Most DIY Squarespace sites look like DIY Squarespace sites. You know the ones — competent enough, but a bit stiff, unmistakably the work of someone using a template rather than commanding it.
These 51 tips exist to close that gap. Not with a redesign, not with hiring someone — just with the small, specific choices that separate "I built this on Squarespace" from "a designer built this on Squarespace." We're talking layout psychology, SEO tweaks, brand consistency: the stuff that quietly makes a site feel elevated and finished.
Settle in. There's a lot here, and every single one is meant to be actually used, not just nodded along to.
Prefer to watch? Catch the full video below, or keep reading.
Get Your Branding Basics Right
1. Use the built-in Wordmark logo maker. If you don't have a logo, that's genuinely not a problem — great logos can be very simple. Even Dior's main logo is just nice typography in black. That's called a wordmark logo, words functioning as a logo, and Squarespace has one built right in. Go to your header, click edit, type in your brand name, then pick a font in your site styles. That's it — wordmark logo, done.
2. Redesign a page in hiding. If you want to overhaul a page without everyone watching it fall apart live, duplicate the page, drag it into your "not linked" section, and rebuild it there. When it's ready, drag it back up into your navigation. No half-finished page ever goes public.
3. Know the difference between fit and fill for images. Fill crops your image to cover the box it sits in. Fit shows the whole image, but might leave gaps around the container. Toggle between the two for every image you upload — whichever looks best for that specific photo is the one to use.
4. Use a paragraph font style as a heading. Click the "A" with arrows on it and the text expands to fill its container. Drag to resize the container and watch the font size change with it. It's the easy way to use your paragraph font as a heading font too, if you want a change from the default.
5. Grab the complete Squarespace and Canva font pairing list. If you want brand consistency between what you make on Squarespace and what you make in Canva, use fonts that exist in both platforms. Otherwise your social posts and your site will always feel like they belong to two different brands.
6. Use the free stock photos built into Squarespace. There's no need to leave the platform to go hunting for images — Squarespace has thousands of beautiful, royalty-free Unsplash photos built right in. Click add block, then image block, then browse stock images, and make sure you're toggled to the free option.
7. Choose your background photos carefully. If you're layering text over an image, ditch the people-filled or drama-filled shots. Busy backgrounds kill text legibility fast. Go for soft textures or negative space instead, so your words actually pop on top rather than fighting the photo for attention.
8. Change the colour on just one word. If you want to highlight one word in a headline or sentence, you can. Highlight the word in a text block and click the text colour changer. It draws the eye exactly where you want it, and it looks intentional rather than accidental.
9. Use a colour picker to match a shade you love. If you want your Squarespace palette to match a specific shade you've found in a photo, head to imagecolorpicker.com, upload the photo, and click to grab the exact colour and shade. Copy that hex code, paste it into your colour palette in Squarespace, and it's yours.
10. Store your brand colours in your notes app. Every colour on your Squarespace site has a specific code. I keep all of mine in my desktop notes app, so when I'm designing something in Canva or anywhere else, I can grab the exact same code instantly. It speeds the whole design process up more than you'd think.
Design With Intention, Not Guesswork
11. Design with your ideal client in mind. Every single design decision on your website — every one — should get run through one question: would this appeal to my ideal client? What do they need to know, feel, see, or understand in order to say yes to working with you, or, if you're a designer, to working with your client? If you're not crystal clear on who that is, this is worth sorting out before you touch another design decision.
12. Know your best sales tool on Squarespace. What you're selling determines how you should set up your site.
→ Setting up appointments? Use Acuity.
→ Selling courses or membership content? Use the courses and members area tool.
→ Selling physical products? Go e-commerce.
→ Selling services? The invoices feature is perfect.
Use the right tool for what you're actually selling, and sales feel effortless rather than a complex hack-together system.
13. Hide items on mobile — with a workaround. Squarespace doesn't officially let you hide items on certain views, but there's a trick. Stack the item underneath another element, like a coloured block or an image, and it won't technically be gone — but to users, it's essentially invisible.
14. Actually use the announcement bar. Don't bury your updates in your footer or somewhere down the homepage. If you're booked out, launching something new, or heading on holiday, put it in the announcement bar — it's the first thing people see at the top of your site, and you can switch it off whenever. I use mine constantly to promote freebies and low-cost offers.
Layout & Efficiency Tricks Designers Actually Use
15. Choose photos over video for page speed. Videos look amazing, but they're heavy. Unless it's essential, skip the video backgrounds. Clean, well-chosen photos keep your pages fast, responsive, and Google happy.
16. White space is your friend. Crowded websites feel cheap, fast. White space makes a site look more modern, more premium, and — genuinely — easier to read. When in doubt, add another row or two of empty space and watch the design elevate itself instantly.
17. Duplicate everything. You can duplicate full pages, sections, and groups of blocks. If you want the single biggest efficiency hack in a designer's toolkit, this is it. You don't need a brand-new design for every section — alternating or repeating layouts often looks genuinely great.
18. Save your favourite section designs to favourites. If you've built a section you love, save it. You can then reuse it on any page in one click. I do this constantly for freebies and courses across multiple pages on my own site — spend your time making one incredible section, then reuse it. Don't make your own life unnecessarily hard.
19. Customise without touching a line of code. If you want to nudge, resize, animate, or otherwise customise anything on your Squarespace site without ever coding, that's what Squarekicker is for. Same simple interface as Squarespace itself, just more powerful — properly custom designs, no code required.
20. Use the line block for creative layouts. Sounds boring. It isn't. The humble line block is a genuine layout and design secret weapon — use it for dividers, for spacing, or just to add a bit of visual interest to a section.
21. Use your calls to action wisely. For a website to actually get you sales, it has to guide visitors toward the action you want them to take — and that's the entire job of a call to action. Every page should have at least one, ideally several. Make them specific, and repeat them down the page. Don't make someone scroll to the bottom hunting for the one button that matters.
22. Keep your navigation to six items or fewer. More than that, and visitors hit analysis paralysis. Keep the menu short and clear, and only include the most vital pages — not every page you've ever built. The rest can live in your footer and in links within the page content itself.
Build Trust Before Someone Even Clicks Contact
23. Let copy guide design, not the other way around. Pro designers start with the copy — the actual words on the site — and use that copy to guide the layout. If you're cramming your words into a template space that was built first, you're doing it backwards. Write or plan your copy first, then build the sections around what you actually want to say.
24. Customise your 404 page. It doesn't have to be a dead end. Add links to your blog, your freebies, or your top services — a previously lost visitor can still convert if you give them something they actually want on the way out.
25. Use pre-designed layouts while you're starting out. Squarespace's templates are the equivalent of bowling gutter guards. When you're new, use them to avoid complete layout disasters. Once you've gained some confidence, go wild building layouts from a blank section — it's genuinely fun.
26. Remember mobile and desktop views are not the same. Always check how your site looks on both. Use the desktop and mobile icons in the top right corner to toggle between them and edit each one. The blocks stay the same, but you'll likely need to drag and drop them differently on mobile for it to actually look right.
27. Lock a page with a password. If you want a portal anyone with the password can access, lock the page. Want people to pay for gated content instead? Use the courses or memberships feature. But there are plenty of situations where a simple locked page is exactly the right amount of tool for the job.
The SEO Fundamentals Most DIY Sites Skip
28. Use code PAGE10 for 10% off Squarespace. If you're about to upgrade your plan, don't pay full price. My code, PAGE10, gets you 10% off — and it works on any Squarespace purchase: domain, website, e-commerce, or course upgrade. Saving money is also a Squarespace tip.
29. Use SEO keywords in your headings. Your headings are powerful SEO signals. Make sure the text assigned as heading one or heading two includes words people will actually search for — something like "wedding venue Austin, Texas" or "yoga retreat Spain," not a clever phrase nobody's typing into Google.
30. Use those same keywords in your URL slugs. Don't let Squarespace auto-generate a messy URL for you. In your page settings, edit the slug to match your keywords. It takes one click, and it's worth it for the SEO boost.
31. Hide the header on sales pages or landing pages. Still inside page settings — if you want a sales or landing page to convert better, strip away the distractions. One click toggles the header and footer on or off for any page on your site. It also saves you from needing a separate funnel builder.
32. Make your location obvious. If you're a bricks-and-mortar business, don't hide where you are. You'd be shocked how many local businesses make it genuinely hard to find their own address on their own website. Put it in your footer and somewhere above the fold on your homepage — another quick SEO win.
33. Don't skip the SEO site description. It shows up on Google and sets the tone before anyone's even clicked through. Write a couple of clear sentences on who you help, what you offer, and where you are if that's relevant. Head to Settings, then Marketing, then SEO Appearance, and fill it in.
34. Blog for SEO with 2,000-plus words per post. If you want a post to actually rank, don't write 300 words of fluff. Long-form content that's 2,000-plus words performs far better on Google — so make it genuinely valuable, skimmable, and structured with headings.
35. Add visual interest to every section. Don't leave big blocks of text floating in white space while someone scrolls past. Add an icon, a photo, a line, a texture — something. Every scroll should give the eye something new. Think picture book versus dictionary — we all know which one people actually keep reading.
Behind-the-Scenes Workflow Habits
36. Use a non-Squarespace email tool with a simple hack. Squarespace's own email tool is fine, but if you love something like Kit, Flodesk, or MailerLite, go for it. Paste the embed code from their sign-up form into a code block on Squarespace, and you're done — no need to pay extra for Zapier. I've done exactly this for eight years, and it still works perfectly.
37. Write your blog posts outside of the blog editor. It happens rarely, but it only takes one Squarespace glitch on save — or one forgotten click — to lose an entire blog post. Draft in Google Docs or Notion, then copy and paste it over.
38. Schedule your blog posts ahead of time. The key to blog consistency is writing before the post actually needs to be published. Batch your blogs, then use the scheduling tool to publish them whenever they're meant to go live — click the settings icon in the blog editor and choose your publish date.
39. Change your favicon. The tiny icon in the browser tab is your favicon, and leaving it as the Squarespace default cube screams "template." Make something quick in Canva — it's tiny, so it can be simple — and upload it under Settings, then Favicon. It's small, but it makes your site look custom rather than off-the-shelf.
40. Keep your colours and fonts to a minimum. Too many fonts or colours, and a site turns into a hot mess fast. Stick to one to two fonts and a handful of core colours, and don't deviate. It's tempting to add five more shades of yellow to make something stand out — but when everything's shouting for attention, the effect flips: nothing stands out at all. Set this in the style editor, under the paintbrush icon.
41. Decide deliberately how links open. Keep users on your site by opening internal links in the same tab. For links that take people away from your site — social media, blog sources — open them in a new tab instead.
42. Use pop-ups. They simply work. Leave money on the table if you want, or use them to promote a freebie, grow your list, share a discount code, or announce something new — they convert extremely well. Just don't set them to appear immediately. Delay the pop-up slightly instead.
43. Use summary blocks to pull in content automatically. Want to feature your blog posts, products, or events without rebuilding the layout from scratch? The summary block automatically pulls content from other parts of your site — perfect for showing your most popular products on the homepage, or your blog posts on your 404 page.
44. Check your analytics, then design accordingly. Is 80% of your traffic coming from mobile? Then your site had better shine on mobile. Use your Squarespace analytics to see where your audience actually is, and design for that first — don't assume. It varies more by industry and business type than most people expect.
Final Polish (And How to Keep Improving)
45. Customise your footer. Please don't leave "Built with Squarespace" sitting in your footer — that's the equivalent of wearing the tag on your shirt after you've already bought it. Delete that block and add your own links, copyright, or call to action instead. Squarespace is doing just fine without your extra promotion; use the real estate for yourself.
46. See your site the way a visitor does. Hit the escape key, or tap the little arrow in the corner, to leave editing mode and see the clean view your visitors actually see. It's the fastest way to catch layout issues you'd otherwise miss while surrounded by editing tools.
47. Use a Chrome extension for full-page screenshots. If you need to mock up a site you've designed, or show a client a preview, use GoFullPage to screenshot an entire page in one click. Perfect for portfolios, slide decks, and sharing your work.
48. Remember: the paintbrush icon controls everything. Click the paintbrush icon to edit your fonts, colours, and buttons — it controls your entire site's global styles. Be careful, though: changes here affect every page, not just the one you're looking at. Make the change, then go check a few other pages before you hit save.
49. Name your images before you upload them. Instead of img23984.jpeg, use something descriptive like handmade-ceramic-vase.jpeg. It helps SEO, it helps screen readers, and it keeps your files organised inside Squarespace so you can actually find them later. I do this on my desktop before uploading, rather than renaming afterwards.
50. Customise your logo separately for mobile and desktop. Sometimes a full logo looks great on desktop but awkward squeezed onto mobile. Squarespace lets you upload separate logos for each — click Edit Site Header, then Edit Logo, and you'll see both a logo image option and a mobile logo image option.
51. Know what you're actually getting found for, and double down. Head into Analytics, then Traffic, then Search Keywords. This shows exactly what people type into Google to find you, and how you're ranking for different terms. Take what's already working, and make more content around that thing.
That's 51 — but you don't need to implement them all this afternoon. Pick five that feel most obviously true of your current site, fix those first, then come back for five more next week. If you want to know whether your site's overall look is quietly working against you, 12 Outdated Web Design Trends & What to Do Instead is the natural next stop.
