Your Face website? If you're a designer and want to be featured in next month's Squarespace Designer Show & Tell, find out how here.

5 Squarespace Resources to Drive Traffic to Your Business

Remember the old saying, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Now apply this philosophical thought experiment to your website. Sure, you may have a gorgeous Squarespace site, but if no one is visiting your it, does it really accomplish your online goals? Today I've queued up five handy Squarespace resources to help you drive more traffic to your website or blog.

1. Get Your Bearings with Help & Support

Most of the tips that will follow require a general knowledge of the Squarespace platform. If you're a new Squarespacer, you'll want to become well-acquainted with the official Help & Support site. It's particularly handy for finding your way around Squarespace, and resolving minor issues and questions.

2. Install Measurement Tools on Squarespace

Squarespace's onboard analytics and website reporting package is elegant and informative, but it falls far short of what you'll need to fully understand how people get to your website, what they do once they get there, and if they're interested in what you have to offer. Install Google Analytics on Squarespace in minutes with this helpful article.

3. Track the Most Important Events on Your Website

You're almost ready to set aside Google Analytics. But before we do, it's wise to go a step further and set up a few Google Analytics goals in Squarespace. Why track anything if you can't tell when the most important events occur. This step will allow you to track when people fill out your contact form, click on a link, or even comment on your blog posts.

4. Publish About Your Craft to Build Trust

Download for freeConsistent blogging over time was cited by Hubspot's 2012 State of Inbound Marketing Report as the tactic companies find the most critical to their marketing efforts. The future of online business really is about developing relationships with people, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to give folks a venue and material for conversations through a blog on your Squarespace site. Here's a free Squarespace blogging guide to get you started or improve what you're already doing.

5. Cover Your Basic Marketing Bases

A few marketing basics include making it easier for people to find you, and encouraging them to tell others about your product and service. These principles apply on the web as well, and Squarespace users can use this handy Squarespace marketing checklist to tackle topics such as social media, RSS feeds, SEO, and more.

What tips do you have about driving traffic to your Squarespace website? Is there something you've discovered or use frequently that many people don't know about or fully understand? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or strike up a coversation with me on Google+ (you know you've been looking for a reason to use it!). 

5 Ways to Save Time Blogging with Squarespace 6

Bloggers know better than anyone that most of the challenge in making your blog posts successful is finding the time to blog. This time-intensive marketing tactic can produce new business at a lower cost than most other marketing channels, yet people struggle to embrace blogging because of the time involved. As luck would have it, Squarespace 6 will bring five time-saving new features that will help bloggers publish more efficiently and, as a result, reap the business benefits that go along with a great blog.

1. Social Media Sharing Buttons

The new version of Squarespace will allow you to add social media sharing buttons to your blog through a simple new interface. The setup follows each social network's standard third-party integration process. To enable it, simply click a button within your admin controls and the network turns from grayscale to color, turning on the integration with your blog. From that point forward, readers will be able to share your blog content via the social networks you choose without any cumbersome HTML snippets.

2. Custom Social Media Updates When You Publish

I've never been a fan of having your website auto-publish social media updates when you pubilsh new blog or website content, until now. Once integrated, you can set the update that will go out on each social network once your new blog post publishes. Squarespace has even included a convenient shorthand system that dynamically pulls in post elements such as the post title, author and URL. 

3. Improved Access and Control Over Post Details

I'll personally be saving some of the most time with the next set of new features, all bundled together under the Options section of the blog post editing interface. Squarespace has vastly improved post details access and control. These new features include quicklly adding blog post thumbnail images (for use with excerpts), custom URL control, and the ability to change the author of a blog post.

4. Content Review Workflow Built Right in

Up until now, managing multiple editors in Squarespace hasn't always been easy. But now schedule your posts, mark them as private, or event request review. It will be interesting to see how robust the review interface will be, but often even the most basic of workflows are a vast improvement over the manual processes some editorials teams are forced to adhere to due to the lack of sophistication of their blogging platform.

5. Easier Embedding of Social Content

This last feature demonstrates Squarespace's commitment to being the most elegant and sophisiticated web publishing platform out there. It's still being perfected, but you can now enter the URL of a Twitter tweet or YouTube video, and Squarespace will automatically figure out how to best embed it into your blog post. Once embedded, you can also go in and tweak how it is presented on your site. Talk about a time saver!

What do you think of these new time-saving blogging features of Squarespace 6? What features save you the most time when you're blogging? Does the writing itself or a lack of efficiency features baked into your blogging platform contribute to more of your time-related challenges with blogging?