87. Is Squarespace 7.1 worth the hype?
Is Squarespace 7.1 worth it? 🖥 If you have a Squarespace site, listen up! Squarespace 7.1 is here, and Brand Therapy hosts Phil and Lauren are diving deep into the new version of this beloved website company. In this special edition live episode, we'll outline 7.1's changes to 7.0, how to migrate your old site (trick question? You'll find out), and whether 7.1 makes sense for your brand. For those who have been wondering what 7.1 is and if it's worth the leap, you'll find your answer here.
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Episode tanscription
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Phil:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren:
And I'm Lauren.
Phil:
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brands. Well, we have some new things going on here today. Not only are we recording our podcast to be shared out in iTunes and Spotify, but today since we're talking about something kind of visual, we are also live streaming. So in this exact moment, we are on Facebook, we are on LinkedIn, you know, something new, we're trying for these episodes that we spend time together. It's kind of fun.
Lauren:
I mean, I don't want to say that I'm comfortable being everywhere at once, but I think I must admit this is pretty cool as well. We're talking about today is, I think, really critical for anyone who has an online presence.
Phil:
I agree. Before we start to talk about what we're talking about in this episode, which people have seen the title of, they know it's Squarespace, but let's paint the picture for what it's normally like when you and I are recording this podcast. It's much quieter than this, right? We're usually sitting at home by ourselves with no hair and makeup and lipstick is that lipstick you are wearing?
Lauren:
It's a glosser lip lacquer. Yeah.
Phil
And there's always like, not this. And it's usually I have that hat and I'm wearing this shirt from the day before.
Lauren:
And very low energy.
Phil:
But it's fun because we're kind of letting people in our process. And so if we find that this is fun, and you guys enjoy seeing us at work, you know we we have a new podcast episode every single week and I think we work really hard to create this but we don't often share. I for one, am terrible at promoting this podcast that we work very hard to make. So this is kind of a new way of letting people into our world. And today, our world is Squarespace.
Lauren:
Ah, this is gonna be so good. So I'm just gonna get right to it. Phil, can you explain what Squarespace 7.1 is for people who are watching this?
Phil:
I can and people even with Squarespace websites, listen up because this episode, this podcast, whether you're listening or you're watching is going to be useful for you. They kind of quietly launched this thing back in the spring, which is called Squarespace 7.1. And for people that are like Squarespace seven point, what do I have? I'm going to show you in a second or I'm going to tell you in a second, how you can easily find out which platform you're on. There's a very good chance if you had a Squarespace website for a few years, you are on 7.0. There's a chance actually that you might be on 6.0 even a previous version if you haven't updated your website in a while. For those of you that are not on Squarespace, this episode might not be as useful to listen to while we are talking about design and layout. We're mostly talking about functionality.
So a lot of people are on Squarespace. The majority I mean, almost the entirety of our client base or people we've helped in the last few years, are on Squarespace. Why are they on Squarespace Lauren Moore? Because we tell them to be on Squarespace. Do we not?
Lauren:
We love Squarespace. I mean, no knock against WordPress, but Squarespace is so easy to update. It's beautiful. It's functional. Mobile optimization is pretty much part of the deal. So we are big fans of Squarespace and we're especially big fans of Squarespace 7.1.
Phil:
I said that I should probably let people know How they can find out which platform they're using. So I'm actually going to share my screen. If I have a way of doing that. How do I do that?
Lauren:
The software is so cool.
Phil:
It's cool, right? If I can’t share my screen, it's not the end of the world. But basically what you do is when you're logged in to your Squarespace website, you want to click ‘Help’ right from the dashboard. And before you click anything else on that help screen, you want to scroll down to the bottom, and it's going to tell you what family or what version of Squarespace you're using. So for example, any of our client projects we've built on brine, the template or the theme, brine, that's the one that I like to use. A lot of other Squarespace designers use this. It's their go to, but that's where it's going to tell you if you're on 7.0 or you're on 7.1 that's where you go. So again, From that main menu, you're going to want to click ‘Help’ down at the bottom. And then once you click Help, you will see it will tell you you're either 7.0 or 7.1. So, for starters, know which version of Squarespace you're using to decide if for example, you're on 7.0 should you consider upgrading to 7.1 is something else that we will talk about.
Lauren:
So, okay, I'm going to go a little off script here with our questions that we're planning to answer. When you're talking about version numbers, when I first heard about Squarespace 7.1, I'd immediately thought of Apple software updates where it's just automatically upgrading you to the latest and greatest version, can you explain how 7.1 is different from a simple l, upgrade like a software?
Phil:
Yes, I would love to explain that because I wish it was as simple as a software upgrade. I'm in the position that I think a lot of people will find themselves being, which is a 7.0 user, the site that I have that is out there and is live right now is 7.0. And the new one that I'm going to launch people, if they're watching this also get a sneak peek of our new website, aren't they lucky? I know anyone other than you this, but this one is on 7.1. And it's not as simple as just clicking a button and upgrading.
If you want to have a website on the 7.1. It's basically a new chassis for a car. You can't just put new wheels on it. Unfortunately, it's brand new and it doesn't you can't just migrate it over with a push of a button. So what's different I would say the the design, I think the launch of this in March has had a huge focus on design. So we're talking fonts. colors, customization on different pages as well as setting universal settings. So in fact, Lauren, I don't even think you've seen this yet. I've only told you about it.
So I've got 7.1 on my website, there. And now, unlike before, where you would click style settings, and it would give you this humongous column of all these different options, now they've actually reorganized everything. I think that's the best way to explain it. It's like a reorganization of Squarespace, particularly the design settings.
So for example, we've got fonts, all in one place, all in one place. So you set your font styles, headings, and paragraph. Nicely apply to the different websites are sorry, they universally apply across your website. Right, there's still a few little variations you can make like font size, but unlike before Where you could only define h1, h2, h3, in a paragraph style, now, you get three paragraph styles.
Lauren:
Wow!
Phil:
It doesn't sound exciting to someone who's not making them, but I'm really excited about it. So that's showing you fonts. And now they're actually making recommendations on how to pair them. So you can choose a serif combo that they've curated. Or you can choose a san serif, you know, option that they've curated. Also, in addition to fonts, colors. So this is probably one of the biggest updates. Before you'd have to manually set every single color on the site. And if you would add an image block or you would add some kind of custom block onto your website, you'd then have to go and actually style it individually, which takes forever. Now, they group it into color categories. So obviously every website can have a different color combination, but what they're grouping them into is different categories. So white, light, dark, black, and accent. Isn’t that cool.?
Lauren:
Cool.
Phil:
You can actually now create you literally have over 10 new color profiles that you can create. And with the click of a button, apply that color profile to an entire page. Cool, right? You used to have a custom code. I was never a big fan of themes and templates, themes, templates, whatever you want to call them. On 7.0, the years we've had of using Squarespace, right? you'd spend all this time choosing a template. And I would say for the last two years, we've used exactly the same template on every single website because I've discovered that that choice up front doesn't really matter, at least in the direction that Squarespace has moved. You are not building them, right? You're writing copy and helping me kind of lay things out, but not actually in there, setting up the code and the design. You've always loved choosing themes. Haven't you?
Lauren
Love it.
Phil
But now, instead of themes, we choose layouts, that's the difference. Yeah. So basically, it's not that different from what we're doing, which is we build every website. So if you're a client of ours, and you're watching this or listening to this, we've made your website if it's been in the last three years has been on brine. Now Squarespace got rid of that unnecessary choice, because the template doesn't actually determine what you can do with it. That's the beauty of this. It doesn't determine what you can do with it. It's now just choosing your layout.
I'll talk through that in a bit more detail. I want to go back to color really quickly, because it's kind of confusing. People might be like, well, what if I don't have white What if I don't have black? And what if I don't have an accent color?
What's so interesting is that they've grouped colors into five categories. And once you've set this color, it becomes the default on every page. So I, for example, don't use a pure white, I use color code. It's fa, fa fa, it's a light gray. But now every instance of white on the site is that color. Every instance of black for me is a charcoal. Every instance of accent color is our Phil Pallen green, right? And then you set a light accent color and you set a dark accent color. Very interesting how they group things with lots of variables.
Again, I'm kind of geeking out about this. So people might listen to me and go, what the heck are you talking about? It will make sense. If you've got a new website up and you're looking at it or maybe saving or bookmarking this video for when you do decide, right to upgrade or to create a new site on this platform. Talk about the reason So part of the reason I'm switching over to Squarespace 7.1 is that every time I go to create a new page on our website, this is like, mortifying. Every time I go to create a new page, I get an error message that says, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do that? Because your site has over 400 pages. And I and I quote, sites with this much content may load slowly please delete unused pages and consider consolidating your content.
Are you sure you want that? Is that really the right decision for you right now? That's like going back up to the buffet for a third visit. Are you sure you want to do that? Part of the problem is that in 7.0, they came out with this feature called, an index. And we know indexes. We love indexes, we make pages as indexes. However, indexes make your site really slow and what an index is for people that are not as familiar with this, it's basically a mechanism in Squarespace that says, take a bunch of different pages and show them as one scrolling page. But welcome to the internet in 2020, where that's how websites are made. Right? That's how websites are. And so now it's just built in, gone, indexes are gone, no more indexes.
So a page is literally just a page with different sections and layouts on that page that you can customize.
And this I get really excited about because portfolio is one of the new content types in 7.1. And so they've got this really cool thing that people will see on our new site which is not live yet, but you can hover over a portfolio with a name and it will change the thumbnail and behind and it looks so super cool.
Obviously, for our podcast listeners, you have to just trust me that it looks cool. I'm trying to describe it in detail, but of course that's hard to do. You'll just have to wait and see our new site whenever I get around to finishing it.
Yeah, so gone are themes gone are indexes. I think, while it's a hassle to have to move a website over to 7.1 it's probably worth it for longer sites and your site's going to run faster. That's what I'm finding.
Lauren:
Okay, so there's a lot of good stuff. There are definitely pros, and so tell me about the cons.
Phil:
Well, I'll tell you about the cons because, for me, the biggest con is that there's no way to upgrade easily. So the fact that you actually have to, rebuild your site. And let me tell you something, as someone who decided they wanted to use 7.1 right away, I was like, great. This is going to be so easy. However, I remembered all of our blog posts that we've written over the years, Squarespace does not have a way to migrate your blog posts over. Can I tell you how much this pisses me off. And by the way, this podcast is not sponsored by Squarespace.
Lauren:
No, not until they figure out an easy way to migrate your blogs.
Phil:
Do you want to hear something atrocious? Let me tell you something. I feel so sorry for the support person that I got on the line. Because I said Listen, I'm a very happy Squarespace customer, and I'd simply like to move my blog posts from 7.0 to 7.1. And they go currently, there's no way to migrate your blog posts over.
Do you want to know what I had to do? This is so embarrassing for them that I have to say this. I had to create a WordPress site. And I had to export my Squarespace blog posts to WordPress site, so export blogs to WordPress to a competitor.
Lauren:
To a competitor. And then I had to take my blogs from WordPress and export them and import them into a 7.1 site. Is that not the stupidest thing you've ever heard?
Lauren:
It's unbelievable also because it's so short sighted because you should sell to your existing customers. Anyway. Ideally Squarespace should be getting like everyone, everyone to 7.1 and making it as easy as possible to get to 7.1 and yet, here we are.
Phil:
Here I am with a WordPress website even saying it out loud is shocking because we've been so all in. We have made Squarespace so much money over the years, putting all of our client sites, over 100 and they have the nerve to say yeah, we can't really help an eager, enthusiastic super fan of our brand to migrate to the newest option.
Lauren:
You know what you should say to the support guy next time you should be like, are you sure that are you are you sure you don't want to be able to help me help you?
Phil:
Are you sure that you don't want that? So they're like other little cons that I would say I made a little list here so I wouldn't forget. There's no gallery blocks anymore. But you can choose a gallery from the layout functionality. So it's just kind of like moving things around. It's not a big deal.
There are no sidebars. So if you're a blogger, we've even got clients that are bloggers I think of like Katie and I think Juli for example. They're on WordPress and they want to stay on WordPress and for them WordPress makes a lot of sense for someone who is super focused on blogging, no sidebars on any of the templates on Squarespace. But anyone who customizes on Squarespace knows that it's pretty easy to custom code a sidebar. So that's a solution. If you are happy on Squarespace and you want to have a blog or you want to start blogging more, you don't necessarily need to switch over to WordPress, just with some simple code, you can easily add a sidebar.
But I would say if we're talking cons baby, there is nothing that has pissed me off more in 2020 then having to create a WordPress site to migrate my Squarespace blogs from one platform to the next.
Lauren:
So should someone make the switch? Is it worth building a new site essentially for 7.1?
Phil:
Good question. I think It's gonna be different case by case. We're actually facing this day to day, are we not helping clients make this decision? And also, adjusting budgets and scopes of projects depending on what's best. I think in some cases, staying where you are might make sense, at least for now. Who knows, maybe Squarespace will wake up and introduce a way for people to upgrade more easily. But I think for now, unless there are features that you really need in 7.1, and I put myself in that category, right, indexes and being able to have that kind of customization to showcase our brand portfolio 7.1 was basically made for me with the styles that they built right into their platform. Whenever I'm making a website, I always try to avoid custom coding where possible, because it just increases the likelihood that things can break.
So for me, it's kind of like It makes sense, right? So our team has invested time into cleaning up blog posts and making that transition smooth. But for everyone, it's not going to make sense.
Lauren:
Awesome. Well, I hope this episode was helpful for people. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll do a, an episode point one of this for the next version once we've spent some time developing websites.
Phil:
Also, if you're listening, this is our first live stream. So if you want to watch and see what I shared on my screen while I was talking head over to our website is a good starting point. And we'll link to those live streams there. If you liked this episode, let us know hashtag brand therapy on social media. I'm @philpallen
Lauren:
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil:
#brandtherapy is where we'll continue the conversation and if you enjoyed it leave us a review, five star, five star. That helps other people discover this podcast that we work very hard to make. We hope you've enjoyed this time with us today. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. We'll see you then. Thanks for hanging out with us right here on Brand Therapy.
Lauren:
Bye
