Website Design Using Squarespace | Heather Sharpe | The Editor's Touch

I have been using Squarespace for my company websites ever since I launched my very first wedding coordination company in 2005 - just 2 years after Squarespace was founded. Style Unveiled ran on Squarespace and The Editor's Touch runs on it. All of my clients who hire me to design their website (see their beautiful faces above!!) switch over to Squarespace. I know this interface inside and out ... I loooooooove Squarespace!!

One of the things I love the most about Squarespace is that they have built in metrics (or, analytics) ... no more messing with Google Analytics and trying to figure all that out ... simply login to your Squarespace website and everything is kept in a nicely organized section of your website.

I want to introduce you to this amazingness .. I'll use The Editor's Touch analytics to show you ... don't laugh at my sad traffic!!! LOL ;)

Below is a screengrab of the Traffic Overview section. I have shown all these examples using a 'monthly count' ... so below you can see what the traffic on The Editor's Touch did since launching in April. So far May was by far my highest traffic month and the reason is because I had a few blog posts that got a lot of attention ... what I look for on this page is that the page views are HIGHER than the visits and 'audience size' ... if the page views aren't at least double from audience size then I know I have a problem. I would also like to see that the audience size is increasing each month - however because I have been doing this a long time, I know that each month will be different ... so I don't try to put too much pressure on myself. I have specific goals in mind for next year and what I'd like my traffic to be .. but since I am still a 'baby' according to Google, I won't be too hard on myself yet ;)

Squarespace Metrics | Overview | The Editor's Touch

Next I will introduce you to the Mobile Usage section of the metrics. If I didn't have a mobile optimized website I would be losing almost half (sometimes MORE than half!!) of my traffic each month!! Can you imagine!!?? Luckily the Squarespace mobile websites are THE SH*T and my visitors looooove to hang out on their mobile devices when they come to The Editor's Touch.

Squarespace Metrics | Squarespace Analytics Section | The Editor's Touch

Below is a screengrab of the Referrers section ... WHERE ARE MY VISITORS COMING FROM!?? Love this part!! Obvs, FB is a big one for me ... my biggest referrer each month. Direct is next, which I really love to see ... then far below that are Google, Pinterest, Twitter ... I absolutely LOVE seeing that the websites of my clients are sending me referrals << big happy face there!! Either way, this is great for education ... what is working, what isn't ... here is a blog post I wrote about how to decipher what website traffic referrals really mean for you!

Onto Popular Content! This is always a fun one for me to see .... what blog posts trend each month ... what were some hot topics ... what cause some controversy across the web ... As a blog editor I love to make people think ... make people see things differently. My audience doesn't always like what I put on here ... and sometimes they love it so much it creates business for me! It's such a thrill to write for my readership :) The fact that my blog landing is the highest viewed page is AWESOME!! Love that!! I wrote a blog post last month about Project Entrepreneur which was founded by Rent The Runway and that was a huge hit on The Editor's Touch! And I did a little photo education which was also quite popular across FB ;)

This next section is Search Engine Queries ... how are people finding you via an organic search online. Now: I am super young ... so my search queries will be super low ... but this does give you some insight as to how much information the Squarespace metrics section offers!! As I become older online I will find more and more yummy Googleness in this part :)

I am LOVING going into this next bit: Site Search Queries. While it's still very new (I just added a search bar last month) - it's still amazing. I love seeing what my visitors are interested in ... and what they can find on The Editor's Touch to help their business grow! I'm going to be very curious in a year to see what this section shows me :)

Lastly, Squarespace offers an Activity Log where you can actually see where people went according to real time! I rarely go in here, but it's nice to know it exists and that I can see where people bounced around to!