Kerry’s Blog

When I create websites for my clients, we work in a collaborative way so they’re learning about what websites are, how they work, and how to update them. These blog posts answer many of the questions my clients have as we work together. I hope you find this information helpful too.

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Wait. Do you REALLY need a website?

Everyone tells you that you must have a website, but do you? Learn some of the ways you can promote your business without a website, either temporarily or permanently.

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The one trick to starting a Squarespace website

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.

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How colors and images express your website's personality

The personality of a website comes across with the choice of three design elements: images, colors, and typefaces. In this blog post, you’ll see examples of how the choices of images, colors, and typefaces help define the website personalities their owners wanted to express.

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How to design your blog page

If you are starting a blog for your website or adding one to an existing website, it’s helpful to review your choices for your blog page’s design. Most websites, including those on Squarespace, can include a blog.

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How to promote live online classes on your website

Classes are a type of recurring group educational event, held in person or online. Each time the class runs, it will have a different date and possibly a different time. You should make the classes easy to find and sign up for on your website. Using a scheduling program can automate the processes of registration and payment.

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From 0 to website in 10 easy steps

If you have never had a website or have only created a website on your own without help, this blog post will explain the steps my clients and I take to go from our first talk to a finished website that helps their businesses shine online.

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Five ways to speed up your design time

I always love it when I find something that speeds up repetitive tasks. So when I discovered the Squarespace shortcut of copying website pages to create backups, placeholders, and archived pages early in my website design career, I was sold.

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Sharing your "Under Construction" Squarespace website

Squarespace offers a special home page called a lock screen that you can use while you're designing your website. The lock screen appears when people go to your password-protected website. Use a lock screen to build excitement for your brand, get a head start on Google search results, and provide a preview option for reviewers.

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Choosing a design based on where the navigation text falls

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.

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No integration code allowed with the Squarespace Personal plan

On December 1, 2017, Squarespace changed which features are included in its lowest-cost Personal plan. Many simple customization and third-party integration features are now classified as Premium features, only available with the Business and Commerce plans. I'll have to take this into consideration as I talk with new clients about their options.

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Use Squarespace 7.0 gallery pages to organize image collections

When I started my website design business, there was lots of room on the Portfolio page. When I took a look at that page some months later, I knew it was time to do a major redesign of the page because its overcrowded design no longer worked with the number of samples I had added throughout the last year. In that version of my website, I used a Squarespace 7.0 gallery pages to create a multi-page Portfolio that allowed for expansion.

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