Why a Psychology Blog Is Writing Squarespace Tools
If you landed on this post expecting an article about cognition, mental health, or behavioural science; welcome. You’re in the right place… mostly.
Because while Simply Put Psych is primarily about making psychology accessible, over the last year we've spent just as much time learning how to make our website work and that's what this post is about.
More specifically: why a blog about the mind started building tools for Squarespace, and what we’ve learned along the way.
It Started With Frustration
Simply Put Psych runs on Squarespace — and for good reason. It’s easy to use, looks good out of the box, and doesn’t require a degree in web development to launch.
But as the blog grew (more posts, more sections, more SEO considerations) we kept hitting the same brick walls:
Want to add a table? You can’t.
Need a table of contents for long posts? Nope.
Want to show the estimated reading time? Not built in.
Trying to display ads without cluttering your content? You'll need a workaround.
Hoping for schema markup, custom author links, or automated affiliate disclaimers? You're on your own.
In short: if you want your Squarespace site to do just a little more — you're going to need custom code.
We’re not developers. But we are problem-solvers.
Behind the Blog: What We Built
Instead of giving up (or migrating to WordPress), we started tackling each limitation one at a time. When we found something that worked — we wrote it down, turned it into a tool, and made it easy for someone else to use.
The result is Behind the Blog: a growing library of free and paid tools and guides for Squarespace users who need a little more flexibility — but don’t want to fight their CMS to get it.
Some of what we’ve built includes:
📑 Table of Contents Generator — Auto-creates a TOC for your articles, with mobile toggle support
⏱ Reading Time & Progress Bar — Estimates read time and adds a subtle scroll indicator
🪟 Sliding Summary Drawer — Lets you tuck related content or key points into a collapsible sidebar
📋 HTML Table Builder — Because no, you still can’t add tables in Squarespace
🛍 Ad & Affiliate Tools — Cleanly injects ads mid-post, and auto-adds disclaimers when needed
🧑💼 Customize Author Links — Point every author name to your custom bio or about page
📅 Format Published Dates — Fixes the annoying “no year” problem in blog templates
And we’re adding more, not just because it helps others, but because we’re still solving problems ourselves.
Our Ethos: Accessibility in All Things
When we started this blog, we made a promise: to make psychology clear, practical, and jargon-free.
It turns out, the same values apply to design and development. Every tool we’ve built follows the same philosophy:
It should be simple.
It should be lightweight.
It should work inside Squarespace without a plugin.
And it should make your life easier, not harder.
We’re not here to become a dev agency. We’re still writing about memory, emotion, attention, and burnout. But we also know what it’s like to lose an afternoon trying to make a bullet point behave.
So if our tools save you time, reduce your stress, or let you focus on building your vision — then we've done our job.
Use Them, Share Them, Build Something
All the tools in Behind the Blog are available for free for personal use. If you're using them professionally or in client work, we ask that you purchase a one-time commercial license — not because we're precious about code, but because we believe good work should be valued.
You can find the full toolkit here:
👉 https://simplyputpsych.co.uk/behind-the-blog
Thanks for stopping by. Whether you’re here for the psychology, the tools, or just trying to add a table to your website — we’re glad you're here.
