Whether y'all've already decided to switch from WordPress to Squarespace, or are nevertheless looking into the pros and cons of both, changing site platforms is an important decision that takes a lot of inquiry. This article volition encompass everything you lot need to know about moving to Squarespace, wrapped up in nine steps. You'll get tips about how to start with a Squarespace template, how to migrate your content from WordPress, and how to ensure minimal changes to your SEO rankings.

How to switch from WordPress to Squarespace in 9 steps

While WordPress has powerful SEO tools and plugins, it can be difficult to navigate, and in the long run - information technology does get expensive. That'southward why many creatives choose to move to Squarespace, as it's easier to manage and it has absurd in-house tools and plugins that you don't accept to pay extra for, which makes information technology much more than anticipated in terms of expenses. Before y'all commit to the switch, hither are some things to know and expect:

  • Squarespace is a nifty website platform - it is easy to work with, information technology has an intuitive dashboard (come across a quick video review down below), it has a quick learning curve, and offers lots of free resources online.

  • Moving from WordPress to Squarespace and having a functional website upwardly and running should have you lot a few weeks. Before yous showtime, in that location is a preparation stage, which we've covered in steps ane-iii beneath. Depending on how complex is your current WordPress site, this part should accept a few hours, upwards to 1 day. Starting out with Squarespace and migrating the content over to your new website takes upward to v days. In one case that is done, information technology'due south up to y'all how much time yous spend on styling and customizing your Squarespace site further, but it should take near 1 week of dedicated work before you launch it. The last stage, which is domain transfer - tin can take from a couple of hours to a few weeks, depending on where your domain name is registered.

  • Your SEO will be affected and this is true for any platform, whether you lot switch from WordPress to Squarespace or vice-versa. Look a dip in your website'south search ranking, at to the lowest degree in the kickoff. If you follow all the SEO rules and recommendations on Squarespace (will share more than on this later in this article) your SEO rankings should get back on track within a few weeks (sometimes it might have up to a few months).

Preparation

Step 1: Map your current website URLs

To ensure that your switch has a minimum impact on your SEO, it's important to map all your current site links. This means going through all site pages and writing down the URL link for each. Yous can exercise this in an Excel document list the title of your page and the slug associated with information technology. Pay extra attention to all your galleries and blogposts, as it is crucial to map them out. Why is this important? Links from your posts and galleries are all effectually the web (ie. mentions on other websites), and you want to make sure viewers can admission the links without hitting a 404 mistake folio afterward y'all make the switch. And then, keeping the aforementioned URLs is disquisitional.

If you have a more complex website, you can use Google Analytics or Google Search Console to consign all your page URLs and keep them for reference. Yous will demand to check them one time you've completed the migration.

Adjacent, you lot will demand to extract the titles and descriptions of all your pages. You will later use them on your new Squarespace site, for SEO purposes. This tool can exist handy for that, it will scan your links and brandish all titles/descriptions, and so y'all tin can also download them.

It's as well important to save your electric current content (text, images, videos, etc.) and make sure you drift it to your new site. Ideally, y'all should keep the same content on your almost popular web pages or review and better it.

Step 2: Clean your WordPress site pages

In one case you rummage through all of your links and pages, y'all may discover links that are not user friendly, ie. yoursitename.com/near-3, etc. Or you may find that some links, pages, or fifty-fifty posts, are not relevant whatsoever longer. You may want to arrange these links to your new site or repurpose them. If you lot decide to remove them, y'all will need to gear up redirects. Earlier removing a link/page, double-bank check its value through Google Analytics - is this popular content that however brings people to your site? Create separate columns in your Excel document to comment on links that should be repurposed or removed. We've shared some recommendations on how to declutter your site here - all the tips included in the commodity are relevant both for WordPress and for Squarespace sites.

Step 3: Ready your new site layout and structure

It'due south time to confirm your sitemap, otherwise known as the pages you will accept within your website. Are you planning to keep the same site structure as on your current WordPress site or update it to improve stand for your business organisation? If you plan to keep content and structure the same, you're good to go. Nonetheless, if you program to brand adjustments to your content presentation, it'due south fourth dimension to decide what blazon of content you will include on each page. Start writing down on a piece of paper all pages you want to have on your site, it can be as easy as this case. So, describe what type of content you'll take on each folio.

Here is an example for your homepage, and how y'all tin list out your page sections: Full bleed slider at the top of the homepage, a brief description about your business, including your location and what you do, your recent blog posts, an interactive slider with client testimonials, your work categories, and a final call to action. For inspiration, bank check out Pinterest, equally information technology is a smashing resource to find website examples, non only on how to structure your site pages only also for visual presentation. Make sure to likewise check our showcase page, with 80+ examples from Squaremuse clients.

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Starting on Squarespace

Pace 4: Create an business relationship on Squarespace

Squarespace allows y'all to create a 14-day trial account before committing to a paid program. You tin alwaysextend your trial if needed. The trial period begins the moment you start with a new template. As you'll follow the Get Started prompts, Squarespace volition share a diverseness of templates for you lot to choose from, depending on the type of piece of work you practise. Browse by category - if you are a photographer check out templates categorized under "Photography", "Weddings" or"Portfolios".

When yous become started with Squarespace, yous will exist onboarded on the seven.1 version. All the templates in Squarespace 7.one share the same underlying structure, the same features, and the same styling options. And then even if they are chosen"templates", they tin easily be referred to as "designs" that come with layouts specific for various types of creatives. Start out with i of the templates, then you can customize it to fit your brand needs and add together unlike folio types.

If the available Squarespace templates are too generic for your needs, you tin can ever consider premium designs. Take a look at our cute, custom-looking design kits here, or cheque out our Custom Squarespace Blocks, also knows as Custom Elements.

Step 5: Migrate your content

Subsequently y'all take some time to explore Squarespace and get familiar with it, add basic elements and your branding to it (your site title, your logo, connect your social media accounts), it'south time to import your old content to the new website. There are tools to help you drift the content easier, especially when information technology comes to your blog. You tin export your blog content automatically from WordPress and so import it to your new Squarespace site. Note that this might break the formatting or lose some images forth the way. Withal, information technology will import all the text, and optimize the content migration work.

Unfortunately, you cannot import your galleries, merely nosotros recommend to download your Media Library by using some of the bachelor plugins. This way you will take a back up of all of your images you've uploaded to your WordPress site.

For more details related to content migration, bank check the Squarespace commodity hither, which besides covers which content is not available for automatic migration, and thus will crave to be recreated manually.

Pace 6: Build your pages & Style your site

  • Implement your site map & build site footer

Your template in Squarespace comes with several demo pages that you lot can employ and farther customize. You can rename them per your sitemap and rearrange them in the left side navigation area, in the same club that you lot want to take them shown in your main site navigation. If you have hidden pages on your electric current WordPress site, pages that are accessible through direct links only and not through your main navigation, add/create them in the Non Linked expanse within your Squarespace Pages tab and assign their page titles. You tin e'er get dorsum to calculation content to your pages & styling later.

The next matter you want to practice correct away is to build your site footer.If you're non sure what to add here, here is a unproblematic structure: add i section with your Instagram feed, some other department with a quote or some SEO relevant text, then add together your copyright.

  • Blogs and Galleries

You've already imported your web log, so your blog list is more or less ready. We recommend to also add several Galleries to the new site. Squarespace 7.one offers a Portfolio structure which basically creates a list of your galleries. Each open gallery tin can have a different layout and presentation. You tin can also add together text blocks or call to deportment or other sections at the top or the bottom of your gallery. For now, upload your current galleries - the ones that you've decided to transfer from your WordPress site. Brand sure your images are optimized for the web before you lot start uploading them. Double-check your gallery links. The slugs should match the ones that you currently have on your alive site.

  • Build info pages

The side by side footstep is working on your info pages, like your Homepage, Almost folio, Contact page, Investment and others. When you click to edit the page, yous'll find plenty of options to add sections and blocks - either add a bare i or choose one from a predefined library that all-time fits your needs. This is where the content you've prepared in Stride 3 will come in handy. Become acquainted with all the bachelor blocks and page sections on Squarespace vii.1 and here is a video that reviews the main blocks you lot'll probably use when edifice your pages

One time you take created your pages, you can go alee and manner your site. Your website and your style will and must evolve with time. And then this part will take time, dedication, and finessing - depending on your brand needs.


Setting link redirects and launching your new website

Pace 7: Check your site links and set up blog links redirects

One time you lot implement all the pages, it's time to review all the links on the site. Open the Excel document you prepared on Step 1, and go over each page on your new site and make certain all the slugs are applied correctly. To go along track of the edits, merely color-lawmaking each reviewed page inside the Excel certificate. During this process, you should also transfer your page titles and descriptions or any SEO relevant settings you had on your WordPress site.

As you go through your links, prepare the list for page redirects. This isn't necessary for pages that proceed the same verbal URL slug both on your previous site and on your new site (ie. www.yoursiteurl.com/investment on WordPress → www.yoursiteurl.com/investment on Squarespace), but it is applicable for all pages/links that changed their slugs.

To set your redirects, go your Settings Tab inside the Squarespace account: Settings → Advanced → URL mapping. If you had a non-descriptive link for one of your pages, let'due south say /page-3 that should redirect to your new Nigh page with slug /about-me, you will list out the redirect inside the URL mapping tab equally /page-3  → /about-me 301 (see example below).

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When information technology comes to blogs, Squarespace has a different URL structure for blog posts links. In WordPress, a blog'south link is www.yoursiteurl.com/blog-championship, while in Squarespace it is www.yoursiteurl.com/blog/blog-championship. As such, you volition demand to ready 301 redirects for all your blog mail links.

Here is more than info on URL redirects on Squarespace.

Footstep 8: Update your Squarespace plan to a paid membership

Before you launch your new site, you lot need to upgrade your program to a Squarespace paid plan. Check all Squarespace pricing plans here, there are various bachelor tiers depending on your site needs. Your hosting will exist with Squarespace as office of your membership.

Step 9: Launch website and transfer domain

The last step is transferring your domain. Yous need to initiate a domain transfer to Squarespace. Depending on where your current domain is registered the instructions may differ. Here are some examples provided by Squarespace for domains registered with GoDaddy and Bluehost. The domain transfer process might take from 1 day to 15 days.

One time your domain is transferred to Squarespace your new site volition bear witness on your domain, and equally such, it will exist launched. At this betoken, you can cancel any plans related to your WordPress site, ie. hosting plan.

Important: before canceling your hosting plan, y'all need to confirm where your emails are hosted, in order to ensure that the cancellation won't disrupt the work of your business email. Connect with your hosting back up to confirm cancellation details, what to expect, etc. Our recommended professional email provider is Thou Suite App, as it's hosted separately and is non afflicted by site migrations betwixt platforms.

Additional Resources:

Transferring a WordPress domain to Squarespace

Before Launch Checklist for your Squarespace site

Squarespace documentation on moving from WordPress to Squarespace

Bonus: Outset steps to ensure good SEO on your new site

One time your website is up and running, make sure that your website is SEO friendly and at that place are no major bug. Here are some things to do and bank check:

  • check the URLs and content on all your pages

  • make certain y'all've migrated all page titles/descriptions

  • optimize your images

  • test the mobile version of your site

  • check internal links and navigation

  • register a Search Panel business relationship (if you lot don't have it already)

  • submit your sitemap to Google

Make sure to get our free SEO ebook, that covers everything y'all demand to know virtually SEO on Squarespace.

Boosted Resources:

Squarespace SEO checklist

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Congrats, you are now on Squarespace! Nosotros promise you will enjoy its simplicity, ease of use, and flexibility. At this signal, we recommend you bring together a few online communities to help you lot when y'all get stuck but also to inspire yous in your Squarespace journey. These are our favorites: Squaremuse Designs, Squarespace Customs, and Squarespace Entrepreneurs. Good luck!

PS. If you decide to try out i of our designs, here is a discount code to get you twenty% off any of our design kits: HAPPYMUSE20.

Creatively yours,

Squaremuse Squad

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