7 Reasons to Upgrade to Squarespace's Newest Version: Squarespace 7.1

Squarespace 7.1 came out in early 2020, introducing an improved editing experience with more flexibility. Then in July of 2022, Squarespace released a new editor, called Fluid Engine, which is only available to 7.1 sites.

If you’re considering upgrading your site to 7.1 or want to learn more about it, this article is for you! We’re sharing seven features we love about Squarespace 7.1. Oh and by the way: if you want to laugh, don’t skip the video demos.

Unsure of which version of Squarespace you’re on? Here’s an article to find out.

1. Easier to update and manage your content

Squarespace 7.1 provides a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. The upgraded version streamlines the process of editing and managing your website, making it easier to update content, create new pages, customize navigation, and adjust your site's settings.

One of our favorite updates in 7.1 is no longer having index pages. Index pages have multiple subpages stacked together and are a bit tedious to build (see Bavanna’s demo above).

Now in 7.1 every page is simply a page, and it can have as many sections as you’d like. Plus, creating the page and adding sections is done in a fraction of the time.

2. Better design flexibility and customization

The newest editor, Fluid Engine (which is only available in 7.1) allows even better, more custom looking designs. The editor allows you to move blocks freely within a section. You can overlap blocks or drag them to the edge — all features that were not easily possible in the previous editor. To learn more about Fluid Engine, check out this blog post.

Want some inspiration? In this blog post we share eight of our favorite sites we’ve build using Fluid Engine.

3. Improved mobile experience for site visitors

A huge win in Squarespace 7.1 is that you can edit the mobile view independently. In the previous version, Squarespace’s responsive design stacks content blocks in the order they appear on the page. But now, you can change the order of how blocks show up on mobile without changing the desktop view.

Furthermore, if your site is using Fluid Engine, not only can you reorder blocks on mobile, but you can also control their size and positioning. It is a little bit more work, but worth it in this mobile-driven space!

4. Opportunity for improved SEO

We’ll start by saying that whether your site is on 7.0 or 7.1, or a totally different platform, you can always grow your site traffic by putting in work to increase performance — which is a blog article for another day.

However, there are a few nice features in 7.1 that do provide opportunity to improve your SEO. They are:

No longer having index pages provides a cleaner SEO page title and description. Previously we had to hide the different sections of an index pages from search for better SEO experience.
Now, you can publish new blogs to Google Search Console (GSC) from Squarespace to be indexed by Google faster. Before we would have to go into GSC and provide the new link - now it’s a simple toggle.
While there’s no official statements from Squarespace on this one, we’re noticing sites built in 7.1 tend to perform better when it comes to page speed and meeting Google’s Core Web Vitals.

5. Future Updates and New Features

One nice perk about upgrading to Squarespace 7.1 is that it ensures your site will have ongoing compatibility with the latest features and updates from Squarespace.

Our team has been impressed with how many updates they continue to rollout. Being on 7.1 allows you to take advantage of the latest tools and features.

Disclaimer: this was not a real Squarespace Support Rep. They are very kind and far less nasally. Also, you will not be denied support if your site is on 7.0 — just might miss out on future updates and features.

6. Less custom coding (CSS) necessary

In 7.0 there are various design limitations, which we’ve created workarounds for using custom code. We’ve don’t love this solution because we want sites to be as easy as possible to update. Now with 7.1, we’re finding less and less need for CSS which means a better experience for updating, plus a better experience for load time and site performance. Here are a few examples:

Overlapping image or text with another section, like these tan boxes in the header
Having a secondary paragraph size, like for copyright info in the footer (there’s only one paragraph size in 7.0)
Positioning an image all the way to the sides of the page like this image in the header
Adding small icons next to text

7. Enhanced E-Commerce Functionality

If you run an online store, it’s worth considering Squarespace 7.1 for the e-commerce capabilities. There are new features like improved product displays, flexible checkout options, and enhanced inventory management, all designed to enhance the shopping experience for your customers.

A few specific features to be aware of are:

Adding additional sections to customize product pages (7.0 does not allow this)
Adding up to 10,000 products per shop (instead of 200)
Adding up to 250 variants per shop (instead of 100)

For more on this, here’s a comprehensive article from Kristine Neil on all things Squarespace Commerce in 7.1.

Want to discuss upgrading your site to 7.1? Let’s talk!

In this meeting we’ll discuss what’s working or not working about your existing site, and what your goals are, to help you decide if it’s the right time to upgrade to 7.1.

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