Like the receptionist and reception area in an office, the Home page is the greeting area that needs to contain enough cues to reassure visitors that they're in the right place and give them guidance about how to find what they need and what to do now that they're there.

To stretch and expand the background image to the top of your website, change the site header color style to Adaptive. The site header then becomes transparent so the background image shows behind the navigation text.

As I worked with clients, I noticed there were six words that came up in questions to me during our consultations: domain, web host, website, page, SEO, and navigation. Becoming familiar with these website components and how they work together helps you manage and maintain a healthy website for your business.

When you get started with Squarespace, you are faced with a design decision before you even provide a domain name or a credit card number. As I browsed through many templates in doing work for clients, I started to realize that there was one design decision about the banner image that narrows down template choices right away.

To guide website visitors from being mildly interested in what you are offering to becoming clients and, ideally, your biggest supporters, your website needs clear paths to encourage them to take the next step.

Whenever I start working with a client, I ask the client to make one or two decisions to narrow down the design choices. The first decision I ask clients to make is to choose a large image that goes the full width of the page or choose a narrower image with some "breathing room" on either side. If they prefer a wide edge-to-edge image, there's a second decision. Do they want the navigation text to appear above the image or within the image? Making that second decision narrows down design template choices to just a few.