So, you’ve set up your basic blog site using a website builder like Squarespace or Wix, and now you’re looking to take things to the next level. Once you’ve got the fundamentals down, it’s time to explore some more advanced features to help your blog thrive. In this article, we’ll go beyond the basics and discuss how to use advanced website builder tools to scale and optimize your blog.
Leverage Built-In SEO Features
Many website builders come equipped with SEO features to help improve your site’s visibility and ranking in search engines. There are SEO and AI features included in the Squarespace price plan, for example. Look for opportunities to optimize page titles, meta descriptions, alt text, and headings by using relevant keywords. Enable XML sitemaps and leverage SEO plugins that allow you to analyze site traffic and performance. These advanced website builders take a lot of the guesswork out of optimizing your site for search. Take advantage of them to maximize the reach of your blog content.
Enhance Navigation and Site Architecture
As your blog grows, make sure your site navigation keeps pace. Review your menus and categories frequently and adjust them based on popular content and search trends. Create clear navigational hierarchies so readers can easily find related content. Organize your most popular posts, pages, and categories into the main navigation menus for easy discovery. Advanced website builders allow you to create nested submenus, dropdowns, and other navigational elements to improve site architecture. Make it as effortless as possible for readers to explore your site.
Integrate Social Media Feeds
Integrating your blog with social media is key for growth. Advanced website builders make it easy to automatically display social feeds from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and more directly on your site. This encourages visitors to follow you on social media and helps drive traffic between platforms. Choose strategic places to showcase your social feeds such as the header, sidebar, or within blog posts. Just be sure not to let social integrations overwhelm your core content.
Customize Design with Styling Options
Once your blog is up and running, don’t be afraid to customize the design by tweaking fonts, colors, layouts, and other styling options available in advanced website builders. This allows you to refine your brand visuals and create a more polished, professional look and feel. Experiment with typography, white space, page width, images, and other elements to see what works best for your niche. Just be sure to maintain usability and readability as you optimize aesthetics.
The built-in tools in advanced website builders provide everything you need to scale your blog to the next level. Focus on enhancing SEO, navigation, social integrations, and design customization to optimize the user experience. With the fundamentals dialed in, you can transform your basic blog into a specialized site tailored to your brand and audience. Just be sure to monitor analytics and be prepared to continually refine things as your site grows. The possibilities are endless for taking your blog beyond the basics.