Blogging with Squarespace 5 – Squarespace 5

The Squarespace 5 Journal page adds a blog to your site. Blogs are a way to keep friends and family up-to-date with your life, or to publish articles about a favorite topic. Organizations often use blogs to bring a personal feeling to their business, and to share insights with their customers.

The Journal page can also be used to share podcast audio files. Similar to blog posts, podcasts are a way to share ideas with an audience. They function much like a radio show, except visitors can download episodes to their devices and listen to them at their leisure, rather than live on-air.

On the Unlimited billing plan, you can add members to your site and give them permission to either draft or publish posts.

Note: If you're creating a podcast, visit Podcasting with Squarespace 5 for detailed steps.

Watch a video

Step 1 - Add a Journal page

In Structure mode or site Architecture, click Add Page or Add Widget and choose Journal. Then click Select & Configure.

For more help, visit Adding a page.

Step 2 - Configure the page

In the configuration area, use the following options to set up your blog.

Metadata

Use the Post Display Configuration section to adjust your site's layout by dragging and dropping the available metadata elements. Hide any unwanted elements by moving them to the Unused Post Elements area.

In the following example, the blog is set up so the author displays above the post title, the date shows above the post content, comments display below the post content, and the print article button has been set to never display.

Tip: The | separators are movable elements.

Presentation

Use the Presentation Options section to adjust the preferences for your posts, including:

Enable excerpt teaser text.
Enable comments by default.
Set the default option to either publish or save as draft.
Use the date of the entry in the post URL.
Group entries by day.
Determine the order of posts and the number of posts and comments per page.
Set the number of posts that display on the main blog page before the "Next" link.
Set the number of comments that display on individual posts before the "Next" link.
Hide the blog landing page (Single Entry mode) so only the first post appears when the visitor goes to your blog's URL.

Pagination

Use the Pagination Formatting section to adjust the text that displays at the bottom of blog pages and blog posts. Use the variables to choose what text displays.

Step 3 - Enable comments

In the Commenting / Permission Options section of configuration, choose who can comment on blog posts and whether they can add URLs to their comments.

For more information, visit Managing comments.

Note: CAPTCHA fields can't be completed, which prevents visitors from leaving comments. We recommend disabling CAPTCHA.

Step 4 - Enable syndication

Use the XML Syndication / iTunes Options section to adjust your syndication feed preferences.

Site members can sign up to receive automatic emails when your blog is updated. Use the XML-RPC Ping Options section to adjust the format and other options for those emails.

Step 5 - Set a custom style (optional)

Set a custom style for just your blog with a style override.

Tip: To style your entire site, including your blog, visit Styling your site.

Step 6 - Save

When you're finished setting up the blog, click Save Page Configuration.

Tip: Your blog will be disabled, which means it won't display on your live site until you enable it.

Step 7 - Add a blog post

While in Content Mode, go to your blog page and click the Post New Entry annotation. When you've finished adding content to the WYSIWYG, ensure Published is checked and then click Save & Close. The post will be published on your live site.

For more information, visit Adding a blog post.

Step 8 - Moderate comments

If you've enabled comments within the page configuration, you can manage comments by opening Website Management and clicking Manage Comments under Dashboard.

For more information, visit Managing comments.

Add additional blogs

To create more than one blog on your site, add additional Journal pages following the steps above.

You can also use categories and tags to organize different topics within a single Journal, and set up category and tag-specific feeds.

Comparison to Squarespace 7

Our newest version of Squarespace, version 7.1, has more sophisticated blogging options, including:

Unique blog layouts
Customizable post URLs
Integrated Share buttons and social media push options
The ability to schedule posts in advance
Summary Blocks, which create magazine-style teaser layouts of your posts

To try version 7.1, including importing all your blog posts, visit Moving from Squarespace 5 to Squarespace 7.

Here's an example of how a Blog Page might look on version 7.1:

7.1_blog_page.png