In NYC this week? Swing by our office!

​New York City is the proud home to one of the most exciting tech scenes in the world. We should know – we've been here since 2004.

For the third year in a row, Squarespace is throwing open our doors to the public in participation of WalkaboutNYC, a citywide open house event for technology companies. Curious New Yorkers can stop by and check out workspaces that inspire great work, get a taste of the creative process, and meet the people leading the great tech movement in NYC.

On Friday, you can join us in Soho from 1pm or 3pm for a quick tour, refreshments and a sneak peek into what we’re working on at the moment. Sign up for the tour here, and check out this handy map and schedule for a list of all participating companies.

If you plan on stopping by, let us know in the comments, or tweet us @squarespace.

Free Custom Domain Names

​Today we’re announcing free custom domains for all annual and bi-annual subscriptions. The addition of free domain registration means you’ll be able to set up your Squarespace site, under your own brand, within minutes. 

Free With Annual Purchase

If you purchase an annual or bi-annual account, we’ll give you one domain name for free. Choose the domain you want (availability includes .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info), and it’s yours to keep. Each domain includes private WHOIS registration at no additional charge.

Zero Configuration

Our new Custom Domains interface makes domain selection and mapping a breeze. Never change a CNAME or A Record within a third-party registrar again. Just choose the domain you want, and we’ll take care of the rest. 

Google Apps Integration

Want a free email address to go with your new domain? You got it. We’ve integrated Google Apps so that you can set up your mailbox with your new custom domain right away. No more MX records, no more hassle. 

Adding a free domain to your account is easy. Go to your Website Manager > Structure > Custom Domain, and click on “Register Free Domain” to get started.  If you have any other questions, please review this FAQ on our help site, or contact our support team. 

Websites for Veterans

Squarespace is proud to be working with Syracuse University’s Students in Free Enterprise (SU SIFE), an international non-profit organization where students develop and apply their business skills to make a difference in the world. Their latest project, EVB-Web, is focused on helping graduates of the nationally-acclaimed Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) program build professional websites for their entrepreneurial ventures, with Squarespace donating our services. 

The EBV program is offered through a national consortium of business and hospitality schools to provide cutting-edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management for post-9/11 vets, opening the door to business ownership for those who have served our country.

Matthew Gartner, president of SU SIFE, told us: "One of the key challenges that these veterans face is being uninformed when it comes to setting up a website. Not knowing what to expect, or the appropriate costs of website design can cause many veterans to pay for more than necessary. The goal of the EBV-Web project is to help open up this market to them with higher quality websites at a reasonable cost. The Squarespace platform has been an incredible tool to help the veterans, and their pricing model results in an average cost savings of about 75% to the veterans."

We're thrilled to be able to help these veterans build their businesses by removing some of the obstacles of creating a high-quality website. We've sponsored websites for 11 veterans so far, whose businesses run the gamut from property management to financial services to barbecue-sauce manufacturing. We're excited to watch the program continue to grow.

Simplifed Plans and Pricing

Today, Squarespace is pleased to announce new service plans and across-the-board price reductions which we are making immediately available to all customers.

In an ongoing effort to simplify our service, Squarespace now has only two service plans. We’ve also doubled discounts for annual purchases to 20%.

• Our new Standard plan, beginning at just $8/month (with annual purchase), is appropriate for personal blogs and small websites, and allows you to use a custom domain.
• Our new Unlimited plan, beginning at $16/month (with annual purchase), is perfect for business and personal sites of any size, and includes absolutely everything our powerful platform has to offer, including unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Visit our pricing page for all the details about the plans, their pricing, and their features.

Switching to one of our new plans is easy. Simply go to your Website Manager > Billing & Support > Account Center, and select the plan that best suits your needs. Please note that existing coupon codes won’t work with the new plans. Of course, if you are happy with your current plan, you don’t need to do anything and can keep any previously offered rate.

If you have any other questions, please review this FAQ page on our help site, or contact our support team. They’re available 24/7 and usually respond in well under an hour.

From the Help Desk: Image Issues

This post kicks off a new series, “From the Help Desk,” where we explore some of the questions seen in the support queue.

One of the most common issues we see day-to-day has to do with images. Specifically, “What size should my image be?” Sometimes this is accompanied by, “Why don’t my images show up?”  While we have a checklist for helping to ensure your images are all set for the web, I’d like to call out the main culprit: your digital camera.

Whether it’s a point-and-shoot or a fancy DSLR, your digital camera does not take web-friendly images. (Unless, of course, you’re still using that hot ticket from 1996.) Your camera's images are meant to be printed. Printing requires quite a bit more detail than displaying an image on a computer monitor. More detail equals more data, which equals larger file sizes, which, of course, equals slower load-times on your website.

Since you want your images to display nice and crisp, think pixels. And to think pixels, you also need to think photo editing. You'll need to use an image editor to get the most of your photos and we have a few recommendations.

Once you have your image-editing program of choice, open it up and decide how large (in pixels) you want your images to appear on your site. For content areas look to the column widths you’ve set in the Style editor. For picture galleries, look to the maximum width you’ve set in the gallery properties. (Hint: unless you’ve changed it, the default max is 1200 pixels wide.) Once you’ve determined your picture widths, save your images to be no larger than that size. Be sure your pixels per inch (PPI) are set to 72, as this is the most common pixel density for screen display. The result will be a crisp image that loads quickly.

While we’re on the subject of saving images, the other common issue we see has to do with files that aren’t images at all. While PDF and Word documents may contain images, they are not a valid image format and (most) browsers will not display them. We recommend you use one of these 3 file types: .jpg, .png, or .gif. You can convert non-image files to one of these formats using the programs I mentioned above. After that, you're good to go.

For more help with images, visit our help site, contact support, or sign up for our “All About Images” workshop.