10 Tips To Make Your Squarespace Website More Dynamic

After creating multiple custom Squarespace and Shopify websites for our clients and creating Squarespace Website Templates in our shop, we can say with some degree of confidence that we've learned a few tricks for making websites stand out online.

To make your website more dynamic you don't need anything fancy, you just need a little creativity and imagination! The best part is, platforms as Squarespace already have built-in functionalities that can make your website visually more appealing, and interactive. 

Today we decided to share some of the tricks that we use on our client's websites to make them pop on the sea of competition out there.

10 Tips To Make Your Website More Dynamic

1. ANNOUNCEMENT BAR

Surprised? Don't be because a styled announcement bar at the top of your website can quickly and easily direct people to perform an action you want them to perform or content you want them to see.

How to add an announcement bar to a Squarespace website:

• Home Menu -> Marketing -> Announcement Bar

• Select Enable Announcement Bar

• Enter the text for the announcement bar

• Add a link by entering a web address in the clickthrough URL

• Click Save

If you design Squarespace's functionality to add an announcement bar you can design you can style it with a branded color and a font.

2. POP-UPS

If you really want to grab your visitor's attention a full-page pop-up is a great way to ensure they don't miss that thing you're promoting. A pop-up will demand your visitor's attention, and tell them what they should do next.

If you're doing this on Squarespace, they have a lot of customizable templates you can choose from. These templates allow you to upload your own images, add copyright, choose the call to action, decide when the pop-up should appear, etc.

To add a pop-up:

• Home Menu -> Marketing -> Promotional Pop-up

• Use the Change layout panel to choose a layout

• Use the Action panel to add a newsletter sign-up or a button

• Use the Content panel to add text

• Use the Display & timing panel to set how the pop-up appears

• If the layout you chose supports images, use the Image panel to add a background image

• Use the Style panel to style the pop-up

3. PARALLAX EFFECT

Parallax is a web design technique in which the website background moves at a slower pace than the content in the front. This gives a sense of depth and creates a more immersive experience. We love using the parallax effect behind simple sections of a design, this brings that section to life and doesn’t compete with the content.

If you're using Squarespace we have some exciting news! Squarespace 7.1 now has parallax scrolling built it. You can turn on this effect by going to "Image Effect" and selecting one of the "Tilt" effects under the section's background editor window.

4. GRAPHIC ELEMENTS

Instead of just uploading a simple photo to your website, spend a few more minutes of your time and go the extra mile by adding custom graphic elements to your website's imagery. You don't even need to hire a professional graphic designer, you can do this by using free design tools like Canva (affiliate link).

5. VIDEO BACKGROUND

Squarespace allows you to can add background videos to any sections except blog, events, and store sections. To add a background video, you should use videos from YouTube and Vimeo. Adding a video in the background will add movement to your website.

To add a video on a section background:

1. Home -> Pages -> Go to the page with the section you'd like to edit

2. Click Edit

3. Click the section's pencil icon, then click Background

4. Click Video, then click the + icon. Choose Upload file to add a video from your device or click Add from the link, to add a Vimeo or YouTube URL. Click Save.

5. Customize other video settings

6. Done -> Save

6. IMAGE ANIMATIONS

Squarespace has a feature that allows you to choose different animations for your imagery, you can choose to turn on site-wide animations or single image animations. With just a few clicks, you can animate your images to create some movement on your website.

Single image animations:

1. Select the image

2. Image Effect -> Select one of the animations

For site-wide animations:

1. Site Syles -> Animations

2. Animation style

3. Choose a Slow, Medium, or Fast animation speed.

4. Done -> Save

7. SLIDESHOW

There’s no question that slideshows bring movement to your website. With this simple feature, you can add titles, descriptions, and clickable links on top of the images of your choice.

To add a slideshow:

1. Click Edit on the page

2. Click Add Section

3. Click Gallery and choose a layout

8. IMAGE GALLERY

Having an image gallery on your website is a fun and engaging way to show your brand to your website’s visitors. Displaying images of you, your team, past projects, etc., will help you showcase curated images of your brand, and create brand awareness when first-time potential clients visit your website.

To add an image gallery:

1. Click Edit on the page

2. Click Add Section

3. Click Gallery and choose a layout

9. BUTTON EFFECTS

We decided to leave the most complicated effects for the end because CSS coding is involved. Button effects like the one in our navigation menu “Hire Us”, helps direct your visitor attention to an action you want them to perform, in our case is to enquire about our services.

If you’re curious to know how to apply the same effect to your website drop us a message, we would love to share the piece of code with you!

To add CSS code:

• Home Menu -> Design -> Custom CSS

• Add your code

• Save

10. TEXT ANIMATIONS

Like the previous, this text animation is also code-based. Text animations will give your website that extra pop to grab your visitor’s attention and highlight some important information like the headline on your homepage.

If you’re curious to know how to apply the same effect to your website drop us a message, we would love to share the piece of code with you!

To add CSS code:

• Home Menu -> Design -> Custom CSS

• Add your code

• Save

Final Thoughts

Making your website more dynamic will grab your visitor’s attention, and keep them engaged for longer. Now you should have a very clear idea of how to make your website more dynamic with very simple tweaks here and there.

We hope all the information we shared helped give you a little more clarity on how and why you should make your website more dynamic. If you need further guidance book a totally free consultation call with us, we'd love to help you!

BE SURE TO GRAB OUR FREE TRAINING BEFORE YOU HEAD OFF!