First, a quick style sheet:

This is Header 1

This is Header 2

This is Header 3

This is normal text

Your site is built on a template called MONTAUK.

We are using "folders," "pages" and "galleries" to put content onto the site. Your home page is a "page" which text and image blocks on it. (A block is a piece of content that can be moved around.) Blocks you'll also use: Buttons. Social blocks. Spacers. Lines.

Logging In

To log in to your site, put in the address with /config at the end. You’ll be asked for your credentials. (Email address and password.)

Even after you get your domain name set up to point to your SS site, when you’re working on your site, you’ll see a different URL on the top of your browser. (Mine looks like https://sarina-bowen.squarespace.cominstead of sarinabowen.com.)  Don’t worry! This is normal. When you’re building links to your pages use the pretty URL address you want readers to see. It will work, I promise.

Note: I am currently an “admin” for your site. If you look at SETTINGS=>PERMISSIONS you’ll see me in there. It is up to you whether to leave me in there or remove me.  After we’re done with the design process, I’d never fiddle without your permission.

The Back End

When you’re logged into SS you’ll see a menu on the left side. OR an arrow in the upper left corner that, when clicked, gives you that left-hand menu.

The menu choice you’ll use most is the top one: PAGES. That’s where all your site’s content is edited. When you need to add or change something, 90% of the time it will be in the PAGES part of your site.

When you click on PAGES you’ll see a map of your site. At the top you’ll see MAIN NAVIGATION and below it all your main menu choices, in the order they appear on your nav bar. If you were to grab any of these and move them, you’d see (after refreshing the page) that the order of the nav bar has changed to reflect your reordering.

That + beside the words MAIN NAVIGATION? If you click it, that creates a new page. The + to make a new page also appears below the items in any folders you have. But you may still drag something into or out of a folder at any time.

Page Configuration (the "gear" menu)

Hover the mouse over one of your pages. You will see a GEAR appear.  When you click on that gear, a menu appears on the right-hand side of the screen. There is some important stuff on this menu. There are three places where the name of the page appears: Navigation title, page title and a little further down URL slug. I find it helpful to keep these things the same. Your pages should be named in a way that makes it easy for you to remember them. So if you’re writing an email you can just tap out the address of the page you want to include without having to look at your website to see what the page is called.

And you will notice a check box for ENABLED. If you uncheck it, the page becomes invisible to the outside world, but not to you. It’s name will be grayed out in the menu so you’ll remember it’s not enabled.

Also on this menu is something called a thumbnail image. Since we're using the MONTAUK template, that thumbnail will show up if you post the page link to social media.

Tip: if you're ever getting unpredictable images on pages, check the thumbnail.

Also in this menu is the ability to add a password for the page. We’re not using that ability for anything right now, but if you ever wanted to create private content, that’s one way to accomplish it. You can password ANY PAGE on a squarespace site.

Most SS menus also have an ADVANCED choice. See it on the top right? If you find yourself needing to inject code on a webpage, it goes there. When would you do this? Facebook tracking pixels and conversion pixels spring to mind. Or third-party apps.

"Not Linked" Pages = Hidden Pages

Scroll down below this familiar map and find another list of pages under the heading NOT LINKED. These are also pages in your site, but they do not appear in the main nav. They are hidden!

So what’s down here? A few things:

1.  Stuff that’s hidden only because it acts as a reservoir of material that we’re pulling onto other pages. IE a gallery of cover images and a product page where we’ve stored your items for sale. You can see that the gallery is denoted by a picture icon and the products with a $.

2. Stuff that's hidden because it's only meant for certain visitors--like reviewers who get ARCs, or people who are responding to a freebie offer.

3. Pages that we’re building or not ready to put into the main nav. We can drag those suckers out of the NOT LINKED menu into the main nav whenever we’re ready.

In fact, the page you're reading right now is a hidden page.

Editing Content

To edit content, navigate to the page you’d like to update. When you bring the mouse over the content, you’ll see PAGE CONTENT: EDIT | SETTINGS. Choose edit. (Settings would take us to our configuration menu, the same one we activated with the gear in our pages menu.)

Now all the content that’s part of the main portion of the page is editable. 

1.       You can highlight text and then edit it. You can format text that’s already there.  Note: Squarespace gives us a normal text setting and a couple of heading selections. H1 is for big title text and H2 & H3 are usually medium-sized.

Note: Changing the color of these is a design function. Visit DESIGN and STYLE EDITOR to see how it works.

2.       Hover your mouse around the edges of objects and text and you’ll see insertion points appear! It takes a little time to get used to these and their functions. If you click to insert something you’ll get a vast menu of choices. SS is built to accommodate restaurants, artists, musicians, etc. So some functions like OpenTable won’t be useful. The choices you’re most likely to make are: text, images, buttons, spacers and lines. And products! The products you’ve already built are available to you for insertion on a page.

3.       Moving stuff around on a SS page takes some practice. Grab an object and move it around, watching all the places that SS volunteers to put it. The page will divide itself vertically into columns, sometimes with unexpected results. You can always hit CANCEL and then DISCARD to undo the mess you’ve made!

Squarespace offers you a tutorial on adding stuff (called blocks) here. If you watch any Squarespace tutorials at all, watch this one!!!

You can also add a brand new page and then edit it. Tutorial here.

Adding a New Book, Step by Step

Okay, so you wrote a new book! You can start its page in "Not Linked" and work there until your new page is ready to be seen.

1.       Make a new page by clicking the + on the PAGES menu. (Or duplicate an existing one!)

3.       Give the page a name, which should be the title of your book

4.       Click the gear to see how that page is configured. Edit the URL slug until you’re happy with the address of the page. Save those changes.

5.      You might also need to create a new folder! Title it BOOKS and drag both your new page and the Wedding Sisters into the folder. (Your books folder!)

6.       Edit your new page. Paste in some text. Upload the cover art as an “image” block. You should never upload any pics which are wider than 1500 pixels. In fact, 700 pixels wide looks fine! Otherwise they’ll load too slowly. Move that cover art into position by dragging it into a corner. Afterward, adjust the horizontal that divides the picture from the text so that art is the size (width) you want.

7.       Add some buttons. Before your book is up for pre-order, you could add a button to the book’s Goodreads page. Come back later and change these so that they’re buy buttons.

Thank you!

Please don’t hesitate to let me know what I’ve forgotten to tell you. I want you to feel good about using your site, experimenting with changes and occasionally making mistakes. If anything is driving you nuts, I’d love to know.

Addendum: Sumome

We are running an app called "scroll box" made by Sumome.

HOW TO OPEN SUMOME TO CHANGE THINGS: 1. Log in to your website at Squarespace. 2. Click on any whitespace on your website to be sure that the page is active. 3) Using your computer keyboard, type: sumome followed by the up arrow. Yes, this is a weird instruction! You will not see the letters you're typing, but after you do this a little blue rectangle will appear in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Click on the blue rectangle's crown to see the sumome dash, then click on "scroll box" to find all the settings associated with your app, including the Mailchimp hook-up.

Your email jamieloganbrenner@gmail.com is your login

Your password is: theweddingsisters