This content material initially appeared on Mashable for a US viewers and has been tailored for the UK viewers.

On this gig financial system day and web age, no author is only a author anymore. A author can also be an concept collector, a pitcher, a negotiator, an search engine marketing specialist, a proofreader, a self-promoter, and knowledgeable bill sender. They could even be a full-on model at this level, relying on whether or not they purchase into the Twitter discourse(Opens in a brand new tab).

That being stated, you’d in all probability wrestle to discover a handful of writers who consider themselves as particularly adept builders. English, journalism, and artistic writing coursework is not precisely rife with alternatives to learn to construct web sites, and self-led bootcamps are intimidating if you do not have a lick of coding or HTML expertise. This could really feel like an enormous hurdle when it comes time to needing a private web site, whether or not you are making an attempt to showcase a portfolio, appeal to new shoppers, promote a guide, or simply merely weblog.

Enter: Squarespace, a preferred web site constructing platform that presents itself as an all-in-one answer for designing and managing an internet site (with plans beginning as little as £13 a month). Going stay is as simple as selecting one in all its trendy, mobile-optimised templates and customising it together with your branding; technical chores like web site metrics, SSL safety(Opens in a brand new tab), video storage, and updates are all dealt with by the platform itself. Plus, it maintains a full-featured app that allows you to edit your web site on the go, together with updating pages, including new photographs, writing weblog posts, reviewing web site analytics, and managing the stock of a web-based retailer.

With a whole bunch of templates accessible as of 2023, it may be robust to determine which can finest fit your wants as a freelancer, creator, journalist, copywriter, and/or poet. Preserve scrolling for a complete information.

What’s a Squarespace template?

A Squarespace template (or theme) is a pre-built demo web site that is meant to function a “place to begin to assist encourage your web site’s design,” to cite its help web site(Opens in a brand new tab). Every one can be utilized fully as-is or fleshed out with completely different colors, font packs, structure pages, and content material blocks.

Templates work in another way relying on whether or not you are working Squarespace model 7.0 or 7.1(Opens in a brand new tab), the 2 iterations of the platform it presently helps. Model 7.0 (launched in 2014) accommodates 91 templates it categorises into “households” that share the identical underlying construction and magnificence settings. Some options are unique to sure households, which makes it tougher to swap between templates with out doing a minimum of a partial rebuild.

In the meantime, model 7.1 (launched in early 2020) has 143 templates it is merged right into a single household. All of them share the identical options and formatting choices, which makes it means simpler to alter templates on the fly.

Some skilled Squarespace designers nonetheless use model 7.0 as a result of a handful of its superior functionalities(Opens in a brand new tab) have not but migrated over, however we might advocate beginning with model 7.1 in the event you’re new to the platform: It is far more versatile and future-proof (particularly with the latest launch of Fluid Engine, Squarespace’s next-gen, grid-based content material editor).

Regardless of which one you determine to make use of, remember the fact that shifting between variations(Opens in a brand new tab) usually requires a whole rebuild and carries the danger of tanking your web site’s search rating. Fortuitously, Squarespace affords a free 14-day trial so you could have the prospect to mess around with each variations earlier than formally constructing your web site.

Is Squarespace good for writers?

Squarespace has a variety of helpful options that author sorts can reap the benefits of, together with pre-made Portfolio and Weblog structure pages, cell modifying, e-newsletter blocks, social media integration, e mail marketing campaign integration, tag and class help, a number of creator help, Google Analytics help, the flexibility to schedule posts, and a built-in commenting system that features content material moderation and abuse filters (plus Disqus integration). It additionally lately added a software known as Members Areas, which helps you to gate and monetise content material in your web site.

In brief, Squarespace is excellent for writers — once more, even if in case you have no prior coding expertise.

How do you select the fitting Squarespace template?

Squarespace’s Templates library provides you the choice of sorting them by kind (On-line Retailer, Portfolio, Memberships, Weblog, Scheduling, and One Web page) and matter (e.g., Media & Podcasts, Skilled Companies, and Private & CV). You’ll be able to click on on any template’s “Preview” button to take a look at its demo content material, which will provide you with an concept of the way it appears to be like within the wild.

Squarespace recommends focusing primarily on the “particular colors and layouts that enchantment to you” quite than the content material you see there, however provides that “you could discover it simpler to start out with a design that is already near the way you need your web site to look.”

What’s the finest Squarespace templates for writers?

To assist make your choice course of just a little simpler, now we have lined up a number of templates that ought to go well with everybody. You simply want to choose a favorite.

These are the perfect Squarespace templates for writers in 2023.