Website Critique: 3 Ways To Improve Your Blog With Squarespace

Jan 14

We launched a new video series called “Small Business Website Critiques” where our CEO & Creative Director, Promise Tangeman, will do a live video giving feedback and suggestions to improve for a small business owner who has submitted their website for critique.

In this video, we are looking at Moderate Monday’s sustainable fashion and lifestyle blog. This blog follows Elle, of Dallas, Texas, as she writes about sustainability, fashion, and “seeking out brands that make a difference.” We LOVE that! What a great blog and a great niche.

Watch the video below to hear Promise’s live-action feedback, and keep reading our post below the video player to see our biggest takeaways that you can apply to your own blog.

3 Ways To Improve Your Blog With Squarespace

1. Tell Us Exactly What You Do & What Makes Your Blog Unique Within 3-5 Seconds Of Landing On Your Website.

Even if you’re a personal or lifestyle blog, it helps your audience know exactly what you’re about by having a clear statement near the top of the homepage that explains your blog. For Moderate Monday, we’d recommend a simple phrase, tagline, or sentence explaining that she shares sustainable fashion and lifestyle tips each Monday.

If you’re having trouble forming your own brief statement about what you do, we’ve got a great resource that walks you through a mad-lib exercise to build your own Brand Bio. Get the free download here to get started on yours!

2. Make The Homepage More Dynamic.

Moderate Monday’s homepage is modern, minimal, sleek, and simple. However, now that she’s built up more and more blog content, we’d recommend adding more of that robust content to her homepage to show off just how much she’s got going on even on the first page.

Some simple ways to make your homepage more dynamic when you’re a lifestyle blog would be to add previews of your blog categories, add more blog posts to your homepage, add more images, a shop section, and even layer in some background elements to make the site look more unique.

If you want more tips on how you can make your homepage design more robust and interesting, check out our 10 Tips To Make Your Squarespace Design More Dynamic.

3. Add Value Or An Incentive To Your Email Opt-In.

Now that so many bloggers, entrepreneurs and companies are using email marketing, people are less likely to give up their email address in exchange for “news and updates.” Adding some sort of value or incentive for when someone signs up for your mailing list increases the likelihood that they’ll sign up!

An email opt-in could be a free PDF, resources, checklist, giant list, exclusive video, giveaway, or even a free product. More more ideas on how to beef up your email opt-in, check out our 5 Ways To Add Value To Your Email Opt-In.

The Wrap Up

Elle has SO much going for her and her blog! We love the minimalist design and the niche of sustainability. We’d just make those three simple changes to take her blog to the next level. Congrats, Elle! You’re killing it!