Get better at building websites
Hey friend,
A few exciting Squarespace-related items this past week. First, Gallery Blocks in SS 7.1 are back! Woot woot. Second, Squarespace applied to go public on Friday.
Squarespace going public is interesting because they’ll now be required to release their subscription and revenue numbers. So, we’ll get a much more accurate picture as to the size of the Squarespace community, instead of having to guess. They have about 3.7 million unique Squarespace subscriptions, as of December 31, 2020.
For any of you Squarespace designers + builders out there, I highly recommend reading their S-1 filing from pages 1 - 7. Here’s a screen grab showing their “Squarespace at a Glance” page towards the beginning.
The rest of the overview info and letter from the founder at the beginning are quick reads that give good high-level info without getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty details. You can also read more about their Mission, Business Overview, Industry Analysis, Market Opportunities, and Growth Strategies. For anyone who’s business relies on using Squarespace (like mine), it’s great to know how Squarespace see’s their business and where they’re trying to take it.
As always, more tutorials, updates, articles, and a new plugin below!
Keep Building,
Will
NEW PLUGIN - NAV REPLACER
My new Site Nav Replacer plugin allows you to totally replace your main nav bar on any page of your site (without changing it site-wide). This is great for showing a different main nav inside of member areas, building a page or section within your website for a different brand, bilingual websites with a language-selection toggle, or anything else you might want!
This one is brand new and I need more user feedback to improve it, so let me know if you run into any problems with it.
Demo | Individual License | Business License
STUFF AROUND THE INTERNET
Yamauchi No. 10 - A pretty cool website from the family that gave us Nintendo. The design is a great combo of slick and nostalgic, and the audio responses on hover over the main nav are a real throw-back for me. They’re obviously quite wealthy, and it looks like they started a business that does business incubation, philanthropy, and investments.
Squarespace 7.1 Gallery BLOCKS -Finallllllyyyyyyyyyyy, almost 2 years after launching 7.1, Squarespace has added Gallery Blocks. This is different than adding gallery sections, which has been available a while. This is a nice moment for many of us. Ahhh.
MARKET EVERY DAY
My latest article I just published with some thoughts on marketing for digital businesses and entrepreneurs.
Market Every Day.
(aka: Why are my sales going down?)
TLDR- Stop building “Sales Funnels”. Stop it. Just Stop.
PLUGIN & TUTORIAL UPDATES
Secondary Nav 2.0 (plugin update) - Super excited to share this update. A bunch of new upgrades, but the coolest one is the sticky-section placement. That probably doesn’t mean much to you, so just check out my demo page.
Polaroid Effect for Image Blocks (tutorial) - Let’s add this polaroid image effect to an image block in Squarespace. Get that artsy vibe of a polaroid, lighting, and arts-y tilts.
Blur Effect for Background Images (tutorial) - A tutorial on adding blur effects in Squarespace. I will go over adding this effect in Squarespace 7.1, but if you’re on Squarespace 7.0, I have some code for you at the bottom. Blurring an image is actually quite simple through CSS, all we need to use is the filter property.
Add CSS To A Squarespace Website (tutorial)- For any of you who are just beginning your coding journey with Squarespace, this tutorial walks you through the 4 different places you can add CSS to your Squarespace site, and why you would use each one.
CSS COURSE- LEARN CSS IN SQUARESPACE
I created this course to help you understand CSS so that you aren't limited by copying and pasting other people’s code to create beautiful and customized websites in Squarespace, fast.
Take your skillset and business to the next level.