Struggling to settle on a Squarespace template? We’ve got you covered with 10 recommendations that’ll turn any idea into a gorgeous reality.
Best for e-commerce
Galapagos
Sometimes basic isn’t a bad thing, especially if it takes the fuss out of incorporating interactive design elements.
If you’ve listened to any podcast ever, you already know the spiel: Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder that makes it easy to create a beautiful online presence. Numbers-wise, it’s one of the most popular web building and hosting services out there, supporting millions of websites across the web.
One of the primary reasons why Squarespace has seen this success is that it’s inherently all-inclusive. For about £10 to £30 per month, Squarespace plans offer access to hosting, around the clock customer support, website metrics, mobile optimisation, SSL security, unlimited storage and bandwidth, an intuitive drag-and-drop page builder, and dozens of original, modern templates.
Most of those features are self-explanatory, although the templates could probably benefit from a bit more elaboration: A Squarespace template determines how your site looks and works. Users have more than 90 different options to choose from, each of which has been designed and coded exclusively for Squarespace (which means you won’t find them on WordPress, Wix, or other site-building platforms).
Every Squarespace template belongs to a so-called template family, or a group of similarly coded templates that are alike in their basic structure, functionality, and customisation options. Squarespace categorises its templates this way, per its support page, “to showcase their versatility and to help you find the layout and pre-set style options that work best as a starting point for your site.” Poking around within a family can be helpful if you want to see how Squarespace’s tools can be used to make websites look different, it adds, pointing to Brine and Thorne (below) as good examples of two templates that are in the same family of template, but styled differently:
Image: squarespace
What’s particularly great about Squarespace is that it caters to users of all web design skill levels, with each template falling somewhere on a customisation spectrum. Some templates give you the tools to go all-out with fonts, colours, image effects, border sizes, landing pages, and more, letting you fine-tune every detail, whereas others offer only a few style options to eliminate any potential hassles. It’s up to you to decide how much time and effort you’ll dedicate to designing your site.
At this point, you’re probably wondering: How do these features set Squarespace apart from, say, WordPress, another popular platform? The short of it is this: You get what you pay for. With WordPress, you’ve got virtually unlimited customisation options if you cough up some dough for hosting services, quality themes, and reputable plugins.
Squarespace offers far less flexibility in comparison, but all of its templates are ultra-reliable and mobile-ready. And while they’re not as prolific as WordPress plugins, Squarespace supports the official integrations of certain services, including Acuity Scheduling (to let visitors schedule an appointment), Apple News (to cross-publish your content), and Paypal (to let your site accept PayPal payments from customers), among a few dozen others. Plus, most of the technical drudgery for your site is handled by Squarespace’s team of experts so you can direct your focus elsewhere.
If Squarespace sounds like the right solution for you, know this: You really can’t go wrong with any of its templates. Like, it’s almost impossible to make an ugly Squarespace site, but just in case you need a little help to get the ball rolling on the site of your dreams, save yourself a Google search and just keep reading.
These are 10 of the best template options for all sort of purposes, from podcasts to portfolios and beyond.
Five
An oldie and a goodie for bloggers who value versatility and a sidebar (or two).-
Family:
Five
You can use a sidebar to highlight promotions, house a call-to-action, or plug your bio and social media handles to build your brand. Every page on a Five site can feature up to two sidebars; in fact, Five is the only Squarespace template that features a two-sidebar design.
With Five, you’ve also got options to showcase your content in the form of full-width banners and videos, tweak your navigation menu, style galleries as grids or slideshows, create events, and much more. Plus, Five supports Squarespace’s integrated commerce feature so you can set up an online store once your blog takes off.
Galapagos
Sometimes basic isn’t a bad thing, especially if it takes the fuss out of incorporating interactive design elements.-
Family:
Galapagos
Its customisation options are pretty limited compared to most other ecommerce Squarespace templates, but that means you can spend less time designing your site and more time selling your stuff. Your customers won’t even know the difference, either, because the final result will look and work as if you spent hours perfecting its design: With a Quick View feature, Product Image Zoom, and several product layouts and special on-hover effects to choose from, Galapagos can make your shop fully interactive in just a few clicks and drags.
Besides your Products page, the Galapagos theme can also support list-style blogs with one sidebar, galleries styled as slideshows or grids, calendars or lists of events, an album page with playable music, and a unique landing page.
Wexley
A simple yet beautiful way to showcase your best creative work that facilitates visitor exploration.-
Family:
Wexley
It works like this: You’ll put together a landing page that features the best of your portfolio, wherein every image will be optimised to best fit your screen width. Whenever a visitor clicks on an image, Wexley will open a slideshow overlay that the user can further peruse at their leisure.
In addition to your landing page, Wexley will let you build a list-style blog, a playable album page, a calendar or list of events, and a products page for your artistic services and creations. Just know that these other pages’ layout options are somewhat bare, as Wexley intends for your landing page to be the focal point of your site.
Horizon
Horizon is a template that videographers will fall in love with.-
Family:
Pacific
Designed to “[let] your content take centre stage like never before,” its biggest pull is its sleek scrolling index page, which stacks full-bleed banner videos and images consecutively. If you set this index page as your homepage, it’ll create a long, single-page site that stacks the content from multiple pages vertically, a seamless layout that makes for quite the bold impression. Setting an index page as the homepage also gives you the option of locking your main navigation so that it stays at the top of the browser window as you scroll.
Aside from the index page, this Pacific family template supports list-style blogs, playable album pages, event pages, and sellable products pages with a customisable shopping cart button.
Brine
This business template is the parent of the Brine family.-
Family:
Brine
Brine was specifically designed for brands and companies who want a top-notch web presence with an active blog, some sophisticated ecommerce features, and a stellar balance of text and images.
Brine gives you lots of options to play around with design-wise, including a stacked parallax-scrolling index page, advanced commerce features like on-hover effects, a content inset feature that can be used to draw attention to special announcements, multiple navigation areas, multiple blog layouts, custom share buttons, full-width banners and headers, and so much more.
Wav
Newer template featuring a grid-style layout that’s fresh and modern.-
Family:
Brine
Most notably, it’s capable of integrating with Soundcloud, a perk that makes publishing your latest episodes a cinch.
For more on the features available within the Brine family, check out the write-up of the template above.
Pursuit
Create a contemporary, attention-grabbing online CV with Pursuit.-
Family:
Brine
What we’re trying to say is this: You can create a contemporary, attention-grabbing online CV with Pursuit, a text-focused, CV-style template with colourful call-to-action buttons that pop off the page. Be sure to take advantage of its stacked index page feature, which puts your skills graphs, experience, awards, and other pertinent information all in one polished place. That way, hiring managers don’t have to hunt it down across different pages.
For more on the features available within the Brine family, check out the write-up of the template above.
Ready
Ready guarantees your site is always mobile-friendly.-
Family:
Skye
Structure-wise, it’s a multi-page template that highlights your service(s) on its homepage, then dedicates separate pages to tidbits like pricing, contact information, testimonials, and appointment requests.
As a member of the Skye template family, Ready is unique in that it doesn’t give users the option to disable mobile styles, which guarantees your site is always mobile-friendly.
Nueva
Nueva offers a mobile experience that goes above and beyond.-
Family:
Brine
This is a template that features an uncluttered and highly scrollable layout with mosaic-style galleries and prominent headlines. Plus, as a member of the Brine template family, it comes with the biggest set of advanced mobile styles, which basically means you can tinker with its structure for mobile in almost all of its entirety.
For more on the features available within the Brine family, check out the write-up of the template above.
Charlotte
Tell the story of your relationship, share highlights from your engagement photoshoot, and much more.-
Family:
Pacific
Its layout’s focal point is a scrolling index page that supports full-bleed images with text overlays, which you could use to tell the story of your relationship, share highlights from your engagement photoshoot, recommend accommodations, and/or drop some gift registry ideas. Plus, if you set that index page as your homepage, your main navigation will be pinned to the top of your browser as viewers scroll.
For more on the features available within the Pacific family, check out the write-up of the Horizon template above.