6 Tips to Help You Build a Squarespace Website Fast
Need a website ASAP? Squarespace is a great option. The learning curve is significantly less steep to get started than other platforms, and as an experienced a website designer, we know a ton of tricks and best practices to get your website up fast! You can also get a free trial here and get 10% off your first year with code MOUSHI. If you're new to Squarespace, no worries - I'll help you understand how to use it to build your site quickly. If you prefer a little more accountability and a video-guide, you can grab my video course + coaching here. On to learning!
First, Squarespace 7.1 Website Builder Basics
Squarespace is an amazing all-in-one website builder, so you don't need to search for and add a bunch of extra plugins to your site—this in my opinion is the best part.
Content blocks are what make up your page - each with different functions. Think about them like legos with a purpose: a video block for adding a video, text block for adding text, and an Instagram block for adding your Instagram feed. There's a huge variety of blocks, so you can easily add any kind of functionality you need to your site. You can also include awesome “shape” blocks to create cool backgrounds behind images and text to give your site some personality.
How do you design your page and organize your content?
Squarespace has a grid system, where you drop your block onto the page and structure it the same way you would blocks. You’ll now find a convenient alignment system when moving blocks around so that things stay well-structured.
The grid on Squarespace has grey lines and blocks that you can move around to create your page. It is easy to learn and you can have a website up and running within a few hours with practice.
Prepare before designing your Squarespace website
Doing prep work before starting a website build is key for speeding up the design process. I can’t stress this enough. Gathering content, compressing photos (I’ll explain what that means in a second), and deciding colors/fonts ahead of time will make a big difference in how long it takes to build the website. Yes, it will take a little time upfront, but your overall website design time will be cut significantly. Remember, the goal is to build a website quickly!
Gather content
Optimize photos
Decide on colors and font styles
Let’s go through each of these.
Setup your site styles
This happens in the Design tab of the left-hand side menu but is also accessible using the paintbrush icon on the upper right-hand corner of your pages.
1. Write down your colors and fonts
I like to store my color codes and fonts in a note on my computer using the Mac Notes app. This way, they're easily accessible and I don't need to search through the Style Editor for them repeatedly. I can simply open my notes, copy the code for the exact blue shade of my brand, and paste it into Squarespace. The same applies when creating anything for my website on Canva —I can just refer to my Mac Notes app for the fonts instead of opening my Squarespace website and style editor each time.
Make sure you set all the styles at the start instead of while you work. That way, you can ensure all the styles work together and have a variety of headings, buttons sizes and other elements that look cohesive.
2. Prepare your written copy
To make the website design process go quickly, I always prepare my copy in advance. I store all the text I need for headings, body, buttons, and calls to action in a Google Doc and then easily copy and paste it into Squarespace. To prevent any style formatting issues, just press shift + option + command + V when you paste it in.
3. Compress images and optimize them for SEO
Put all images in one folder on your desktop while creating the website. Name them appropriately. Google scans image names so be descriptive.
Optimize image size. This is essential for website speed. I use a free tool called compressjpg.com to do this but you can also do it right on your computer. Here are instructions for Mac users (since that’s what I’ve got), but Windows will likely have something comparable to let you resize images:
On a Mac, double-click the image to open it in Preview, then click 'Tools' and 'Adjust Size.' Change the dimensions until the image size is below 500 KB - usually this is 1200-2000px.
If you can't get the image size to under 500 KB by resizing, you’re likely using a PNG file format, and in that case, use compresspng.com. Once again here’s the checklist:
Put your images in a folder on your desktop
Name your images so Google can tell what's in the image.
Compress the image size (either on your computer or using one of the tools above) to get the images to 500 KB or less.
Voila, you are ready to design! 💃🏻
Design-mode tips for fast Squarespace builds
2. Choose a template with a structure you like
Pick a template that has a similar style to the kind of website you wan’t. Don’t worry if it’s not a “blog” template or a “restaurant” template. Choose based on colors and structure. Since our goal is to minimize time spent on this at the start, you’ll want to decide based on the closes design you want (ignore the template type for now).
3. Adding image galleries
Whenever you need to add multiple images to a blog post or page, use a gallery block instead of individual image blocks. The gallery block allows you to upload many images at once, without having to wait for each image to load. It also allows for more flexibility when rearranging images, as you can just delete one block and the other images will remain in the same place.
4. Duplicate blocks, blog posts, products, events and even whole pages to save time
Squarespace recently added the ability to duplicate album page tracks, blog posts, cover pages, events, gallery page images and videos, products, and regular pages. This is a great time saver!
If you're creating two pages or blog posts with a similar layout, duplicate one and the structure will already be set. You don't have to recreate it each time.
You can also use this feature to be creative. If all your blog posts should have an author bio or a faux sidebar at the bottom, create it once and duplicate it for every new post.
How to Duplicate a Page:
Hover over the page name in the left side settings area; a gear icon will appear
Click the gear icon
Scroll down and click 'Duplicate Page'
How to Duplicate a Blog Post:
Open the editor for the post
At the bottom of the editor, click 'Duplicate'
5. Build Your MVW “minimum viable website”
Less is more. Try not to get hung up on things if something isn't working—move on. Your website doesn't have to be perfect to launch. Start with a one-page landing page or even a simply cover page and make changes later.
Analysis paralysis is real, but if you recognize it you can overcome it! Don't spend months or years on a website before launching your business. Let it be easy and let yourself progress slowly. You likely won’t know wha needs refinement until you see it live anyway.
PS: Need a quick website audit? Grab one here
6. Use a Course or Hire a Professional When You Need it
Don’t waste hours scrolling through Youtube if you need something done ASAP. Look for a course like SS Fundamentals or buy a premium Website Clean-up (this was actually my best-selling product for years).
Remember: Don't waste months or years trying to decide on the perfect platform or template. The longer you want, the more you’ll wish you started earlier. Get going now. You got this and the you’ve got the support!
