Why Squarespace Sites Stop Getting Updated After Launch (and the Training That Fixes It)
Launch week is lovely. The site is live, the photos are new, someone shares it on LinkedIn and people say kind things in the comments.
Then it's March. The events page is still promoting something from October. There's a new service the business has offered for weeks that the website hasn't heard about. And the person who was going to "just pop the updates in" has found they'd rather do almost anything else.
Call it the six-month slump. Nobody's being lazy. More often, the person holding the login is worried about breaking something, and that worry is a training problem far more than a technology one. The right Squarespace training fixes it, and it comes in more formats than most people realise.
Personalised Squarespace training means someone working through your own site with you, rather than a general course about the platform. It takes four shapes in practice. Handover training at the end of a build, covering the edits you'll make most often. One-to-one sessions on a site somebody else built, usually an hour or two, aimed at whatever you keep avoiding. A working day such as Designer for a Day, where changes get made while you watch and ask questions. And ongoing support, where you can ask how to do something instead of guessing at it. Squarespace's own webinars, help guides and community forum sit underneath all of that and teach the platform in general. Training is what connects the general to your pages, your content and the way your business actually works.
Why sites stall
Squarespace is built so that people who aren't designers can edit their own sites, which is a big part of why we build on it. Being able to edit and feeling comfortable editing are different things, though.
Owners tend to stall for a handful of predictable reasons:
They're nervous about breaking the layout, especially on pages a designer spent weeks getting right.
They were shown everything at once at launch, which is a lot to remember when you only log in every few weeks.
The person who knew how the site worked has moved on.
Nobody's quite sure who is allowed to change what.
A longer instruction PDF doesn't solve any of those. Practice on your own site does, ideally with someone on hand for the moment you get stuck.
The free options, and where they run out
Before paying anyone, it helps to know what Squarespace gives you for nothing.
The Squarespace Help Center has step-by-step guides for almost every feature.
Squarespace webinars at learning.squarespace.com are on demand, with occasional live Q&A sessions, and cover building a site, selling, SEO, email campaigns and scheduling.
The Squarespace Forum can be used without a paid plan, and someone has usually hit your problem before you.
The Squarespace Help channel on YouTube suits people who'd rather watch than read.
All of these are good. Their limitation is that they teach Squarespace in general, and you're trying to run your site in particular: your layouts, the blog your designer set up, the product variants nobody fully remembers. General knowledge gets you most of the way. The last stretch, the part that stops the panic, is specific to you.
Personalised Squarespace training, from lightest touch to most hands-on
There's no single right format. The best fit depends on how often you update the site, how many people are involved and how you like to learn.
Handover training at launch
If you're having a site built, training should be part of the build rather than an optional extra. Every site we build ends with a handover session on the client's own site, focused on the edits they'll make most often. Whoever you hire, ask what their handover includes before you sign anything.
A tip that costs nothing: record the session. You, logging in eight weeks later with no memory of where the SEO settings were, will be grateful.
One-to-one sessions on your own site
For sites we didn't build, or for owners who want a refresher, one-to-one training works through your real pages and your real questions. It's the quickest route we know from "I'm scared to touch it" to "I changed the homepage banner this morning". An hour covers the basics of editing text and images, checking the mobile layout and publishing safely. Two hours usually gets you through blog posts, SEO settings and whichever section of the site you've been avoiding since launch. If your site sells things, add time for products, variants and order settings, because the commerce side has its own habits and its own places to get stuck.
Bring a list. The most productive sessions start with the five jobs you keep putting off.
A working day where you learn as it's done
Sometimes there's a backlog of changes and a need to understand them. Designer for a Day covers both. An experienced Squarespace designer works through your list, and you can sit alongside, ask why something is done a certain way and have a go yourself. You finish the day with a better site and a much clearer idea of how to keep it that way.
Training for teams
Organisations with several editors need a slightly different approach, and Squarespace's permission roles do a lot of the work. There are 9 roles for the website itself, plus 3 more for Acuity Scheduling, and one person can hold several. A Website Editor, for example, can add content to existing pages but can't add new pages or change styles, which takes most of the fear out of letting a colleague loose on the site. Plans matter here too: the Basic plan allows 1 contributor, the plans above it are unlimited, and a trial site can have up to 5. Team training works best when everyone knows which pages they own, holds the smallest role that lets them do their job, and knows who to ask when something looks wrong. An hour with four people and a shared screen usually does more than four separate emails.
Ongoing help, so you're never stuck for long
Training sticks better with a safety net underneath it. On our support plans, clients can ask how to do something instead of guessing, which turns a small question into a quick answer rather than a three-week delay.
If you suspect the site itself is part of the problem, have a look at the issues that turn up in our Squarespace audits.
What a first training session should cover
Whatever the format, a first session should leave you able to do the everyday jobs without a second thought. For most Squarespace sites that means:
editing text and swapping images in Fluid Engine, then checking the result in mobile view
adding alt text to images and an SEO description to a page
writing, scheduling and publishing a blog post, excerpt and thumbnail included
updating products, events or portfolio projects, if your site has them
finding where form submissions go, and changing it when someone leaves
reading the basic analytics, so you know which pages people use
A good session is also clear about what to leave alone for now. Site Styles, Code Injection and URL mappings can change a lot in one click, so they're best saved for when you've had specific guidance.
Questions to ask before you book training
Anyone offering personalised Squarespace training should be comfortable answering these:
Will we work on my own site, with my own content?
Can I record the session?
Do you work in Squarespace 7.1 and Fluid Engine every week?
Can other people from my team join?
What happens when I get stuck a month later?
To compare options, Squarespace's Marketplace lists Squarespace Experts, and training and support is one of the services they can be hired for.
The numbers worth remembering
A handful of Squarespace limits come up in almost every session, and knowing them saves a lot of second-guessing:
Images: 2,500 pixels wide is ideal, 500 KB or less is the recommended file size, and 20 MB is the hard ceiling per upload.
Product photos: under 5 MB, with up to 250 variant combinations and six option types per product.
SEO descriptions: 50 to 300 characters per page.
Contributors: one on the Basic plan, unlimited on the plans above it, and up to five on a trial site.
Permission roles: nine for the website itself, plus three more if you use Acuity Scheduling.
A routine that stops the slump coming back
Confidence fades if you only open the site twice a year, so a light routine helps. Something like this works for most small teams:
Put a 30-minute website slot in the diary each month and treat it like a meeting.
Keep a running note of changes as they come up, so the slot isn't spent trying to remember them.
Check the page on your phone every time you publish something.
Once a quarter, reread your most important pages and ask whether they still describe what you do.
Hardly glamorous, but it works.
Getting started
Teaching Squarespace is a big part of our work. Dave, who founded the studio, is a Squarespace Authorised Trainer. His course for web professionals features on Squarespace's Professional Learning page, and we've built more than 650 Squarespace sites since 2014.
If your site has been quietly drifting, tell us where you're stuck. We'll suggest the lightest kind of help that gets you moving again, whether that's an hour of training, a day of work with someone sitting alongside you, or a support plan so there's always someone to ask. Most owners need less help than they expect. They just need it on their own site, with their own content in front of them, at the moment they're trying to do the thing.
FAQs
What options are available for personalised training on managing a Squarespace website?
There are four main options. Handover training at the end of a build, which should cover the edits you'll make most often on your own site. One-to-one sessions, usually an hour or two, for sites somebody else built or for owners who want a refresher. Working days such as Made by Dave's Designer for a Day, where an experienced designer makes changes while you watch, ask questions and try things yourself. And ongoing support plans, where you can ask how to do something rather than guessing. Squarespace itself offers free on-demand webinars, a detailed Help Center and a community forum you can use without a paid plan, which cover the platform in general rather than your particular site.
Does Made by Dave provide training after building a Squarespace website?
Yes. Every Made by Dave build ends with a handover training session on the client's own site. Clients can also book one-to-one training later, use a Designer for a Day as a learning day, or get ongoing help through a monthly support plan.
Is there free Squarespace training?
Yes. Squarespace offers on-demand webinars at learning.squarespace.com, detailed guides in its Help Center, a forum you can use without a paid plan and a help channel on YouTube. These teach the platform in general, while personalised training focuses on your own site.
How can we stop staff breaking the design of our Squarespace site?
Give each person the smallest permission role they need. Squarespace's Website Editor role can add content to existing pages but can't add new pages or make style changes, which protects the design while letting people keep content up to date.
