Planning to build your own website?

Awesome!

There are tons of tools out there that can make your job easier, but it can sometimes be hard to know which ones are worth your time.

So today I’m sharing my favorite tools I use as a professional website designer that will save you time and headaches and will help you create a 👩‍🍳 chef’s kiss website without breaking the bank!

Rather watch instead of read?

Here’s that video for ya!

Hey guys - welcome or welcome back!

If you don’t know me, my name is Ranita - I’m a website designer who loves teaching people about Squarespace!

And I’m the creator behind Gold Standard Design.

If you're a creator, blogger, podcaster, or solopreneur looking to dive into the world of Squarespace - I’ve got you covered. 😉

#1. Canva

First up we’ve got my absolute favorite tool for designing visuals, and that’s Canva.

In case you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, Canva is a “free to use online graphic design tool” that helps you create everything from social media posts to presentations to logos to YouTube intros! 

I actually created the intro, outro, and transition clips for the video linked above with Canva!

When it comes to web design, there are plenty of situations where you’ll want to create your own background or graphics or custom button image to put on your site, and this is where Canva really comes in clutch.

If you’re not quite ready to debut your full on graphic designer skills, you can start your design with one of Canva’s hundreds of templates.

They make it easy to design pretty much anything you could think of, whether you need a logo or a background graphic or a social media post. 

And the best part, in my opinion, is that Canva offers a 100% free to use forever version of their product.

But you also have the option to pay one by one for premium elements or upgrade to their paid membership.

They also offer a free 30 day trial for their Canva Pro membership, so you can see if upgrading would be worth it for you.

#2. Pexels

Next up we’ve got Pexels.

Pexels is a free stock photo and video library you can use to get quality images for your website.

They make it easy to search for exactly what you’re looking for and download it immediately.

There are no caveats to this - no special recognition you need to include when using these images.

Just high quality photos and videos you can download anytime.

This is super helpful for building out your website when you don’t necessarily have a ton of stock photos of your own.

And while I do recommend including good photos of yourself on your website, using free stock images is a great way to fill in the gaps.

If you browse Pexels library and just can’t quite find what you’re looking for, I recommend checking out Unsplash, Pixabay, and Burst to see if you can find something there.

Pexels is my go-to but when I need a little something extra I’ll check these other stock photo sites to see what they’ve got.

#3. SEOSpace

SEOSpace has got to be my favorite overall tool for understanding and improving your website’s SEO.

It’s a free Google Chrome extension you can get that will automatically scan any Squarespace website, give you an SEO score, and then tell you exactly what you need to change to improve that score.

Personally, SEO has been the biggest hurdle for me to overcome in my website journey.

It just seemed like the rules were always changing and I could never really get a good grasp on what I ACTUALLY needed to be doing.

Finding SEOSpace was a game changer for me.

I finally had clear, actionable steps to take to improve my site’s ranking on Google. AAANNND I get to pass on those skills and knowledge to my clients as well.

The only downside I can see to it is that it only works on Squarespace websites.

But that could also be a positive, depending on how you want to look at it - because it’s an expert in Squarespace SEO.

So if you’re building a site on Squarespace, or planning to build a site on Squarespace I highly recommend checking out SEOSpace and using it during your initial build.

If I knew then what I know now when I was building my website I could have saved myself so much time and effort trying to get my site to be visible on Google.

All the time I spent writing blog posts and creating pages…. 

Guys - Don’t struggle as hard as I did!

Get SEOSpace and give yourself a boost right out of the gate.

They’ve got a 100% free plan that delivers everything I’ve mentioned, plus they’ve got paid plans if you want to uplevel later on.

And NO this is not sponsored (I wish!). I really do use SEOSpace and I think you should too.

Bonus #1. Templates

Ok, this isn’t technically a tool, but it IS something I’ve found to be very useful in saving me time.

So basically what I do is take any repeatable process or action and make a template for it. 

Writing YouTube scripts?
Template

Editing videos?
Template

Client workflow?
Template

Can you see what I mean? Anything you do over and over again you want to create a template for.

And this doesn’t have to be something fancy or super professional. Just take a look at the steps you already go through and make an outline for those.

Then later all you’ll have to do is fill in the new content.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you build websites for clients.

There’s probably a pretty standard process you go through with each one, starting with a consult call, proposal, contract, and initial invoice. 

You can set up a template to take you through each of those steps with calendar reminders to schedule the call and send the proposal, and have a draft contract and initial invoice ready to go.

But let’s say you’re just building a website for yourself.

What kinds of templates could you use?

Well, anything you’ll be repeating on your website.

An example of this could be blog posts.

Similar to a YouTube script, you can create a template for your blog posts with different sections in your outline for a Hook, Intro, Body content, Call to Action, and Conclusion.

That way you won’t forget to mention any relevant things when writing your posts.

Bonus #2. AI Tools

Another bonus tool I want to mention is AI.

Regardless of how you feel about it, AI is being incorporated into more and more things these days.

And honestly - why not take advantage of something that can help make your job easier?

ChatGPT

I’m sure you’ve heard of people cranking out 10 blog posts a day using ChatGPT or something similar, and it’s true - you definitely CAN do that.

But in my opinion it’s not quite as good as a real person - at least not yet.

But what I DO think ChatGPT is great for is giving you ideas to get started, as well as giving you an outline for an article.

You can pop your idea into ChatGPT and it will give you as many outlines as you need to get started.

Squarespace has even incorporated a version of this into their websites which they call Squarespace AI.

Now, you can see Squarespace isn’t suggesting you should use this to write your entire website - they’re just recommending it as a jumping off point to get you from blank page to first draft.

But I think it’s a great way to get you started and give you an initial something to work with - especially when you might not feel super confident in your writing skills.

ChatGPT has a completely free version, and Squarespace AI is free for existing customers so go play around with those and see how you like it.

Building your website and stuck on writing your copy?

I’ve got a FREE
Squarespace Website Prep Guide
just for you!

It includes everything you need to

• write copy for all your website pages

• do research on your competition

• find what people are looking for in your industry

As a bonus I’ve included a few key design tips as well so you can build your entire site in record time!

Bottom line - use AI to your advantage as a TOOL, but don’t think it’s a magic wand that will do all the work for you.

Yes, you technically CAN make videos and podcasts and blog posts that way, but Google is getting smarter and smarter, and it’s getting better at knowing when a robot made something vs a human.

So my advice is to make sure you’re still infusing YOU - your style, your voice - into whatever you’re making.

MidJourney

Another AI tool that’s a little newer is MidJourney.

MidJourney makes AI generated art and visuals, and if you’re familiar with it you might be thinking “ok, how would I use that in web design?”

Most projects I’ve seen people create with MidJourney are for stuff like graphic novels and visual aids for teachers and personal art.

But it turns out Midjourney can be good for business too!

Chances are you’re making a website for some type of business - even if it’s a hobby you want to turn into a business.

And businesses need branding and marketing!

Here’s where MidJourney comes in. You can use it to create beautiful, attention grabbing marketing graphics, and even logos!

Midjourney can help you create a distinct visual brand that gives off the feeling you want and is cohesive through all the elements.

Now, I will say Midjourney does take a little bit of time playing around to get the hang of, but I wouldn’t say it’s difficult at all.

There are tons of tutorials you can watch and example prompts you can start with so if it’s something that piques your interest - try it out!

Sadly, Midjourney is the only tool on this list that isn’t free.

At the time of writing they’ve got plans ranging from $10/month to $120/month, so it’s not completely outrageous to try, but it’s also not free so just keep that in mind.

Wrap Up

Ok, so those are my top 3 tools for web design:

Canva, Pexels, and SEOSpace.

If you found any of this helpful don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more web design tips and tricks!

Let me know what other things you’re interested in learning about Squarespace, websites, or online business!