Website workout - the Squarespace process

I love creating websites and training clients. One of the platforms I use in Squarespace and lately I’ve had a lot of work on this platform. The process of idea to website varies a little to my workflow for WordPress and customised website development. This post is an overview of Hello Lovely’s Squarespace steps which you may find useful if you’re thinking of offering this service to your clients or you’d like to work with me on your Squarespace website.

1. Create a trial site

As a Squarespace Circle member (which means I’m an experienced Squarespace website designer with more than 3 active sites in my client portfolio that meet Squarespace’s standards) I have an extended trial period of six months. I tend not to use the entire six months as that would be an incredibly long lead-up to a site launch. It’s great for large, complex builds but I find most clients require a month at most.

The purpose of the trial site is to allow me to create the client branding (I can do this alongside website design) or load branding material to the site, draft text and images or actual copy if available. This is created under the Hello Lovely account to get the benefit of the extended trial period. It also means I don’t need my client’s existing Squarespace password details (if they have them) and this helps with privacy.

If my client already has a site and wants a new design, this trial site allows me to work independently and their current site stays active. If it’s a client who is moving from WordPress, Wix, Weebly or elsewhere to Squarespace, I can show them what the platform can do with a behind-the-scenes view.

2. Customisation

Based on the answers to my website design questionnaire, I’ll select a template. This is where Squarespace gets a good and bad reputation. The templates are great but developers can get a bit sniffy about the word template and I hear you. Goodness knows I’ve been the same about Canva! What’s great about Squarespace is that they can be customised and the user experience (front and back) will still simple to navigate. It’s possible to keep - and introduce - good design principles and fix sites that go wrong.

Squarespace has many categories of sites (business, restaurant, beauty) which allows me to find the best one but to be honest, I look at all of them against the questionnaire responses. The layout can be adjusted on all within the limits of the base structure but some have more functions than others so I never rule anything out.

Some clients already know their Squarespace stuff and have a template in mind. That’s okay, providing that it’ll do all they want, not just now but in the future too.

Whilst Squarespace allows template changes, I try to avoid this. This is because any bespoke adjustments to fonts, colours or spacing can’t be carried over and customised code is lost too. It’s worth spending time at this stage.

Mapping the content

I tend to rough out the draft in Squarespace. With WordPress or other platforms, I’ll sketch out a concept. Instead, I customise the design on the trial website space using my client’s homework and branding guidelines as the structure. I do map out the wireframe, often in Adobe XD, based on the homework so I can list the pages. For example, which ones are in the main navigation, what are the unlinked ones and hidden pages and where are the calls to action, to create a clear user journey.

Receiving the content

I’ll ask clients to send over their content via Dubsado or Google Drive by page folders. This makes it easy to track images and content or replacement images.

Loading images and content to Beauty by KTB including branding and logo, also created by Hello Lovely.

Customising the content

When I have the framework laid out, I will adjust and check the branding, making sure the site logo is correct, the fonts chosen are either from, or work with, the branding and other alterations in Squarespace’s Style Editor. At this point, I’ll also adjust any coding so that elements like buttons and graphics are less templated and more unique.

Client approval

Once I get to a logical place for a pause , I’ll give my clients a preview. I do this by sending over the site draft URL. We can then walk through the pages together. Some clients prefer a handover on Zoom with screen share or some screen grabs. This is flexible.

Adding client as the site administrator

If my clients are making a move from another platform, I’ll add them as the site administrator after approval of the design. Once they have created a Squarespace account, they can log in and upgrade from trial to paid and add in billing details.

If my client already has a Squarespace account, I can ask them to add me and I’ll move the new design onto their existing site.

Transferring content and re-routing the domain

For the clients making the switch from another platform, I can transfer their existing blog posts into Squarespace and reroute their domain for them. Some prefer me to do this to save time and worries or they may want to be shown and use it as practice. If they would like me to help them with the transfer, I ask my clients for their login information for their hosting platform and domain provider and transfer the blog content before rerouting the domain. 

Before I link my client’s current domain to the new Squarespace website, I create a cover page and set it up as the homepage before the new site officially launches to create some drama.

If my client already has a Squarespace website, I put up a cover page before I start changing the design to mimic the trial site.

Client training

When the website is all set up and ready to go, I meet with my client on Zoom to share my screen and show them around the client-side of their new Squarespace website. 

I demonstrate how to update the images and text on each page, add and edit blog posts, connect their social media accounts, view their site metrics, and add items to their shop. The final consultation takes me no longer than an hour as Squarespace is so easy to manage.

Once we get off the call I send a final invoice and transfer the site ownership over to them. I’m still around on the site (if needed) as an administrator to provide support.

Summary

Squarespace is a brilliant solution for website designers who want to provide a good-looking, user-friendly platform. This is my current process and it’s entirely flexible, depending on the client but it’s a useful structure that works well. I hope you find it useful!