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One of the biggest challenges for many entrepreneurs is knowing how to build their online presence. Start with the basics: a custom domain, a website, and a business email address.
Squarespace simplifies this by offering all three of these essential tools integrated in one place. With Squarespace Domains, intuitive website design, and professional email through Google Workspace, you can focus on your business instead of the technical details.
Here’s how to make the most of these important tools and set the stage for your brand’s success.
Build your brand identity with your custom domain
A custom domain is one of the first steps to establishing yourself, or your brand, online. Your domain is one-of-a-kind, just like you. It helps you stand out and build credibility with potential customers and makes it easy for your audience to find and remember you.
Squarespace Domains doesn’t just help you register a unique domain. Every Squarespace domain includes the features you need to secure your website and create a smooth visitor experience: built-in, advanced DNS security, WHOIS privacy and two-factor authentication options, plus easy-to-use management tools like domain and email forwarding.
Once you have your domain, there are multiple ways to use it to grow your online presence:
Attach it to a website. Once you connect a site to your domain, you can direct visitors to your products, content, or services. Until then, your domain will point to a parking page, essentially a very basic landing page.
Redirect another website to it. If you have an existing website or defunct page from another project, you can redirect that URL to your new one.
Register similar domains and point them to yours. Some brands do this to capture more TLDs, like .net, or to scoop up different versions of their brand name and optimize their SEO strategy, like sqsp.com.
Create a subdomain. You can use subdomains to create distinct pages or versions of your website. For example, fr.merlincinematic.com leads to the French-language Squarespace website. You can use these to target specific users or run tests without impacting your main website.
Send users to a targeted landing page. With free domain forwarding, you can forward your domain to an Acuity Scheduling page, link-in-bio page like Bio Sites, or a social media profile.
Make a website that stands out
Getting your domain is a way to claim space for your idea. A website is your opportunity to bring that space to life and turn it into a tool for attracting and engaging visitors. On Squarespace, you can start a website quickly. Create a customized website with our guided AI website builder, Blueprint AI, or start with a template designed for your niche, then easily connect your domain.
Whichever path you choose, Squarespace offers intuitive editing tools, so you can personalize every element to your preferences. Design guidance is built into every step, but more experienced web designers can dig deeper for extra control.
Once your website is live, help it get discovered. The higher your website appears in AI and search results, the more likely your audience is to find you. Follow our SEO checklist and use the built-in AI SEO tools to generate page titles, descriptions, and image alt text to make your site more visible.
Ensure your website has the information visitors need and add ways for them to engage: links to your social media, custom contact forms, and booking or shopping links.
*Annual Squarespace subscriptions come with a free custom domain for the first year
Establish credibility with professional email
An email address that matches your website URL, like hello@[yourbusiness].com instantly communicates professionalism and trustworthiness. That first impression can count for a lot, especially to a new or prospective customer or client who hasn’t interacted with you before.
Put yourself in their shoes: They found you online and may not have a way to personally verify that you’re a real business or how experienced you are. A professional business email is an early trust signal. Plus, it can help keep your emails out of their spam folders.
With a Squarespace domain, you can set up a business email address with your custom domain, and efficiently manage your business with productivity tools from Google Workspace, like Google Docs and Google Drive. Eligible Squarespace website plans get access to Google Workspace free for your first year, or you can add it to your subscription at any time.
Building a memorable brand that connects with your customers takes time and careful planning both on and off of a screen. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, Squarespace streamlines the essentials into a cohesive experience, so you can focus more on your business and less on managing separate platforms. These three fundamentals are a great place to start and create a springboard for your ideas.