You’ve hit the ceiling on Squarespace. No real plugin ecosystem, limited SEO controls, a store that can’t do what you need, and a template that looked fine in 2022 but now looks like everyone else’s site. WordPress solves all of that — but only if the move doesn’t wreck the rankings and content you’ve already built.
A Squarespace to WordPress migration isn’t a one-click export. Squarespace’s built-in export tool moves less than most people expect, and the gap between what it hands you and what your site actually needs is where migrations go wrong — broken image links, missing store data, and URLs that 404 the moment DNS switches over. This guide covers exactly what transfers, what doesn’t, and the step-by-step process to move without losing SEO equity.
What Does a Squarespace to WordPress Migration Actually Involve?
A full migration has four parts: exporting your Squarespace content, importing it into a new WordPress install, rebuilding everything the export doesn’t carry over, and redirecting every old URL to its new WordPress equivalent so Google and your visitors land in the right place.
The export/import piece is the easy part and the one most guides focus on. The other three — rebuilding layout elements the XML format can’t hold, matching your old URL structure, and testing before you flip DNS — are where most of the actual work happens, and where a rushed migration loses traffic it never recovers.
What Does Squarespace’s XML Export Include — and What Does It Miss?
Squarespace’s export (Settings → Advanced → Import/Export → WordPress) hands you an XML file containing your blog posts, standard page text content, page titles, and publish dates. Everything else on the page — including the images themselves — has to be recovered separately.
Here’s the breakdown, because “some things don’t transfer” isn’t specific enough to plan around:
What the XML export includes:
- Blog post titles, body text, and publish dates
- Static page text content (About, Contact, etc., as plain paragraphs)
- Basic formatting: bold, italic, links, headings
- Categories and tags on blog posts
What it does not include:
- Image files — the export contains image URLs pointing back to Squarespace’s CDN, not the actual files. If you cancel your Squarespace plan before re-hosting those images, every image reference breaks.
- Gallery blocks, index pages, and summary blocks — Squarespace’s signature layout blocks have no WordPress equivalent and export as blank space or broken shortcodes.
- Products and store data — SKUs, variants, inventory counts, and order history don’t move through the XML export at all. If you’re on Squarespace Commerce, this needs a separate plan (usually a CSV product export plus manual WooCommerce setup).
- Forms and form submissions — Squarespace forms don’t export; you’ll rebuild them with a WordPress form plugin (Gravity Forms, WPForms, or similar).
- Custom CSS, site-wide design, and third-party embeds — anything you customized at the template level starts from zero on WordPress.
- SEO metadata and existing redirects — meta descriptions and any redirects you’d already set up in Squarespace don’t carry over.
If your site is mostly blog content and simple pages, the export covers most of the heavy lifting. If it leans on Squarespace’s portfolio/gallery blocks, sells products, or collects form leads, expect the rebuild step to take longer than the import itself. For a broader look at what trips up migrations generally, not just this one, see our guide to avoiding common WordPress migration errors.
How Do You Prepare Before Starting the Migration?
Do the inventory work before you touch the export button — it’s the difference between a controlled migration and a scramble once your Squarespace URLs start returning 404s.
- Crawl and list every live URL. Use Screaming Frog or a free crawler to pull a complete list of your current Squarespace pages and posts — this becomes your redirect map later.
- Screenshot every page. The export won’t preserve layout, so screenshots are your reference for rebuilding design and content order.
- Pull your current SEO data. Export meta titles and descriptions from Squarespace’s SEO panel, and pull your top-performing pages from Google Search Console so you know what’s worth protecting.
- Download your images at full resolution, separately from the XML export, directly from your Squarespace media library or page editor.
- Decide on hosting before importing anything. WordPress needs a host and a fresh install; unlike Squarespace, hosting isn’t bundled in.
What Are the Step-by-Step Stages of a Squarespace to WordPress Migration?
The process runs in a fixed order — skipping ahead (pointing your domain before content and redirects are ready, for example) is the single most common way migrations go visibly wrong for site visitors.
- Set up WordPress hosting and install WordPress. Choose a host, install WordPress on a staging URL or subdomain first — never build directly on the live domain while Squarespace is still serving traffic.
- Export your Squarespace content as XML. Settings → Advanced → Import/Export → Export → WordPress. Download the file when it’s ready.
- Import the XML into WordPress. Tools → Import → WordPress → install the WordPress Importer plugin → upload your file. Map authors and choose whether to download attached images (this pulls in what little media the export references, though not everything).
- Re-upload and reattach images manually. Using the full-resolution images you downloaded during prep, re-insert them into the corresponding posts and pages. A plugin like Auto Upload Images can catch stray external image URLs the importer missed, but manual review still matters for anything visually important.
- Rebuild what didn’t export. Galleries, index/summary blocks, product pages, and forms all get rebuilt natively in WordPress — with a theme’s built-in features, a page builder, or custom-coded templates depending on complexity.
- Map old URLs to new ones and set up 301 redirects. This is the step that protects your SEO — covered in detail below.
- QA everything on staging. Check every internal link, every form submission, mobile rendering, and page speed before this goes live. This is also the point to compare against our general website migration checklist to make sure nothing platform-specific was missed.
- Point your domain to the new WordPress host. Update DNS/nameservers at your registrar. Propagation typically takes a few hours, occasionally up to 48.
How Do You Set Up SEO-Safe Redirects So You Don’t Lose Rankings?
Every URL that existed on Squarespace needs a 301 redirect pointing to its WordPress equivalent, set up before your domain switches over — not after Google starts reporting errors.
Squarespace and WordPress structure URLs differently by default, so an exact match rarely happens automatically. Build a redirect map as a simple spreadsheet: old URL in one column, new WordPress URL in the other, for every page and post from your crawl in the prep step. Where possible, configure WordPress permalinks (Settings → Permalinks) to match your old URL pattern exactly — a redirect you don’t need is better than one you do.
For the redirects themselves, a plugin like Redirection (free) handles bulk 301s without touching server config files. Once live, resubmit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console and monitor the Coverage report for a few weeks — any old URL still generating impressions without a matching redirect is lost equity you can still recover by adding it to the map.
This is also where most DIY migrations quietly lose traffic: individual page redirects get set up, but old category pages, tag archives, or paginated blog URLs get missed because they’re easy to forget when you’re working from a page list instead of a full site crawl. If your migration involves a large blog archive or a site with meaningful organic traffic, this step alone is worth professional review — see our WordPress website migration service if you want that checked before going live.
What Are Your Design Rebuild Options on WordPress?
You have three paths, ranging from fastest-and-most-generic to slowest-and-most-tailored: a pre-built theme, a page builder, or a custom build.
- Pre-built theme. Fastest and cheapest option. Pick a theme close to your desired look and adjust colors, fonts, and layout through the Customizer or full-site editor. Works well for straightforward content sites; starts to feel constrained the moment your Squarespace design had anything unusual.
- Page builder (Elementor, Divi, or similar). More design flexibility than a stock theme, drag-and-drop editing, and a large ecosystem of add-ons. Trade-off: page builders add their own CSS/JS weight, which can hurt page speed if not configured carefully.
- Custom WordPress development. Built to match your exact brand and content structure rather than adapting to a template’s constraints. Costs more upfront but avoids the long-term drag of fighting a generic theme or builder, and gives you a lighter, faster site by default. This is the path for stores, larger content libraries, or any site where “close enough to a template” isn’t good enough — see our custom WordPress development service for what that process looks like.
Should You DIY the Migration or Hire a Professional?
DIY works when your site is small, content-only, and you’re comfortable troubleshooting plugin conflicts and DNS settings yourself. Hire a professional when SEO traffic, e-commerce, or your time is worth more than the hours this will take to get right.
Green flags for DIY:
- Under ~20 pages, mostly text and standard images
- No online store, memberships, or complex forms
- Little to no organic search traffic to protect
- You’re comfortable in WordPress settings and don’t mind a learning curve
Red flags — hire it out:
- A Squarespace store with live products and order history
- Meaningful organic traffic you can’t afford to lose during the switch
- Gallery-heavy, portfolio-style layouts that need real rebuilding, not just re-pasting text
- A hard deadline (launch event, rebrand date) with no room for a botched DNS cutover
If you’re unsure which camp you’re in, a free website audit will tell you what your current Squarespace site is actually carrying in terms of SEO equity and complexity — useful information before deciding how much of this to take on yourself. The same trade-off applies to other platform switches; if you’re coming from Wix instead, the mechanics differ enough that it’s worth reading our dedicated Wix to WordPress migration guide rather than assuming the process is identical.
How Long Does a Squarespace to WordPress Migration Take?
A content-only site with under 20 pages typically takes a few days to a week, done carefully. A site with a store, custom galleries, or meaningful SEO history to protect usually runs two to four weeks once you factor in design rebuild, redirect mapping, and staging QA.
The bottleneck is almost never the export/import step — it’s rebuilding what didn’t transfer and testing redirects thoroughly enough that nothing breaks on launch day.
How Much Does It Cost to Migrate from Squarespace to WordPress?
Hosting is the only fixed cost everyone pays, typically $5–$30/month depending on host and traffic. Beyond that, cost depends entirely on how much rebuild work is involved: a simple content site handled DIY can cost close to nothing beyond hosting and a theme; a store or design-heavy site handled by an agency typically runs from a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on page count, e-commerce complexity, and whether you want a custom build versus a theme.
Getting a fixed quote requires knowing your actual scope — page count, whether you’re running a store, and how attached you are to your current design — which is exactly what a migration audit establishes before work starts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I lose my SEO rankings when I migrate from Squarespace to WordPress?
Not if redirects are set up correctly. Rankings are attached to URLs, and Google needs a 301 redirect from every old Squarespace URL to its new WordPress equivalent to transfer that page’s authority. Migrations that lose rankings almost always skipped or incompletely mapped this step — not because the platform switch itself hurts SEO.
Does Squarespace export images when you migrate to WordPress?
No, not the actual files. The XML export contains image URLs pointing to Squarespace’s CDN, not the image files themselves. You need to separately download your images at full resolution and re-upload them into WordPress, or a stray URL reference can break entirely if you cancel Squarespace before the images are recovered.
Can I keep my Squarespace domain when moving to WordPress?
Yes. Your domain is independent of your hosting platform. You either transfer the domain to your new WordPress host’s registrar or simply update the DNS/nameserver records to point at the new host while keeping the domain where it is. Either approach works; DNS-only changes are simpler and usually sufficient.
What happens to my Squarespace online store when migrating to WordPress?
Products, variants, inventory, and order history don’t move through the standard XML export. Store migrations need a separate product export (usually CSV) and a WooCommerce setup on the WordPress side, with someone checking that pricing, variants, and inventory counts landed correctly before the store goes live.
How much does a Squarespace to WordPress migration cost?
Hosting runs roughly $5–$30/month regardless of approach. Beyond that, a simple content site handled yourself costs little beyond hosting and a theme; a store or design-heavy site handled professionally typically runs from a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on scope.
Do I need a developer to migrate from Squarespace to WordPress?
Not always. A small, content-only site is realistic to migrate yourself with patience for the redirect and rebuild steps. A store, a large blog archive with real organic traffic, or a design you want preserved closely are the situations where a developer’s time pays for itself in avoided SEO loss and rebuild rework.
You Might Also Find Useful
- Website migration checklist — the general platform-agnostic process this guide builds on
- Migrate Wix to WordPress — the equivalent guide if you’re coming from Wix instead
- Common WordPress migration errors — what breaks most often, across any source platform
- WordPress website migration services — for redirect mapping and rebuild work handled for you
- Free website audit — see what your current site is carrying before you decide DIY vs hire
