Squarespace has had a busy year. What has changed for your website? (2021)
It’s been a particularly busy year of changes, improvements and tweaks made inside the new(ish) Squarespace 7.1 platform.
If you haven’t spent much time on your website recently, start here before giving your website a spruce up (here’s my quarterly checklist)!
I’ve broken it down into categories, so you can find the changes that matter most to you and your Squarespace website.
Accessibility
Improved ALT text: Before, the alt text value was implicitly determined using its filename or caption, now you you have more control, both for accessibility and for SEO.
More languages for the app: The Squarespace App will soon be available in five additional languages: Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian. The update has been rolling out to Android users this week and will be available for iOS users in the autumn.
Undo and redo: Mmake small changes without abandoning all unsaved changes. You’ll be able to undo and redo the following changes:
Adding, moving, editing, or deleting a section
Adding, moving, or deleting a block
Editing the settings within a block
You can now register, transfer, and renew domains ending in .eu to Squarespace.
Updated Cookie notices to better comply with GDPR: (people can FINALLY opt out of cookies using Squarespace’s cookie banners)
Commerce & Sales
More control over your Etsy integration: you’ll no longer need to reauthenticate to import from the same shop. Going forward, your shop will remain connected to your site making it easier to focus on selling from one place. Because of this, Squarespace has also added the option for customers to disconnect their Etsy shop after importing products so they can connect to another one.
Allow for local pickup in your store’s shipping options: websites who are on the Business plan or higher can now use this feature! Note that Apple Pay won’t initially be available as a payment option at checkout, but it will be soon.
Introducing the Tock block: This new integration with a very popular all-in-one software for restaurants is pretty damn cool if I do say so myself. Let your customers order take out, book reservations, handle staff management and more!
Manage your store on the go using the Squarespace App: From the Commerce menu in the app, you can manage orders, discounts, and inventory.
Customize text in your Order Confirmed emails: depending on what product type(s) (physical item, digital item, service, or gift card) are in the order.
Automatic Tax Calculations with TaxJar: Right now, this feature is only available in the US, but it’s a real game changer for e-commerce businesses!
Shipping labels: US-based Business and Commerce plan users with purchasing permissions can buy USPS shipping labels for active pending orders from the order details page. Visit the Orders panel to buy a shipping label.
New design layouts for your store’s product details pages: Experiment with these new product design page layouts (Half, Wrap, and Full), in addition to the previously existing layouts.
Design
Loads of UI (user-interface) changes: Such as tweaks to the way that blocks look and how you interact with them. Squarespace has also updated the design panel, auto sections, updating the product composer and changes to the blog post thumbnail/featured image.
The Accordion Block:decreasing the amount of scrolling needed to access information on a page and display large text sections more easily, with the newly launched accordion block (video credit to Becca at Inside The Square).
Image Shapes: access to 50+ image shapes to customize the way your images display on a page. Shapes are specific to each instance of an image, meaning if you use the same image elsewhere, the shape will not apply to the other version. Additionally, image shapes can easily be changed or removed without modifying the image at all. Access image shapes in the design tab of the image block.
Header effects: Experiment with drop shadows, gradient backgrounds, blur backgrounds, and borders. The tab in the headers menu that previously said Colors will now say Background. Click on this menu option to access each of the styling choices.
Background art: no more needing to find outside stock graphics or designs for the background of your site, easily customizable and fully branded backgrounds are now available in the “background” portion of section settings in Squarespace 7.1 (video credit to Becca at Inside The Square)
Auto-layout sections: layout content in a variety of ways or change up your site by simply toggling a few buttons! I’ll be recording a demo soon as I’ve gotten early access to this awesome new feature.
Site styles: you can now change your site styles without having to leave the page editing area, which will save you about a million clicks.
Gallery blocks: finally are here for Squarespace 7.1, but right now the feature is exclusively for Circle members.
New button styles: oval, petal, and underline are now accessible by entering site styles, selecting Buttons, and then clicking on the shape dropdown.
Marketing
Squarespace Video Studio: an easy way to create professional-quality videos using your existing site content. Starting with intuitive video templates, you can create stunning videos in seconds.
Squarespace Campaigns: You can now send campaigns to customers, donors, and segments or tags you create in the Profiles panel.
Email Campaigns Layout: It’s now easier to design consistently between email blasts and automations! You can reuse templates to make sure your brand always is at its best.
Profiles panel: displays all of customers, Squarespace campaigns mailing list subscribers, Members Area members, and donors in one place, so you can get a holistic view of your engagement and manage relationships with your audience.
UNFOLD Bio Sites: create and share beautiful links pages with your followers.
Members Areas
Member Areas: Hide the “join” button from the access denied screen. Doing so ensures site visitors can only sign up for membership to a member area via a member sign up block.
Multiple fee options in Member Areas: You are able to set up two different membership fee options for any member area that has a set amount or recurring fee structure.
Discount Codes for Member Areas: apply Member Area specific discounts! Go to Discounts and select Member Area from the ‘Applies To’ dropdown list, just like you do with a regular product.
Miscellaneous
Invisible Google Recaptcha for newsletter blocks: You’ll see a notice below the Newsletter Block that reads: “This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.” Invalid submission attempts that use automated methods of signing up will be blocked from subscribing.
The app! Squarespace has been spending some time improving their mobile app - allowing you to have more control on the go (or when you notice something in a pinch)
Consolidation: Squarespace is bringing some of it’s acquisitions like Acuity Scheduling into their platform. So now you can use pretty much every single Squarespace-owned tool from right inside your Squarespace account!
Webhooks: On the Commerce Advance plan you can now subscribe to notifications from Squarespace for supported system events via Webhooks. Squarespace expects third-party partners to not only use Webhooks for custom integrations, but also to build extensions with powerful features such as real-time order syncing and fulfillment etc.
New permissions roles: Squarespace has created two new contributor roles. Users with the first new role, “Viewer,” have view-only access to private and password-protected pages. The second role, “Email Campaigns editor”, provides a user with access to Email Campaigns alone.
Customer Accounts: Site owners and contributors with Administrator and Store Manager permissions can now delete Customer Accounts from users’ profiles in the Profiles panel. Extensions are now native in the website editor! You can now access Extensions by going to Settings > Extensions. This directory offers the following new features that will make it easier for you to explore and enable Extensions for your websites.
Universal Asset Uploader: you now have access to an updated Asset Uploader, which standardizes and simplifies the way you upload images to your websites.
Spam reporting: better manage spam emails received via form blocks, the emails you receive after a submission is made will now include a link to report submissions as spam. By clicking the link, you’ll open a secure page to submit a report. The Squarespace internal security team will then review the submissions to improve our spam detection and prevention.
And that’s it for 2021!
As you can see Squarespace is HEAVILY investing into the versatility and ease of use for its new(ish) 7.1 platform. It can be tough to keep up with, if you want their latest changes to your inbox each month. Join my newsletter to get those along with insights into my life and business!
