How to add a Sidebar to your Squarespace Blog
If you are blogging on Squarespace and want to add a sidebar, you may think you are out of luck. There’s not a sidebar option built in to the Squarespace 7.1 templates, or even most of the 7.0 templates. But there is a great workaround that I use myself. For a robust solution, I recommend purchasing a Squarespace sidebar plugin. I’ve added a sidebar to my own blog using this plugin , and I’ll walk you through the steps below. Use code CP15 for 15% off.
Note: you’ll be adding code to your site, so you’ll need to be on the Squarespace Business hosting plan or higher… the Personal plan won’t work.
1. Set up a new page to serve as your sidebar.
In Pages, under Not Linked, create a new page. I call mine Sidebar so it’s easy to find. Be sure to go into the Page Settings under SEO and toggle on Hide Page from Search Results. This ensures that your sidebar doesn’t show up by itself in search results, where it wouldn’t make sense out of context.
Next, you’ll want to add content to your sidebar page. I like starting with a Lead Magnet (you can see mine at the top of my Sidebar) encouraging visitors to sign up for your email list. The sidebar is also a great place for a search block, ads, an author introduction, an Archive block, featured posts, an Instagram feed - and those are just a few options.
Keep in mind that site visitors often find a blog post as a search result, without knowing anything else about your business or website, so the sidebar is a great place to provide value and keep visitors engaged.
2. Purchase a Squarespace sidebar plugin
Next, you’ll need a plugin that turns your sidebar page into the actual blog sidebar.
I recommend this sidebar plugin from SQSP Themes. They have excellent customer service and even offer a concierge installation service if you don't want to install the plugin yourself. I also love that they send plugin updates at no charge. This is the plugin I use on my own site.
Which license? SQSP themes offers two license types - Standard and Business. If you will use the sidebar plugin on just one website (even if it’s across multiple blogs on that site) you can purchase the Standard license. If you want to use the sidebar plugin on another website, you’ll either need to purchase another Standard license, or you can purchase the Business license for unlimited use.
This plugin works in both Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1, in all templates. So you can rest assured it will work for your Squarespace website.
3. Install the plugin
After purchase, you’ll receive detailed instructions on how to install the code that tells Squarespace to use your new page as your blog sidebar. You’ll upload two files to your site and then add a bit of code to your blog page.
You can customize the spacing and width of your sidebar, and you can even create unique sidebars for different blogs on your website.
Here’s a video walking you through each step:
Here's the sidebar plugin from SQSP Themes I use in the video.
If you need a hand finding the collection-id of a page, this video will walk you through the process.
I also recommend optimizing all your images before adding them to Squarespace. You can check out my mini course on Image Optimization and use code SAVE20 to save 20%.
4. Experiment
You can now easily make adjustments to your Squarespace blog sidebar by editing the sidebar page you created, so experiment with ways to keep your visitors engaged. You can try adding a lead magnet button like I have, or use the sidebar to suggest some of your most popular posts so visitors stay on your site longer (which helps boost search rank). Check your analytics to see what gets the most engagement and go from there.
