My 10 favorite text tips for Squarespace (and other) websites
After being in business for several years now, I’ve found there are certain ways I handle text for almost every website I design. I thought it was time to put these techniques together in one place so you could benefit from them too. I’ve included instructions for Weebly websites here, but you can apply these tips to other website platforms too.
Read the Weebly version of this blog post here.
Keep your text readable
Working with text to make it readable ensures that your website visitors can scan pages to find the information they’re looking for and not be slowed down by unusual formatting.
1. Watch the width
It's difficult to read text paragraphs that are very wide (more than about 6" or 7” on a monitor). Consider breaking text into two columns if there is a lot of text. Or add a picture to the side of the text or narrow the margins for all pages with spacers.
2. Add helpful headings
When you use headings to separate sections of the page, visitors can scan the page quickly. In these days of quick bits of information on social media, it’s unusual for people to read a full page from top to bottom in one sitting. Adding headings helps people decide if there are parts of the page that are of interest to them.
Use the correct size heading
Headings are in a hierarchy of different sizes. The first and largest heading shows the page name, several second-level headings break out the main sections, and, if you need them, third-level headings go under each second-level heading section.
In Squarespace, you create headings by styling them as Heading 1 (only one per page), Heading 2, and Heading 3.
No ending punctuation needed except for questions
Keep in mind that headings don’t need punctuation either, unless the heading is a question. Adding a consistent color to the style of headings also helps them stand out and gives your pages splashes of color.
3. Build bulleted lists
If you have a list of related text, such as a list of your services or benefits of your product, consider turning that list into a bulleted list, rather than leaving it in paragraph form.
Bulleted lists help readers scan the text
I loved using bulleted lists for conveying information when I was a technical writer and the reasons to use them in a website are similar. The bullets help the reader’s eye find each point you want to make and the spacing between each item makes each point memorable.
Bulleted lists are a formatting option
Squarespace offers bulleted list formatting as an option in the text editing bar. Type the first line of text, then apply the bulleted list style. Use the Enter key after each bullet point to create the next bulleted line.
4. Don’t indent paragraphs
If you are, like me, of a certain generation that grew up before the Internet, you may have learned to indent the first line of a paragraph. On websites, that is no longer the rule.
Leave all paragraphs as block paragraphs without any indenting. Paragraphs instead get extra line spacing at the end to distinguish one paragraph from another.
Salute your styles
The beauty of a do-it-yourself website builder like Squarespace is that you have access to consistent formatting and styling for text. It is set at the site level so the text on your site looks consistent throughout.
5. Paste clear text that has no formatting
If you are not typing text directly into your website, chances are you’ve prepared text in a word processing program or you’re copying the text from another website.
Text that originates outside of your website picks up formatting and styles from the source, which you don’t want. You want text placed in your website to be “clear” and unformatted so it picks up the text styles you’ve set for your website.
Use the Squarespace plain-text clipboard before pasting
Squarespace offers a tool on the text block editing bar to make sure you paste text that is clear. Click the Clipboard icon on the bar, paste your text onto the clipboard, and click OK.
Re-create hyperlinks in your website
You will lose any active links in this process, so you’ll need to create those again directly in your website by highlighting the text and clicking the link icon and typing or pasting the link URL again.
6. Let site styles stand
Use individual text styling, such as making words bold or italic, very sparingly and only if it is a unique circumstance. If you need your headings to be bold or your testimonials to be italic, set those attributes in your site design styles instead, so they are consistent throughout the site. Text that looks consistent throughout a site is one of the hallmarks of a professional-looking website.
7. Lose the underline except for links
Text that is underlined is recognized these days as an active link that goes to another page or website. People will click text that is underlined and be confused if it doesn’t link to something else. So unless you are setting up a link, avoid using an underline for text styling. If you need to emphasize something, consider using bold or italic styling instead.
8. Use one space at the end of a sentence
In the days of typewriters, we learned to use two spaces at the end of a sentence. These days, on websites, and in most writing, the rule is to use one space at the end of a sentence. If you have written text in another program like Microsoft Word, you can do a search-and-replace to be sure all your sentences end with one space after the period.
Use keyboard shortcuts
I learned keyboard shortcuts in the early days of word processing when using a mouse wasn’t even a thing. There are a few that really come in handy for website text editing.
9. Use Shift+Enter for single line spacing
Paragraphs should have double spacing between them, but there are times when you want to save space and have multiple lines of text display with single line spacing. One example is when I’m adding text to describe an event and I want the date and the location to be on two separate lines, but close to each other.
I type the date, hold Shift+Enter on a Mac to advance to the next line, then type the location. Each line is short, but together they are seen as a group because there is no extra spacing between the two lines.
10. Use three keyboard shortcuts to create links
This shortcut series is one of my most-used keyboard favorites when a client wants to link to publications, references, or sources on another website.
If you are creating many text links, you’ll want to know about this set of shortcuts for selecting, copying, and pasting a link.
Prepare to copy a URL
You’ll need two browser windows at once. The website you’re working on is open with the text highlighted and the link settings open where you will paste a URL. A Google search window is open where you’re searching for a specific website name or page.
Select the full URL in the browser window
When you find the correct URL, click the address bar and use CTRL+a (or Command+a on the Mac) to select the full version of the URL, including https:// or http://.
Copy the full URL
Then use CTRL+c (or Command+c on the Mac) to copy that full URL.
Browser bar text is clear text that contains no formatting, so you’re not introducing any extraneous styling when you copy the URL.
Paste the full URL to define your website link
Go back to your website, open the link settings for the text you’ve highlighted, and click CTRL+v (or Command+v on the Mac) to paste the full URL.
Use “Open in new window” for links to other websites
If you have the option, select the link setting for “Open in new window” if you are using a link to another website. When people click the link, you want them to see a second browser window that opens the other website so they still have your website open in their browser and don’t leave it entirely.
If you follow these tips when you’re working on your website text, you’ll not only save yourself some time, but those words that describe you and your business, those words you’ve worked so hard on creating, will be enticing to your visitors. And by being consistently styled, your website will stand out as being professional and modern, which, in turn, reassures potential customers that you’re a professional and you know what you’re doing. Imagine accomplishing all that with just a little attention to detail!
