How to Make a Squarespace Website Look Custom & Professional
Want to make a squarespace website look more premium & expensive and less like a template?
I’ve been a Squarespace website designer for over 9 years now, and I’ve gotten to know the platform like the back of my hand! And one of my favourite things about Squarespace is just how customisable it is; your websites definitely don’t have to all look the same or look like templates at all.
There are plenty of sites out there that you’d never realise were built on Squarespace, because with a few tweaks and an expert designer eye, you can customise them to make them look really premium and expensive. So I thought I’d share some of my best tips for achieving this!
Table of Contents
*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links where I get a small commission if you make a purchase, so thank you in advance for your support! Please know I would never recommend anything that I don’t personally LOVE myself.
1. Avoid the telltale signs of an amateur Squarespace website (or basic template)
Not updating the default squarespace domain (+ ‘made with Squarespace’ text!)
By default, all new Squarespace website get given a random domain, which will look something along the lines of: silly-goose.squarespace.com. Probs not the most professional first impression to give your customers!
Be sure to buy your own custom domain (either via Squarespace or a company like Godaddy) to connect to the website, such as: yourbrandname.com.
(And while you’re at it, get rid of that ‘made with Squarespace’ text at the bottom of all Squarespace’s templates! 😅)
Not changing the default Squarespace favicon
Another dead giveaway of an amateur Squarespace site is one where the default browser icon hasn’t been changed from Squarespace’s ‘cube’ logo.
Here’s my YouTube tutorial on how to update the Squarespace favicon with your own brand logo!
Using a Basic Squarespace template with minimal customisation
It can be useful to begin creating your Squarespace website using one of their premade templates*, but if all you’re doing is changing the colours, images and text, it’s always going to look like a Squarespace template (and therefore look like everyone else’s sites!).
Not checking the mobile design (spacing + overlaps!)
If you start making edits to a Squarespace template, one of the classic issues that can occur is these changes causing spacing issues or problems with elements overlapping on the mobile version of the website. So ALWAYS be sure to check this when editing!
Watch the video below to learn how Squarespace’s page editor works and classic pitfalls to avoid with layout and mobile design:
2. Incorporate brand patterns & elements
When you have a brand professionally designed, you’ll often be given a few different brand/logo elements to use as well as brand patterns.
Adding these around the website as graphics or as backgrounds can add a lot of personality to a website and make it stand out from everyone else’s when used sparingly & intentionally!
We used Sarah's brand patterns as backgrounds on a couple of sections of her website for impact.
3. Consider custom fonts
Squarespace websites offer hundreds of great fonts that you can use with ease in your designs, but if your branding includes custom fonts, be sure to upload these to use on your website to keep everything consistent.
This can help your site to look more premium and custom too, because the fonts will look different from any template websites.
4. Overlap elements with intention
Emphasis on *with intention*, as this can look very amateur or clunky if done too much or not in the right way. But you might want to experiment with overlapping image blocks, adding text to overlap images, or even using effects that have sections of a webpage overlapping each other to add interest to the site and stop it looking too ‘blocky’.
Here I used overlapping images and video pop ups for a client website
5. Add interactive & dynamic elements
I love adding interactive and dynamic elements to my websites where possible.
This might look like using a slideshow gallery block in place of a static image block, so the images change as the user scrolls.
Or it might look like using accordion dropdowns for different statements of text, or a click-to-scroll carousel to display a list of text or images.
^ These are simple things using Squarespace’s native features, but there are also lots of interactive features you can create with custom plugins too…
I use this tabbed content feature on my website for people to click through
6. Try some custom Squarespace plugins
If you want to take your Squarespace website one step further, but don’t have the coding knowledge yourself, why not try some custom code plugins?
Here’s a list of my favourite custom plugins for Squarespace blogs
Here’s a list of my favourite custom plugins for Squarespace ecommerce websites
These can help you achieve basically any kind of fun design customisation on your Squarespace site!
Want to get started easily? Ghost Plugins are the most simple and fun to try out.
Example of a plugin that lets you change your site mobile menu icon to something else - such as a taco!
Other professional website design tips for your Squarespace site…
Below are some general pointers for making any website look more premium, and these are some of the things a professional website designer will always consider when putting together a site too:
Use whitespace to let elements ‘breathe’
Lack of spacing or elements being placed too close together can make a website look busy, overwhelming and cluttered. So be sure to use spacing & padding between sections and around elements to keep things feeling spacious and impactful.
Don’t center align large paragraphs (+ avoid large paragraphs full-stop!)
Generally in design, there’s an unspoken rule that center-aligned text should be reserved for shorter chunks of text to create impact, and shouldn’t be used for large paragraphs, because it becomes more difficult to read.
And with large chunks of text in general, one of the signs of a professional designer is someone who can take large chunks & paragraphs and turn them into engaging layouts (rather than just pasting it all into one block of text).
This helps to keep the text scannable and the reader engaged!
Get professional brand imagery (rather than stock)
Imagery can have such a MASSIVE effect on the overall vibe and impact of a website. No matter how much you spend on a beautiful, professional website, if the images are bad quality or look like very basic, free stock photography, your website can come across as basic too.
So if you really want to take your site to the next level (and your business in general!) would always advise using professional brand photography rather than stock where you can.
Balanced use of colour + contrast
It’s great to use colour in your website if that fits with your branding! However using too much in the wrong places can end up feeling busy, overwhelming, and end up clashing. An expert designer will know how to use colour in a way that enhances your site, not overcrowds it, and will understand how to use contrast to create impact and ensure text is readable and okay for accessibility too.
