Transferring your website to Squarespace could be the best decision that you make because if you are looking for a simple and basic website builder that gives all the requirements to manage your business in one place and without complicated design features, Squarespace is the right place to grow your business online.
The other reason that I am thinking of letting you enter this article is saying to yourself that transferring a website to Squarespace is something complicated, which is not. In this article, I will guide you step by step on how you can transfer website to Squarespace. I have done this migration process by myself many times on different platforms, like migrating websites from WordPress, Shopify, Wix, GoDaddy, Webflow, and Weebly to Squarespace, and I am sure this guide will help you transfer your website to Squarespace seamlessly.
Why Transfer to Squarespace?
Before diving into how to transfer your website to Squarespace, let’s explore some reasons why website owners choose Squarespace:
1- User Friendly Interface
Squarespace offers a simple and basic website drag-and-drop editor, which you can use to make any changes you want on your website pages easily, and a dashboard that allows you to control everything in one place, like editing your site header and footer, changing your template, and editing your website fonts, colors, and buttons.
2- All in One Platform
Squarespace is an all-in-one platform where you can manage your business as you want with ease in one place. It provides hosting, security, and customer support, so you don’t have to manage multiple providers.
3- Responsive Design
All templates are mobile-friendly and adapt to different screen sizes. Also, you can choose from different templates, the one that fits your website. requirements if you are looking for templates for your blog, online store, or portfolio. Squarespace offers a bunch of examples that you can choose from. They have professional and optimized templates. If you are still confused about which platform, check our article below about the best Squarespace examples to get more inspiration for your website:
4- SEO and Marketing Tools
Squarespace provides marketing and analytics professional tools to help business owners track their website and business performance, and this is all in one place. To access the analytics to form the dashboard, click on analytics, where you can track all your website traffic, engagement, and sales. Start with data from one day to the last 30 days.
If your business is about offering bookable services or taking appointments, Squarespace allows you to make scheduling that lets you create appointments and manage everything easily. You can access the scheduling tool from your Squarespace dashboard, and Squarespace will guide you step by step in all the processes.
5- E-commerce Integration
If you are thinking of using Squarespace for e-commerce, it could be a good option for you because they offer the tools that you will need for your business, and they have amazing templates that you can use for your website. It is recommended for small to medium e-commerce businesses.If your business is about offering bookable services or taking appointments, Squarespace allows you to make scheduling that lets you create appointments and manage everything easily. You can access the scheduling tool from your Squarespace dashboard, and Squarespace will guide you step by step in all the processes.
Now let’s dive into the details step by step on how to transfer the website to Squarespace, and we will start with evaluating your current website content and identifying the elements that you need to transfer.
How to transfer website to Squarespace step by step tutorial guide
Step 1: Evaluate Your Current Website
The first thing you need to do before migrating a website to Squarespace is analyze the content that you need to transfer. Make a list of the essential pages and features that you want to transfer to Squarespace. This includes your content (blog posts, pages, and your media) and SEO settings (meta descriptions, URLs, alt text, and keywords).
Make sure to make your SEO settings transfer correctly by creating a spreadsheet and typing all that SEO information so once you are willing to optimize your SEO content on Squarespace, it will be easy to put everything in the right place. I recommend you read this article about how to migrate WordPress to Squarespace. I dive into this step with examples, and if the website that you want to migrate is in WordPress, jump directly to read this article because I explained everything about migrating WordPress to Squarespace.
The last thing you need to migrate is third-party integrations like email lists, forms, and plugins. SquareSpace doesn’t support transferring third-party integrations automatically, so you need to do it manually by recreating them.
Step 2: Choose a Squarespace Plan
The next step is choosing your Squarespace website plan. Squarespace has different pricing plans that you can choose from. You need to look at the plan that fits your needs. I recommend reading this article about Squarespace pricing that will help you choose the right plan for your business.
Squarespace pricing starts at $16/month for the first plan, which is recommended for small websites with small budgets. The second plan is the most popular business plan, and it costs $23 per month. It is the best choice for small businesses and entrepreneurs who want simple e-commerce functionalities. The third plan is Commerce Basic, which costs $28 per month and is recommended for eCommerce businesses, and the last plan is Advanced Commerce, recommended for large businesses that look for advanced eCommerce functionalities, and it costs $52 per month.
If you are still confused about which Squarespace pricing plan to choose for your business, you can start with the free 14-day trial.
Step 3: Create Squarespace Account
After choosing your Squarespace plan or starting your free trial, the next step in this transfer website to Squarespace guide will be about how to create your Squarespace website.
To create a Squarespace website, enter Squarespace and click on Get Started.
In the next step, Squarespace offers 2 options that you can choose from to start creating your website: either using one of Squarespace’s professional templates or creating one with AI.
I recommend choosing a pre-made template, but you need to do your research and find the best one that fits your website needs. Read more about Squarespace website templates in this article that will help you find the best Squarespace templates for your website.
Step 4: Import Content to Squarespace
I recommend importing your current website manually; this way is more efficient. and to do it manually, copying and pasting the content from your old site into the new Squarespace pages. If you have an alt of pages and blog posts, use tools like Google Analytics or Google Search Console that will help you optimze your pages URLs and content.
Make sure to optimze each blog post with the right title, URL, meta description, and content. Also, while you design and optimize your pages, make sure to upload your image and media files in the place that they should be. the last thing is design your Forms, Widgets, Custom Features and used Third-party integrations avaliable for squearspace.
The second option you can use is importing your content automatically on Squarespace. If you are using Squarespace, it allows importing content from platforms like WordPress and Blogger. If you’re migrating from one of these, follow these steps:
To import content to Squarespace automatically on your dashboard, click on settings
Choose the import & export content section
Click on Import and choose the platform that you export content from. In this example, I am choosing WordPress.
If you choose blogger just put your blog url in the section that it will appers then the migraition will start automatically if you are transefring form wordpress to squersacep there are 2 options Basci and advanced. Basic requires you to entert your webiste url and your wordpress login for exmaple admin, admin.
The seconde option is advanced option which allows you to import your content trough the export file . XML that you export from wordpress after that click on being import all the migraition process it will done in just few minutes.
Step 5: Redesign your Squarespace website
the next step that you need to do after importing content into squersacep is optimzing your content and redsign your website for a better look.
Let’s start with how to enable your pages on Squarespace. to enable a page on Squarespace from the left sidebar on the dashboard, click on pages
All disabled pages will show in a gray color to enable any page; hover over it and click the gear icon beside the page title
From the popup that will show, scroll down and click on Enable Page and Save Now. The page is alive now; start designing it as you want.
To edit a page on Squarespace is simple; just choose the page that you want to edit and click on Edit above. In the corner, Squarespace is offering a simple drag-and-drop editor, which allows you to edit almost anything you want. To edit an element on a Squarespace page, just click on it and choose Edit Section.
If you want to change your Squarespace website title and logo on any page, click on Edit above and then edit the site header
From the menu that shows, enter your title and upload your website logo. If you scroll below the menu, Squarespace allows you to add different logo for mobile. Read more about how to add a logo to a Squarespace site with details.
If you find it is hard to edit or redesign your website, check my Fiverr services about design and redesigning a Squarespace website. I am offering affordable prices with discounts. Or you can check one of your YouTube tutorials about how to create a Squarespace website that may be helpful.
Let’s now dive into the next step, which is doing Squarespace URLs redirection and SEO optimization.
Step 6: Transfer domain to Squarespace
There are 2 things you need to know about before transferring your domain to Squarespace. Squarespace offers two options: transfer or connect your domain. Let’s explain each of them in detail:
Transfer your domain. It means that you will take your domain from your current provider to Squarespace, which you will be managed on Squarespace, not on your domain provider, like Namecheap, BlueHost, or GoDaddy. Once your domain is transferred to Squarespace, the domain fees it will pay on Squarespace, and the renewal pricing depend on the domain and how much Squarespace will charge you.
Connecting a domain from a third-party provider to Squarespace means linking your existing domain (from providers like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Google Domains) to your Squarespace website without transferring ownership, and the renewal pricing will be with your third-party domain provider. Squarespace will not charge you anything about the domain price.
Note: If you purchased your domain directly from Squarespace, it will be automatically connected to your website.
To connect a domain to your Squarespace website from your third-party provider, first enter settings and click on Domains & Emails > Domains
Then Click on USE A DOMAIN I OWN
Here, enter the domain that you want to connect to your Squerspace website
Click on Connect domain
Now, choose your domain provider and click on Connect Domain
The last step is to update your DNS settings in your domain provider’s dashboard as you see in the image below. Squarespace gives me the DNS record that I need to update on my domain provider setting. If you are confused about how to change your DNS setting on your domain provider, just search on YouTube. How to change DNS settings in (your domain provider). After you set up everything, wait about 24h to 72h, then your domain will be connected.
Step 7: Url slugs, Redirects, and SEO optimization
It is important to connect or transfer your domain to Squarespace before doing URL redirection and optimizing your SEO content.
1/ URL Slugs
After you transfer your domain to Squarespace, you need to confirm your website page URLs on Squarespace. your old URLs; it should optimize for Squarespace’s Page URLs Structure: For example, if your About page URL in your current website is domain.com/about, it should be the same in Squarespace: domain.com/about.
In blog posts, it is different; Squarespace blog post URLs use a different structure. It should be in this URL structure: domine.com/blog/blog-post-title.
If you are going to do all those steps by yourself, it is important to read this article from Squarespace about URL slugs; it will help you set up everything by yourself. On the other hand, you can check my service. I am offering an affordable price, and I will transfer website to Squarespace, fully optimized with no downtime and a highly advanced redesign and test before launching.
To change a page URL from the sidebar in the dashboard, click on pages and choose the page that you want. Hover over the page that you want to change its URL and click on the gear icon beside the page title, then a menu will appear as you see in the image below. In general, in the page settings, you can make changes in your page title, navigational title (the menu), and URL slug.
So, let’s say your old URL of the page about is domain.com/about, it should be the same in squarespace in the URL Slug filed it should be /about
You can follow the same process to change any page URL.
To change the URL for a single blog post from the sidebar in the dashboard, click on the blog page, then hover over the post that you want to make changes in, and then click on “settings.”
The blog settings menu will appear now. You can change the blog post title from the blog post field as you see the structure of your blog post. It should be like this: blog/post-title dont forget to click save after making your changes
2/ URL Redirectoons
URL redirects are used to send visitors from non-found or inactive pages to active ones.
To do this, you will need to use a 301 redirect that directs visitors to a different URL when they click a link to a nonexistent page.
To create a URL redirection on Squarespace from the dashboard, click on “Settings” choose “Developer Tools“, and then click on “URL Mapping“.
In this field, you can redirect the format, which should be in this structure:
/old-url -> /new-url 301
As you see in this example, my old URL is How-to-make-pizza-2024, and the new one that I want to redirect visitors to is How-to-make-pizza-2025, so my URL redirect format will be in this structure:
/how-to-make-pizza-2024 -> /how-to-make-pizza-2025
Take into consideration that each page has a different format; for example, blog posts have their own URL redirection format. To learn more about URL redirection and mapping, visit this article from Squarespace. It covers everything you should know about URL redirection and the formats that you need to use for each page type.
When you do a URL redirect, make sure to mention it in the spreadsheet that you created because that will help you track all your website URL changes, so once you want to make any edits, it will be easier for you to do that in the future.
3/ SEO Optimization
Optimize your Squarespace website. SEO is one of the important steps in this transfer website to Squarespace because you do not want to lose your ranking position on Google or lose all your traffic to optimize your website SEO on Squarespace and start with the home page. Go back to the spreadsheet that you use to save all your page info and the pages that you want to keep. or you can dircetly go to the pages that you want to keep for your curennt website and use the smae info for optimizng your seo this it should be your page seo title, meta description, foucing keywords, Alt text and your page content.
To change your home page title and meta description, go to your dashboard, click on Settings > Marketing > SEO Appearance. For the search appearance, click on Home, and in the field that shows under the SEO site title, it will be the same as your website title that you changed already from the header settings; under the SEO site description, you can put your home page meta description.
This is for the home page. Let’s see now how you can change your other website pages.
For other pages like the blog, about, or contact page to edit the SEO title and meta description, choose pages from the sidebar in the dashboard, click on the gear icon beside the page title, and choose SEO from the page settings menu as you see at the image below. From the popup, you can make changes to your site title and meta description, and don’t forget to click on save.
To change the title and meta description for a single blog post, Back to the Squarespace dashboard and click on Pages, then choose your blog post page, and from the sidebar, choose the post that you want to change, hover over it, and click on Settings, and choose SEO from the blog settings menu. As you did for the other pages, change your title and meta description from the popup follow the image below to see how and do not forget to click on save after finishing your changes.
The last step in this part is to optimize your content for SEO. Use proper header tags (H1, H2, H3) to structure your content clearly for both users and search engines. Ensure your H1 includes the focus keyword, and use H2s and H3s to break down topics while incorporating related and long-tail keywords naturally. and Optimize images by adding alt text with relevant keywords to improve accessibility and rankings. Keep content informative, engaging, and aligned with search intent, ensuring readability and keyword variation without overstuffing.
Step 8: Test Your Website Before Launching
You are still not done yet because you have to check if everything is fine, and I recommend starting with checking if there are any broken links and using URL redirection to avoid any broken links. Also take a look at your pages; if everything is set up in the right place, your layouts and design, and check if your website is mobile-friendly and verify that contact forms and other interactive elements. Check if your SSL certificate is activated and your domain is connected well.
After that, double-check by yourself if everything is good, and feel free to publish your site. After you publish your website, make sure to connect it with Google Search Console.
Visit our tutorial about that, where we dive into all the details on how to connect Squarespace websites with Google Search Console. Also make sure to optimize your website for speed. Minimize images and unnecessary scripts to improve load times, and the last thing is to keep posting new content to attract more visitors to your website.
