Why No One is Reading Your Blog on Squarespace and How to Fix It [9 Design Tips + FREE Video Training]
Image Source: Unsplash
Research, write, edit, publish, repeat.
If you’re posting regular content to your Squarespace blog, you’re doing the right thing. Blog content can do wonders for your SEO and help potential customers find your website.
But what if it’s not working? What if you’re posting it, but no one is reading it?
It happens. Luckily, you’ve landed on this blog and we’re going to walk you through our top tips on how to remedy this situation.
The key to getting (and keeping) readers on your blog really boil down to one thing: Readability.
Of course, there are a lot of factors that play into readability— design, fonts, colors, spacing etc. So below, we’re going to break down the top things you should pay attention to and some best practices you should know in order to make your blog irresistible to readers.
But first, let’s look at why it’s important to drive traffic to your blog:
Table of Contents in Detail Hide
Why Should I Care About Readability on My Squarespace Blog?
Blogging Increases Organic Reach
Did you know that 70-80% of people completely ignore the paid search results at the top of their results page and head straight to the organic listings (which more often than not, are blogs)?
This means, every time you write a new blog, you have a fresh chance at being listed in an organic search result for a specific query of your choice.
More Indexing
Every time you add new content to your site, Squarespace will automatically update your site map. (Your Squarespace site map includes URLs for all pages on your site, as well as your image metadata.) You can also request that a new blog be indexed via your Google Search Console. This signals to Google that your website has new content, and it’s ready to be indexed for search results.
Increased Backlinks
Backlinks serve a double purpose in SEO. When you add reputable links to your content, it boosts your SEO by associating that content with that reputable site.
Conversely, when you share your blog content on social media, newsletters, etc. and other reputable sites link to that content, that boosts your SEO as well. Google sees these backlinks as proof of legitimacy and boosts your site’s rankings.
It Builds Credibility with Google
When you add valuable, easily readable content to your website, it leads to two SEO-boosting outcomes: more website traffic, and repeat visitors.
Both of these things are excellent for SEO, because they show Google that people view your website as a reliable source of information as it relates to their search query. Therefore, Google will raise your authority level in their algorithm. This leads to more visitors, and your SEO will continue to compound!
However, none of this is really true if your blog is not optimized for your readers!
Let’s look at a few Squarespace blogs that are truly killing it in the blog-readability department for some inspiration— and as a benchmark.
Some Examples of Amazing Blogs on Squarespace:
When it comes to design, The Good Trade blog has it all — beautiful colors, eye-catching images, organization and incredible functionality. It’s clear to see why this blog has become a go-to for anyone seeking content about sustainability, slow living and self-love.
Dolly and Oatmeal, a recipe blog, has become a fan-favorite for gluten-free foodies. The blog’s layout, simplicity, clean lines and image-to-text recipe make it incredibly easy for readers to browse.
As a therapy blog, Kindman.co really does a great job of making their blog represent the same Zen feeling as their content— and this is important. The colors, images, and soft contrasts make the blog easy to read, easy to scroll through, and presents a feeling of peace. (We feel calmer just looking at it!)
The Mama Ladder is a blog dedicated to empowering women (and mother) entrepreneurs. The blogs brand is well-represented in their design — bubbly, fun, colorful, real, simple. We appreciate that the layout makes blog content super easy to find, and the eye-catching design has us staying to read more.
Reading about career advice can often be a dry topic. But JobJenny does an awesome job of posting content that’s entertaining and informative while still being easy-to-read. We also love that their prominent categories section listed to the right of their blog posts makes it incredibly easy for readers to skip to content they’re most interested in.
What Makes These Squarespace Blog So Great, and How Can You Apply Their Lessons to Your Own Blog?
Like we mentioned above, the best way to ensure your Squarespace blog gets noticed is to increase your readability.
All of the blog examples we shared have a few things in common when it comes to an easy-to-read design. They used the following elements appropriately:
Colors
Fonts
Font Sizes
Headings
Font Weight
Letter Spacing
And Line Height
Let’s look at some best practices for how to format these elements for peak readability.
Colors
Colors make life more interesting, and they do the same for your blog. In fact, color can enhance clarity and readability in the text by as much as 40 percent!
The colors you choose to use on your blog should represent your branding and help readers to better understand the tone and personality of your content. If you’re not familiar with color psychology, do a little research before you begin designing your blog to figure out which colors best represent your business.
It’s also important to choose colors that have an attractive contrast to the eye. We love this free contrast checker that can help tell you whether or not you’ve picked a good combo for readability.
Fonts
Image Source: Unsplash
We’ll shy away from making any comic sans font jokes here (if you want some, here you go). But we will say this: If your blog is using any of the following font styles, it’s time for a change:
Cursive style fonts
Most (if not all) extended or condensed style fonts
More than three fonts per page
Fonts have a big impact on your site’s readability. Keeping your fonts, clean, simple, and easy to read is key to keeping traffic on your blog site.
Some of the most popular for Squarespace blogs include:
Open Sans
Merriweather
Montserrat
Lato
Roboto
Karla
Nunito
Lora
Source Sans Pro
Alegreya
Raleway
Work Sans
IBM Plex Sans
And here are a few of our personal favorite font combinations for Squarespace:
Roboto + Noto Sans
3 Acumin Pro 700/600 for headers + 300/400 for paragraph
Nimbus Sans + Nimbus Sans
Objectiv Mk1 + Objectiv Mk1 Work Sans
Work Sans Futura + PT Serif Helvetica Neue
Rubik + Karla
Playfair Display + Fauna One
Space Mono + Roboto
Try out a few of these on your own blog and see what you think. If you want more font inspo, check out FontPair.
Font Sizes for Body Text
Just like humans, beautiful fonts can come in all sizes. The key is picking a size that’s legible for your blog and the font you’ve chosen.
To help, we love this calculator. It can help you discover the perfect typography for your website based on current font size and content width. This is also a great resource.
As a quick best practice, your font size for body text should be somewhere between 16px and 21px. Around 18-19px is ideal.
Font Sizes for Headings
In Squarespace, the default font heading options they offer are really good. So, it could be that you don’t need to change those at all.
However, one thing to keep in mind from an SEO perspective, is that you don’t want the hierarchy of your headings to be different or mismatched from the hierarchy of font size. For example, Heading 1 should always be the biggest, followed by Heading 2, 3, 4, and so on. And Headings should always be larger than your body text.
If you’re concerned about the responsiveness of your font size (how it adjusts according to screen size), do a little research on rem units. Rem units are a CSS unit that can help you achieve a well-balanced design.
Font Weight
While it’s good to always be bold in life, the same isn’t always true for your blog font.
Font weight is great to differentiate between headings, body text, and important information. It’s fine to play with your font weights, but just make sure, again, that it’s easy to read! Having too much bold or heavy weight to all of your fonts can be hard on the eyes.
In the same vein, having a font weight so light you can barely read it is also not a good idea. As a best practice, avoid using the ultralight, thin, and light versions of your font that can be a bit more difficult to see.
Line Length
Line length doesn’t usually get a lot of attention in conversation around blog readability. But it actually plays a really important role!
Line length refers to the number of words you have per line in your content. If you have too many, things can look crowded, jumbled, and difficult to read. Too little, and your text seems overly spaced out and hard to follow.
The perfect limit to line length for readability (and SEO) is between 70-80 characters. If your lines are longer than that, it has been shown to confuse the eye, —particularly when reading text on a screen.
However, if you can’t find a way around using longer lines, increase your line spacing to help protect readability.
Letter Spacing
Letter spacing is often a small tweak that can make a huge difference in your readability. Too much letter space can make your letters feel like their own separate words. Too little, and things blur together.
In Squarespace, we’ve found that their default letter spacing is often best. However, if you want to customize it, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
If you have titles in all uppercase, you can add some letter spacing, but keep it minimal
If you have small body text (under 16px) add a small bit of letter spacing to help with readability
If you have small, uppercase titles, you can add a bit of letter spacing, but again, not too much
We’d suggest not messing with the letter spacing of your body text. Usually, the spacing is already optimized for the font you’ve chosen. This is especially true in reducing your letter spacing, which will almost always make your text harder to read.
Line Height
Line height is commonly measured as a percentage of font size. It’s normally best practice to keep your line spacing at 130%-150% for ideal readability. Anything from 120% up to 200% is acceptable, but 140% tends to be the sweet spot. If you’re not sure that that means, it’s 1.3, 1.4, or 1.5. em (em is basically your current font size).
So, for example, if your default font size is 16px, then 1em = 16px, and 2em = 32px.
Conclusion
Looking for someone to help drive traffic to your Squarespace blog? We can help. We understand that achieving Squarespace SEO through blogging takes a lot of hard work and consistency. Our team can teach you strategies to help you achieve results faster and more easily. Or, we can take the reins and do it for you!
So, if you’re looking for a partner who can help you easily jumpstart your SEO, get in touch. Our team of Squarespace experts is ready and excited to help.
