A Step-by-Step Guide to Blogging: And How to Actually Start

If you’re a small business looking to share your knowledge, connect with your audience, and boost your SEO, you need a blog. There are many factors that go into increasing organic website traffic, but Google algorithms prioritize consistent, high quality content. As you can see in the image below from First Page Sage, blogging occupies the biggest piece of the pie as consistently creating valuable, keyword-rich content is what helps search engines understand your expertise.

Google continues to emphasize helpful, people-first content and great user experience as the best way to organically increase website traffic. Their “E-E-A-T” framework stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, which tells us we need to create content focused on solving real problems. Think, “What is my ideal client Googling?”

If you’re using Squarespace, the good news is they make it easy to set up and maintain a blog right on your website. In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to create and optimize your blog in Squarespace — whether you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your existing site.

Step 1: Add a Blog Page

Start by logging into your Squarespace website. From the menu on the left, go to Pages → Main Navigation → + → Blog to add a new blog.

Step 2: Choose a Layout & Customize It

Squarespace offers several blog layouts — grid, list, or stacked.

• Therapists or Coaches: A clean, minimal list layout supports calm, focused reading.

• Artists or Creatives: A grid layout lets you highlight visuals alongside your content.

• Local Businesses or Wellness Brands: A stacked layout offers flexibility for images, CTAs (calls-to-action), and headlines.

Choose one that suits your preference and then customize the collection by clicking Edit Section. Here you have the option to change the layout, spacing, image and text placement, and colors.

Step 3: Configure Blog Collection Settings

Head to Pages → Blog → Settings (gear icon). Here, you can:

• Rename the blog page

• Add a description

• Connect it to navigation

• Enable comments

• Manage categories & tags

Step 4: Add a Hero Section with a Clear Heading & Subheading

Before diving into posts, give your blog some context. Add a section at the top of your blog page with a heading and subheading that speaks directly to your audience.

Make this section warm and welcoming — tell visitors what your blog is about and why it matters to them.

Step 5: Add Categories and a Search Bar

Consider enabling categories and adding a search bar to help your readers find what they’re looking for.

• Create 3 categories based on your content strategy (e.g., “Mental Health & Wellness,” “Therapy Tools & Techniques,” “Relationships & Personal Growth”).

• Add a search block to encourage further browsing.

Step 6: Add Your First Blog Post

Click “+ New Post” to start writing.

• Your blog title will automatically be H1 (heading 1).

• Use H2-H4 for any subheadings to break up the content and help with SEO.

• Add an image block in the body — rename the image file to include a keyword and add descriptive alt text for accessibility and SEO.

• Include a CTA and/or lead magnet in your post.

  Pro Tip: After you create your first blog post, duplicate it to use as a template for each new post moving forward!

Step 7: Add Related Posts at the Bottom

Keep readers engaged by adding related posts at the end of each blog post. This improves site time and helps guide readers to additional helpful content.

Add a Summary Block and choose “Blog” in the settings. You can then filter by related tags or categories.

Step 8: Create an Author Profile

Build trust by showing who's behind the words.

• Add an author bio under each post by going to your Squarespace dashboard, clicking your profile picture in the top right corner, choosing Profile, and adding your info.

• Enable Author Profiles in a blog post (this is a universal setting and will enable this feature in all posts).

Step 9: Configure Blog Post Settings

Under Blog Overview, click the three dots next to your blog post.

• Content: Add a featured image, excerpt, update your post URL, and choose your author

• Options: Edit status, tags, categories, enable/disable comments

• SEO: Add SEO title and description

• Social Image: Add an image that you’d like to appear when sharing on social media

• Share: You can create an email draft here and request indexing via Google Search Console

• Location: This section is helpful for local SEO - add your business address here

  Pro Tip: Add your primary keyword to the featured image, excerpt, URL, tags, SEO title & description, and social image.

Step 10: Style Your Blog

Last but not least — make it beautiful and on-brand.

• Update fonts, spacing, and colors in Site Styles

• Customize how blog summaries appear

• Choose whether to show author, date, category, etc.

• Use consistent image ratios and alignments

A blog can position you as an expert, drive traffic, and connect you with the clients and community you want to serve. With Squarespace, setting up a blog is really straightforward — and with the right strategy and design, it becomes a powerful tool in your brand’s ecosystem.

If you need help building a beautiful, client-attracting blog or website, I’d love to help! Let’s make your message shine.

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