How to Migrate From Squarespace to WordPress?

Why You Should Migrate from Squarespace to WordPress

While Squarespace is widely praised for its ease of use and clean templates, its simplicity can become a limitation as your website grows. Users often find restrictions in areas such as customization options, plugin availability, and SEO flexibility. For instance, advanced features like multilingual support, complex eCommerce functionalities, or custom integrations are not as straightforward to implement on Squarespace.

In contrast, WordPress stands out as an open-source platform that powers over 40% of all websites worldwide, reflecting its reliability and scalability. It gives website owners full control over design, functionality, and hosting. With access to thousands of themes and plugins, as well as robust developer support, WordPress allows businesses, bloggers, and eCommerce stores to expand without being boxed in by platform limits. This makes it a future-proof choice for websites that anticipate growth and evolving requirements.

If you’re asking yourself “Should I switch from Squarespace to WordPress?”, here’s what you need to consider from a long-term perspective:

Greater Customization

Squarespace provides well-designed templates, but customization is limited to what the platform allows. WordPress, on the other hand, offers access to over 60,000 plugins and thousands of themes, giving you control over design, functionality, and user experience. From advanced forms and multilingual sites to completely custom layouts, WordPress gives you the freedom to build a site that fits your exact vision—something Squarespace just can’t match.

Full Ownership of Your Content

With Squarespace, your site lives entirely on their hosted platform. That means if they change their features, pricing, or policies, you’re limited in how much control you have. WordPress works differently—it’s self-hosted. You own your files, database, and hosting, giving you full independence and peace of mind. In other words, your website’s future isn’t locked to a single provider.

Advanced SEO Capabilities

Getting found online is key to growth. Squarespace covers the basics of SEO, but WordPress—especially with plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math—takes things much further. Many of our customers have had similar experiences with SEO, doing SEO on WordPress is much easier and more customizable than Squarespace. You can fine-tune everything from URL structure and metadata to schema markup, internal links, and content hierarchy. That level of control makes a big difference when you’re trying to compete in search results or expand into new markets.

eCommerce Flexibility

Squarespace Commerce works well if you’re only selling a handful of products, but it can quickly feel limiting as your store grows. WordPress pairs with WooCommerce to give you far more options, whether that’s selling digital downloads, offering subscriptions, or even running a full multi-vendor marketplace. You also get advanced tools for payments, taxes, and shipping, which are often essential once a business starts scaling.

Cost Efficiency with Scalability

Squarespace runs on fixed pricing plans, which means you might end up paying more once your site needs features outside of your plan. With WordPress, you get to pick your own hosting, themes, and plugins—so you only pay for what you actually use. For many site owners, that flexibility not only lowers ongoing costs but also frees up budget to invest in areas that drive growth, like marketing or SEO.

Global Community and Support

WordPress powers more than 40% of all websites worldwide, backed by an enormous ecosystem of developers, agencies, and communities. That scale translates into countless resources—tutorials, forums, plugins, and regular security updates—making it easier to keep your site secure and up to date. Squarespace, by comparison, relies mainly on its in-house support team and documentation. Many of our customers tell us they feel more confident with WordPress because there’s always a solution, expert advice, or community resource available when they need it.

For a more detailed comparison, check out our in-depth article: WordPress vs. Squarespace – tested and reviewed by our experts.

How to Migrate from Squarespace to WordPress (Step-by-Step)

Planning to move your site from Squarespace to WordPress? You’re not alone, many website owners reach this point when they need more flexibility, advanced functionality, or room to scale in the long run. The good news is that with the right preparation, you can migrate smoothly while keeping your content, design consistency, and hard-earned SEO rankings intact.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process step by step. These are the same best practices we’ve seen work across countless migrations, ensuring your transition is structured, reliable, and as disruption-free as possible.

Here is the timeline of the migration:

• Prepare for the migration
• Export content from Squarespace
• Import content into WordPress
• Import and relink images
• Rebuild any missing or unsupported elements
• Set up redirects, configure SEO settings, and point your domain
• Finalize and optimize your new WordPress site

By following these steps, you’ll move from Squarespace to WordPress with confidence, knowing your site is future-ready. Let’s get started with the first step:

Step 1: Prepare for the Squarespace to WordPress Migration

The success of your migration depends heavily on preparation. From our experience, most issues—like broken links, missing images, or SEO drops—come from skipping this step. Make sure you have:

• Reliable WordPress Hosting: Pick a host optimized for WordPress with solid uptime, fast performance, SSL, and backups. Many site owners underestimate hosting, but it directly impacts site speed and rankings.
• Fresh WordPress Installation: Start with a clean install to avoid conflicts. Think of it as unpacking into an empty new home rather than a cluttered one.
• Full Squarespace Access: Ensure admin access so you can export data, check content structure, and gather design references. We’ve seen migrations delayed simply because clients didn’t have the right login credentials.

With these basics in place, you’ll reduce downtime, keep your SEO safe, and make the migration process much smoother.

Step 2: Export Content from Squarespace

The first hands-on step in your migration is exporting your existing Squarespace content. Squarespace provides a built-in export tool that creates a WordPress-compatible XML file, but from experience, it’s important to know this file won’t include everything:

How to Export Your Content

• Log in to your Squarespace admin dashboard.
• Go to Settings → Advanced → Import/Export.
• Click Export, then choose the WordPress logo when prompted.
• Once the export completes, download the .xml file — this file will be imported into your new WordPress site in the next step.

What the Export Includes:

• Blog posts
• Static pages (standard layout)
• Image galleries

What the Export Excludes:

• Product and store pages
• Event listings
• Audio and video blocks
• Custom CSS or JavaScript
• Theme styles, design layouts, and settings

You’ll need to manually rebuild some features in WordPress, especially if your Squarespace site uses advanced blocks or custom styling.

Exporting Product Data

If you run an online store on Squarespace, products won’t be included in the XML file. Instead:

• In Squarespace, go to Commerce → Inventory.
• Click Export All to download a .csv file of your products.

You can then use this CSV data to convert to WooCommerce specified CSV format and Import to WooCommerce.

Step 3: Import Content into WordPress

Now that you have your Squarespace .xml export file, the next step is to bring that content into your new WordPress site. This process will transfer your blog posts, static pages, and image galleries so you have a starting point to rebuild your site.

How to Import Your Squarespace Content into WordPress:

• Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.
• Go to Tools → Import, then choose WordPress from the list.
• Click Install Now to add the official WordPress Importer plugin.
• After installation, click Run Importer.
• Upload the .xml file you downloaded from Squarespace. 
• Assign authors: you can match content to existing WordPress users or create new ones.
• Be sure to check the option “Download and import file attachments” to transfer images and other media.
• Click Submit to complete the import.

This process is a core part of how you transfer a Squarespace site to WordPress, allowing you to preserve your key content structure.

What to expect after import? From our experience, the import process works well for text-based content, but expect some adjustments afterward:

• Formatting differences: Page layouts may not look identical since Squarespace and WordPress handle styling differently.
• Embedded media issues: Audio, video blocks, or custom scripts may not transfer correctly.
• Manual cleanup needed: You’ll likely need to reformat pages, adjust spacing, and apply your WordPress theme’s templates.

Step 4: Import and Localize Images

After importing your content, many of your images may still be hotlinked, meaning they’re hosted on Squarespace’s servers. This can lead to broken visuals or slower load times down the road. To complete your Squarespace to WordPress migration properly, you should download and self-host all images within WordPress.

Why Image Localization Matters?

• Ensures long-term access to media even if your Squarespace account is closed
• Improves site speed and reliability
• Helps with SEO by storing images under your WordPress domain

How to Automatically Download Images from Squarespace:

• In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New and search for Auto Upload Images.
• Install and activate the plugin (it’s free and widely used).
• Navigate to Posts → All Posts.
• (Optional) Click Screen Options at the top to display more posts per page.
• Bulk-select all posts, choose Edit from the dropdown menu, then click Update.

This triggers the plugin to:

• Scan your post content
• Automatically detect and download externally hosted images (including those from Squarespace)
• Store them in your WordPress Media Library, updating the image URLs in your content accordingly

Limitations / Things to watch out for:

• It only scans published posts/pages—so double-check drafts and custom post types.
• If you have a large number of images, the process can time out or miss some (running it in smaller batches helps).
• Not suitable for Squarespace galleries or product images—those usually require manual re-uploading or a CSV import.

Visit a few posts and pages and inspect the image URLs. You should see them now served from your WordPress domain (e.g., yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads) instead of referencing Squarespace’s CDN.

Step 5: Rebuild Missing or Unsupported Content

Because Squarespace’s export tool only includes limited content types, certain elements from your original site won’t automatically transfer. To complete your Squarespace to WordPress migration, you’ll need to manually recreate or reconfigure parts of your site within WordPress.

Manually Rebuild These Elements

Custom Layouts & Blocks: Use the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg) or a visual page builder to recreate custom layouts, audio/video blocks, and event pages that weren’t included in the export.

eCommerce Pages & Product Listings: If you’re transferring a store from Squarespace to WordPress, you can rebuild your online shop using WooCommerce:

• Download a sample CSV file from GitHub and replace the example data with your own product details. (For details on how to do this, read our detailed article on WooCommerce Import Products.)
• Go to WooCommerce → Products → Import.
• Upload the CSV file that you have tweaked to match WooCommerce’s data requirements.
• Map fields accordingly to bring your product data into WordPress then click Run The Importer.

Custom CSS & Styling: If your Squarespace site used custom CSS, copy that code from your Squarespace settings and paste it into Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS in WordPress. Be prepared to make adjustments, as some classes or elements may differ.

Optional but Recommended: Install a visual page builder like Elementor to rebuild more advanced layouts or recreate the unique design elements you had on Squarespace. This can speed up the redesign process and help you visually match your old site’s structure while leveraging the flexibility of WordPress.

Step 6: Configure SEO Settings, Redirect URLs, & Point Your Domain

To protect your search engine rankings during your Squarespace to WordPress migration, you need to properly configure your new site’s SEO settings and implement URL redirects. Failing to do this can result in broken links, traffic loss, or a drop in visibility on Google.

Set Up SEO-Friendly URLs

• In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings → Permalinks.
• Select Post name for a clean, search-friendly structure (e.g., yourdomain.com/blog/post-title).
• This structure is closest to what Squarespace uses and is considered best practice for SEO.

While using the “Post name” permalink is common for SEO, consider keeping a category in your URL structure (e.g., yourdomain.com/blog/post-title). This makes it easier to measure metrics in Google Search Console or GA4, since you can filter performance reports by category. It also provides clearer organization for both users and search engines.

Redirect Old Squarespace URLs

Squarespace and WordPress often use different URL formats. To prevent “404 Not Found” errors, create 301 redirects:

• Install and activate the free Redirection plugin.
• Add 301 redirects from your old Squarespace URLs to their new WordPress equivalents.
• Start with high-value pages like blog posts, landing pages, and product pages.
• Test each redirect to confirm it works, Google Search Console can help catch any missed URLs.

This ensures your transfer from Squarespace to WordPress doesn’t disrupt your SEO performance or user experience.

Point Your Domain to WordPress

Once your WordPress site is ready and SEO settings are in place, it’s time to update your domain so it points to your new hosting environment:

Steps to Go Live:

• Log in to your domain registrar.
• Update the DNS records to reflect your new WordPress host.
• Allow 24–48 hours for full DNS propagation across the internet.

Keep your Squarespace subscription active until the DNS change is fully propagated. This safety net helps you avoid downtime in case of mistakes or delays. Use whatsmydns.net to track propagation and confirm your domain is pointing correctly worldwide. After propagation, test both www and non-www versions, as well as HTTP → HTTPS, to ensure all versions redirect properly to your new WordPress site.

Step 7: Finalize and Optimize

With your WordPress site now live, the final step is to ensure everything works seamlessly and is optimized for performance, security, and search engines. This is critical to completing a successful Squarespace to WordPress migration without data loss or SEO setbacks:

Post-Migration Quality Assurance Checklist:

• Content & Design Review: Carefully review your homepage, blog posts, product pages, and any key landing pages. Look for missing images, broken links, or layout inconsistencies. From our experience, even small issues like spacing or font mismatches can hurt user experience.
• Test Redirects: Verify that your old Squarespace URLs are correctly redirecting to their WordPress counterparts.
• Submit Your Sitemap to Google: Use an SEO plugin (Yoast SEO or Rank Math) to generate a fresh XML sitemap. Then, in Google Search Console, verify your new site and submit the sitemap. This speeds up re-indexing and ensures Google understands your updated structure.
• Check Analytics & Tracking: Make sure Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and are correctly installed on your WordPress site so you don’t lose valuable data.
• Secure Your Site: Install a security plugin to enable SSL, and set up daily backups. A migration is a perfect time to strengthen your site’s defenses.
• Optimize Performance: Use a caching plugin (e.g., WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache) and a CDN (like Cloudflare) to improve loading speeds. Performance directly impacts SEO and user engagement.
• Mobile & Browser Testing: Test your site on different devices and browsers, or on PageSpeed Insights. Sometimes styling or scripts behave differently in WordPress compared to Squarespace.

Completing these steps helps ensure your transfer from Squarespace to WordPress is stable, secure, and SEO-ready. Be sure to follow each one carefully, and always keep a full backup until the migration is complete and verified.

Need help? If you’d rather not handle the technical side, check out our All-in-One Migration Services or Contact Us for personalized assistance with your Squarespace to WordPress migration.