Squarespace Site Audit: What to Check and Fix
If your Squarespace site isn't bringing in traffic, converting visitors, or loading the way it should, chances are it has a handful of fixable issues that nobody has pointed out yet.
After completing 80+ website audits for small businesses, I can tell you that most of the problems I find aren't complicated - they're just invisible until you know where to look. The tricky part is that Squarespace buries some of its most important settings a few clicks deep, and the issues that hurt performance most aren't always the ones that feel obvious.
This guide walks you through a Squarespace site audit you can do yourself - with exact navigation paths for Squarespace 7.1 so you're not hunting around trying to find the right panel.
Estimated time: 30–60 minutes, depending on how many pages your site has.
Before You Start
Have these three things open before you dig in:
Your Squarespace editor (logged into your site)
A free Google Search Console account - if you haven't connected it yet, go to Settings> Connected Accounts > Google Search Console and set it up now
Google PageSpeed Insights - it's free, and a scan takes about 60 seconds
This guide is written for Squarespace 7.1, which is the current version. If you're on 7.0, some menu paths will look slightly different.
Step 1: Audit Your SEO Settings
This is where I find the most consistent problems in client sites. Squarespace makes it easy to publish pages without filling in any SEO fields - and a lot of people do exactly that, because nothing stops you from hitting "Publish" with everything blank.
Page titles and meta descriptions
In Squarespace 7.1, each page has its own SEO settings. To access them:
Pages > hover over any page > click the gear icon > SEO tab
Work through every page on your site. Here's what to look for:
Page SEO Title: Should be unique, descriptive, and include a keyword that reflects what that page is actually about. Keep it under 60 characters. If this field is blank, Squarespace falls back to your page name - which is often something generic like "About" or "Home."
Description: This is your meta description. Write it like a one-sentence pitch for that page, around 140–155 characters. Blank descriptions are one of the easiest things to fix for an immediate SEO improvement.
URL slugs
Still in the gear icon, switch to the General tab. Your URL slug is the end of your page URL - for example, /services or /squarespace-web-design. Short, descriptive, lowercase slugs with hyphens are what Google prefers. If yours look like /page-1 or contain random strings, clean them up. If your site is already live, set up a redirect so the old URL doesn't disappear (Settings > Advanced > URL Redirects).
Site-wide SEO title format
Go to Marketing > SEO. This is where your site-wide title format lives - it controls how your business name appears across all page titles in search results. A format like {Page Title} | In the Works Design works well for most small business sites.
Step 2: Check Site Speed and Image Performance
Slow sites almost always have the same problem: uncompressed images. Squarespace doesn't automatically compress images on upload - so if you've been dragging files straight from your desktop, there's a good chance you have some very heavy pages.
Run your homepage through Google PageSpeed Insights and check the mobile score specifically. Squarespace sites frequently score lower on mobile than desktop, and Google uses mobile performance as a ranking signal.
What to fix:
Any image over 500KB should be compressed before uploading. TinyPNG and Squoosh are both free and compress images without a noticeable quality loss. Go back through your existing pages and replace heavy images with compressed versions.
Remove any empty content blocks or sections. Every element on a page adds weight - if a section is sitting there unused, delete it. In Squarespace 7.1, hover over any block or section and use the trash icon to remove it.
If your site uses a video background, test how it affects load time. Video backgrounds are one of the biggest contributors to slow mobile performance. You can hide them on mobile specifically via the mobile preview in the editor - hover over the section, go to Section Settings > Advanced and toggle visibility.
Alt text while you're here
Image alt text matters for both accessibility and SEO. To add it in Squarespace, click any image in the editor, then click the pencil icon and fill in the Alt Text field. Every image should have a short, descriptive description: "small business website design on laptop" is better than leaving it blank.
Step 3: Test Mobile Responsiveness
All Squarespace sites are responsive by default, but "responsive" and "good on mobile" aren't the same thing. Squarespace adjusts your layout for smaller screens automatically - but that automatic adjustment doesn't always look the way you'd expect.
Use the mobile preview toggle in your editor (the phone icon at the top of the screen) and click through every page. Look for:
Text that requires zooming to read
Buttons that are too small to tap comfortably
Sections that stack awkwardly on a narrow screen
Navigation menus that are difficult to use on a real phone (test it on your actual device, not just the preview)
If something looks off, some Squarespace sections have mobile-specific spacing options in the Design panel. You can also hide specific sections on mobile without removing them from desktop - hover over the section, click Section Settings, and look for the mobile visibility toggle.
Step 4: Review Navigation and User Experience
Good navigation gets people where they need to go quickly. If visitors can't find your services, your pricing, or a way to contact you within a couple of clicks, most of them won't keep looking - they'll leave.
Work through your navigation with these questions:
Are there more than five or six items in your main menu? Anything past that starts to feel crowded, and visitors have a harder time knowing where to go first. Move secondary pages (Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, older blog posts) to the footer. In Squarespace 7.1, manage your navigation in the Pages panel - drag pages to reorder, and move anything you don't want in the main menu to the Not Linked section.
Is there a clear primary call to action visible without scrolling? Every page should direct the visitor somewhere - a "Book a Consult" or "See My Services" button in the header area does a lot of work. If your homepage hero doesn't have one, add it.
Do your page names actually describe what's on the page? "Services" is vague. "Squarespace Web Design" or "Website Audit" tells both the visitor and Google what to expect. Rename pages that use generic labels, then update your URL slugs to match.
Step 5: Fix Content and Conversion Gaps
This is the part of a site audit that requires the most judgment - and the part where I usually find the biggest opportunities.
On each page, ask:
Does this page have a clear purpose? One message, one next step.
Does the headline communicate what you do and who you do it for?
Are you writing about your client's problem, or just describing yourself?
Is there something to click - a button, a link, a form - before the visitor has to scroll?
One of the most common things I see is a homepage that opens with "Welcome to my website" or just the business name. That's not a headline - it's a missed opportunity. Rewrite it to lead with the outcome your client is looking for: something like "Custom Squarespace websites for small businesses that want to look the part" tells a visitor immediately whether they're in the right place.
Check for broken links
A quick scan with a free broken link checker (Dead Link Checker is one option) will surface any links on your site that lead to 404 pages. Broken links hurt both user experience and SEO. Fix or remove them.
If you're thinking about whether a full redesign might be the answer - rather than individual fixes - it's worth reading my guide to Squarespace web design for small businesses before making that call.
The Issues I See in Almost Every Squarespace Audit
After reviewing 80+ websites, certain patterns come up consistently:
Duplicate content across pages. If your Services page and your Home page say the same thing in the same words, Google has to guess which one to rank for a given search term - and it often ranks neither well. Make sure each page says something genuinely different.
Google Search Console ignored. If you haven't connected it, go to Settings > Connected Accounts > Google Search Console. It shows you exactly which search queries are already sending people to your site - which tells you where to focus your content and SEO work.
Pages full of images and light on text. Squarespace can look beautiful with a minimal-text design, but pages without meaningful written content give Google very little to index. Every page should have some text that clearly describes what that page is about.
Contact information buried three clicks deep. I see this on almost every audit. Your email address, contact form, or booking link should be accessible without scrolling on every page - at minimum in the header or footer navigation.
What to Do After Your Audit
Once you've worked through the list, prioritize your fixes in this order:
SEO title tags and meta descriptions for every page - fast to fix, meaningful impact
Image compression and alt text - moderate effort, noticeable improvement to speed and SEO
CTA clarity on your homepage and services page
Navigation cleanup
Content rewrites for any pages that are vague or still talking about you instead of the client
Even if the list feels long, starting with the first two items alone will make a real difference. You don't have to tackle everything at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I audit my Squarespace site? At minimum, once a year. If you're actively trying to grow traffic or you've added new pages or services recently, every six months is better. Once you know what to look for, a quick check of your top pages takes about 20 minutes.
Does Squarespace handle SEO automatically? It handles some technical SEO - it generates a sitemap, creates clean URLs when you use good slugs, and adds basic structured data. But on-page SEO (title tags, meta descriptions, content strategy) is entirely up to you. Squarespace won't fill those in for you.
Can a slow site hurt my Google rankings? Yes. Page speed is a ranking factor, particularly on mobile. If your site takes more than three seconds to load on a phone, you're likely losing both visitors and search ranking. Image compression is usually the fastest way to address this on a Squarespace site.
What's the difference between a website audit and an SEO audit? A website audit looks at the overall health of your site - design, user experience, messaging, navigation, and conversions. An SEO audit focuses on how the site performs in search - keyword targeting, metadata, technical signals, and content gaps. For most small businesses, the two overlap significantly, and it usually makes sense to do both together.
Do I need a Squarespace developer to fix these issues? Most of the issues covered here - SEO settings, image compression, navigation cleanup, page content - you can fix yourself without any code. A few things (like custom redirects or more complex layout changes) may be easier with help from someone experienced in Squarespace, but a full audit is a good way to find out exactly what you're dealing with before deciding.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit? Partially. It can review page copy for keyword use, suggest meta descriptions, and flag thin content — but it can't crawl your site, check for technical errors, access real ranking data, or analyze your actual search performance. It's useful as a writing assistant within an audit, not as the audit itself. For a proper SEO audit you still need tools like Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, or Google Search Console alongside it.
Does Squarespace have site analytics? Yes. Squarespace has built-in analytics accessible via the Analytics panel in your left sidebar. It covers traffic, unique visitors, page views, traffic sources, geography, and popular content. For more depth, you can connect Google Analytics via Settings > Advanced > External Services and Google Search Console via Settings > Connected Accounts. The native analytics are solid for basic monitoring; GSC is what you want for understanding search performance specifically.
