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SEO is all about doing what you can to ensure your content is a top result in searches for relevant keywords. Solid SEO copy helps your intended audience find your site in the first place, pulling in those most likely to engage with your content and convert from visitors into customers. Working on your SEO copywriting is a great way to ensure your site ends up in front of the people who need or want it the most. Ultimately, you want to create content that is useful to your customers. An easy way to get started is by researching what customers are asking you specifically (via your customer service or socials) or what people are asking Google about your keywords. You can do this by searching a related keyword and looking at the ‘People also ask’ box. Once you know what information would be most useful, take the time to outline your content. This will help you keep your writing focused and avoid losing your readers through superfluous tangents. Consider using questions as headers where you can, to enforce the idea that you are providing answers. What have you found most impactful when tackling SEO copywriting? Share your favorite tips in the comments below!

Launching an online store can be as easy as choosing your website provider, uploading cool images for your products, setting a price, and selling them or advertising them in a marketplace. However, planning your online store launch thoroughly can help you manage expectations for your business and achieve long term success. To start, some experts recommend: Fully fleshing out your business idea, including researching your business name, target market, and their motivations for purchasing your products. Writing a comprehensive business plan that includes an exit strategy. Creating a budget and researching additional funding sources, like loans or business grants. Following government regulations and guidelines for registering your business as a legal entity. Building your team and creating your branding. Because businesses are varied and have different needs, there really isn’t a blueprint you can follow wholesale. Everyone’s timeline is different! Just check out what these startup founders told The Muse on how they fared when they started their businesses. What do you wish you’d known before launching your online store? Tell us all about it in the comments below.

Successful SEO strategies depend on many factors and are usually the product of a lot of time spent on market research, competitor analysis, and social trends. Once this work is done, search engine algorithms will still need to crawl your site and determine its rankings. It’s a long, steady process that requires trial and error, and lots of patience. What happens if your main strategy doesn’t work how you expect? In this case, do what the pros do: experiment! According to the SEO and marketing blog, Search Metrics, SEO experiments will help you answer the question, “will this tactic work for my business?” Here’s a few of their recommendations on experiments you can try: A/B Tests Font, color, and CTA (call to action) changes Tweaking your website copy and metadata Targeting search keywords with low search volume The site Semrush also has some innovative SEO experiments you can check out. How did you get your SEO strategy in shape? Share your insights and experiments in the comments below!

Sliders AKA slideshows are revolving carousels in a website showing products or photos. Often they’re displayed as a banner at the top of the webpage and occupy the full width of the browser window. They create a dynamic browsing experience and offer visitors a taste of your brand, your work, or offerings. With Squarespace you can create sliders using Gallery Sections, Summary Blocks and Gallery Blocks. While their usage is very popular and they can be helpful to consolidate content so more is visible on one screen, some find them more often distracting than attracting, due to the fact of several messages being delivered at once which can lead to the focus being lost. Deciding if including carousels is the right choice for you will depend on your business, audience, and goals. What are your feelings on using sliders and what are some examples where you feel folks have used them intentionally and effectively? Share in the comments below!

Choosing a domain name (the address/URL of your site) is a momentous occasion in your journey as a website owner. A domain is your brand’s first impression and coming up with a unique and memorable name is something that often requires some thought. Common best practices include: Use keywords (about what your business is or where you are located) so your audience can find you easily Keep the name short and simple for easy typing and memorization Keep pronunciation in mind to favor word-of mouth Register mistyped domains, so no matter what your audience types, they'll always be directed to your site. If you already have a business name, then you’ve got your starting point. Either way, a decision also needs to be made about what TLD/domain extension (part of a URL that follows the last period) to pick. While .com is the most familiar and easiest to remember, you could consider other common choices such as .net, .org, or even location (.uk, .ca, .au) or business/niche (.yoga, .community) based extensions as an alternative. No matter what, ideally your decision would be a long lasting one. While it’s always possible to change your domain later on, some caution is required to avoid hurting search rankings. How did you come up with your own domain name? What are your top tips on choosing the right one? Share in the comments below!

Real community engagement is a long term game, according to the writers at The Social Shakeup. This especially true of social media, as holding the attention of your audience and having them contribute positively to your community takes time, effort, and showing up with interesting and useful content daily. Clicks and shares are important, but more and more social media algorithms are prioritizing interactions and saved posts in order to surface the most relevant content for audiences. So, how can you engage your community and promote your brand at the same time? Here are some tips from The Social Shakeup: Get to know your community and interact with them on their preferred platforms Ask questions and ask for feedback Promote user generated content Host contests Connect with them emotionally Tailor your content to your audience’s interests How do you engage with your community? We’d love to hear your stories! Share them in the comments.

When it comes to putting your brand in front of your audience, it’s easy to rely on the tried and true methods for marketing –a website, an ad campaign, maybe an email campaign and some social media posts. However, these methods are not enough in 2022, as most consumers have adopted new communication and social media channels, such as TikTok, affiliate marketing, influencers, and paid social media, among others. Here’s where multi-channel marketing comes in. Reaching your customers in the different channels they tend to gravitate towards helps you build a cohesive brand experience, interact with your customers, and find new leads. According to Business2Community, matching your customer’s journey and across multiple channels will go a long way towards realizing your sales goals. Some strategies you can try are: Combining email campaigns with social media efforts Content marketing Partnership marketing (influencers or other brands) Social media activations The site Fool.com also has a great blueprint on how to diversify your marketing channels. How have you used multi-channel marketing to boost your business? Share your tips and experiences with the community below!

Starting your own business is an exciting and momentous endeavor that should be celebrated every chance you get. We invite you to introduce your business to the community and find out what others are up to in the comments below! Feel free to include interesting business origin stories, noteworthy milestones, or anything else you’d like to share. We’d love to hear it!

There are a variety of details to consider when setting up your online store, all in service of the ultimate goal: helping your customers find what they’re looking for and complete checkout smoothly. Get a head start by brainstorming tags, categories, and subcategories so customers can quickly find what they are looking for and browse related items. Think early on about which shipping options and potential discount codes might serve you best. These kinds of decisions can have a direct impact on performance. How do you make sure your online store is set up for success? Share in the comments below!

Starting a new business can be an exciting, yet scary, process –from coming up with the idea for your products to drawing up a business plan that works for you, creating your brand, and finally bringing your business to life. There’s no one size fits all method to starting a business, but there are certain steps you can take to prepare yourself to launch your big idea. Forbes recommends considering these questions: Does your business idea solve a problem for you or someone else? Have you researched your potential market? Do you have a defined audience? Have you validated your idea? As an example, Squarespace customers Ergo Chic and Soul Cap considered their own needs and the needs of people around them to create businesses that solved existing gaps in the market. What was the first step you took to make your business idea a reality? What recommendations do you have for emerging entrepreneurs? Share your experiences and learnings in the comments below!

Designing your site header is an important step as it plays such a big role in how visitors navigate and interact with your content. It looks the same throughout your site and typically includes your navigation and title or logo display. It can also include social or shopping cart icons, or even a call-to-action button! With style options like Gradient, the ability to use a custom color for the background, adding borders and drop shadows, you can create a unique design that fits your brand and makes your website stand out. You can read more about styling options in our Building a site header guide. How did you choose your header’s design? Have you played around with the new options? Share the results and your experiences in the comments below!

There are many exciting ways to grow your business beyond traditional marketing, including being proactive about creating an outreach list to generate buzz for your business. Your outreach list can include social media influencers, industry bloggers, traditional reporters for industry publications, or even the owners of similar businesses. Networking in these groups can help you reach and connect with your target audience on a variety of fronts! How did you build your outreach list? Did you develop a standard pitch to send? Tell us all about how you tackled the outreach process and what you learned along the way in the comments below.

There are many ways to advertise your business online. Whether it be through Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Shopping, or paid search, there are no shortage of ways to get your name out there. One of the biggest tools online marketers use to great results is Google Ads. With an average of 3.5 billion searches per day, Google Ads offers a way to get your product in front of many sets of eyes. Because it is such a robust platform with so many different settings, options, budget trackers and rules, starting out can be intimidating. According to Hootsuite and Semrush, you should consider doing these things before starting: Define your goals and target audience for the ad Optimize the landing page where the ad will link to Think about catchy headlines (but no clickbait!) Make sure to use a negative keywords list Test multiple ad copies Do you have any tips for using Google Ads effectively? Any tricks on how to get the most out of Google Ads? Tell us in the comments below!

Not linked pages are live pages of your website that don’t show in your site’s navigation menus. Your visitors can still view them through a variety of ways including text links, buttons, and linked images. These handy pages can be used for all sorts of purposes. You can use a Not linked page to host a price sheet to send to prospective clients, your freebie or giveaway event, or even a form for client intakes. Possibilities are endless! How do you like to use Not linked pages on your site? Do you have any great examples or learnings? Share in the comments below!

Your website’s navigation might not be the first thing you think about when setting up your website, but it is a key aspect of your customer’s experience with your brand. A smooth navigation setup can really make an impact and encourage repeat visitors. A common goal for navigation is making sure your visitors don’t have to click more than 2-3 times to get from one section of the website to another. Some achieve this by sketching their site out on paper first. Others put everything in first, then let their analytics do the talking. Everyone has different strategies to achieve their perfect site navigation. What has been most helpful to you when setting up your website’s navigation? Share in the comments below!

Paid newsletter subscriptions and premium gated content access are quickly rising as one of the best ways for bloggers, writers, artists, teachers, and entrepreneurs to sustain themselves as business owners. A successful business that relies on memberships usually does so because they already have an audience primed for their offerings. But, what if you don’t have an audience yet? Some creators use memberships and Member Areas as a way to offer freemium content and test the waters. Generally, freemium content is content that is offered for free to early adopters of your subscription membership. It takes time and effort to turn those free subscriptions into paid ones, but it’s not impossible to do! According to the service Memberful, a great first step is to be transparent with your members about your story and invite them to be partners with you in your journey to paid content. Other recommendations from Business Collective are: Offering special rates for founding members Offer promo codes Avoid cognitive dissonance by putting a price tag on content that was already free Still offer some free content that is different from content for paid subscribers Do you offer freemium content? What are your tips for turning free subscriptions to paid subscribers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Video Studio is an iOS app, owned by Squarespace, for making professional quality videos that match your website’s design and branding. Video Studio can be used to make compelling behind the scenes footage, exciting product videos, and so much more! While the type of videos you create will depend on your goals, audience, and marketing strategy, there are some general best practices. When planning your videos we recommend keeping it simple and on topic. Focus on authenticity by knowing your material and expressing yourself in a way that feels natural to you. How have you used Video Studio so far? Share your learnings and favorite creations in the comments below! Haven’t tried it yet? Check out our guide Getting Started with Video Studio to learn more about it.

Accordion or collapsible menus are considered one of the workhorses of web design for good reason. They’re a versatile tool for text heavy pages on a website, like those showcasing a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and they also help keep your pages short and reduce scrolling fatigue for your readers. They can solve potential design problems, like too much content or too little real estate on the page, and they can provide an intuitive direction for users to explore the information that they need and collapse the information that they don’t. In Squarespace, if you’d like to add an accordion menu to your site you would need to use an Accordion Block. Accordion Blocks have their own styling options that you can customize to get the look and feel you want for your site. If the available customizations don't cover your needs, our community member Tuanphan created a handy list of useful code for the Accordion Block. Are you planning on using the Accordion Block? Do you already use one on your site? What are your best practices for the effective use of an accordion menu? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Keywords are essential for generating traffic from search engines. But which keywords should you use? And how do you brainstorm your ideas? Let’s go through some ways to generate ideas and different types of keywords you can use. To get started, there are tons of organizational note apps that lend themself to a personal brainstorm, so play around and see what works for you! I personally use Google’s JamBoard as my virtual sticky note go-to. This way I can visualize the contents of my site and see what keywords make sense for which pages. For my example photography business, I decided to break it up into the different types of photography I’m involved in and some potential keywords that would relate: Some questions to ask yourself when brainstorming: Who is your target audience? What sets you apart from your competitors? What synonyms can you utilize? For example: New York photographer and NYC photography are two different keywords. And what other words does Google autofill? Type the words you've come up with in Google and see what else pops up! When determining types of keywords, there’s “Head” and “Long-tail”, and there are benefits to using both types. Head keywords are short, usually one-word keywords that catch a wide audience like ceramics, tapestry, and shoes. Long-tail keywords are Multi-word phrases that are more specific, such as engagement photography, NYC shoe designer, and LA dog cafe. Head keywords can catch a more general audience who might not be specifically looking for you, whereas long-tail keywords cater to those who search with the intent of finding a specific product or service. How did you brainstorm your keywords? Any tools or tricks that aided you in the process? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments below!

Email Campaigns are a great tool in your arsenal to engage your existing and potential customers alike. From announcing sales and events to sharing behind-the-scenes footage, there’s an opportunity there for all kinds of businesses and organizations. Once you’ve chosen your catchy subject line, written your content, and landed on an exciting call-to-action, the time has come to pick the right imagery to tie it all together. Best practices include keeping within your brand identity and making sure you are using the optimal file size for clarity. Choosing images that are impactful and relevant to your needs, can have an effect on your conversion rates. How do you choose the images for your Email Campaigns? Do they differ from the ones on your website? Share your tips and learnings in the comments below!

Whether you’re prepping for Black Friday and Cyber Monday or getting ready for Boxing Day sales, the holiday season has arrived. There are so many ways to prepare your website and business for the holidays: give your website a holiday themed makeover, have special sales, update your product offerings, etc. How are you preparing your website for the holiday season? What is your go-to strategy? Share in the comments below!

We’re all creating content daily –whether it be through social media posts, forum interactions, voice notes, and blog posts; content is a great tool to reach out to your audience in relatable and useful ways. However, not all content is created equal and, more importantly, not all content serves a purpose. According to Quicksprout, having a clear content strategy and specific benchmarks for success –like increases in traffic, conversions, mentions, likes, or sales– can be a great tool to reach your business goals, create brand awareness, and offer something of value to your readers or prospective customers. In order to create engaging content, they recommend the following: Create content that is unique and unmistakably yours. Don’t skimp on your content marketing budget. Create actionable content. Use the power of storytelling to your advantage. Create eye-catching headlines. Writing this type of content isn’t easy and, more often than not, it requires market research and a trial and error approach in order to figure out which type of content and strategies work for you. Do you have any tips on how you create appealing headlines and content for your site? Share in the comments below!

Whether you update your site’s look frequently or stick with one evergreen look, it’s likely you’ve spent quite some time designing every corner of your website. Which visual element of your website are you most proud of? Which do you think makes your site stand out the most? Share in the comments below!

An important part of growing your business successfully is taking the time to understand your customers and their journey. Knowing their motivations for buying your product offerings, how they found your business, which communication channels they prefer, and what your competitors are doing to lure them, is key to being able to retain your customers and develop products that they need and want. Additionally, market research will help you better understand where your resources and marketing budget should be directed in order to get a better return of investment. Best practices include: Defining your buyer persona Checking out how customers behave in stores that offer similar products Individual interviews and/or focus groups Processing the data into actionable steps Learning how to ask the right questions can be tricky, and there are resources like Hubspot and Hotjar that provide information that can guide you along the way. What are your tips for conducting market research? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Why exactly are logos so important? Logos help set the tone for your business, as they are often your brand’s first impression on potential customers. As we know, our brains can process images more quickly than text, so having a logo helps users identify and remember your brand. Think of it as your company’s ID in your customers’ minds, it’s how you stand out among your competitors. How did you decide on your logo? What do you like most about it? What core message or feeling did you want your logo to convey? Tell us all about your logo in the comments below! P.S. If you’re looking to create a business logo, check out Squarespace’s Free Logo Maker to get started. You can also learn more about logos with our Help Guide: Creating a great logo.