A Complete Guide To Move Your Blog From Squarespace To WordPress

March 6th, 2018 | by Ravi Chahar || 13 Comments |

There are different kinds of platforms to build your website and Squarespace is one of the famous platforms.

But every platform has some limitations and many Squarespace users are trying to find any other CMS.

As you all know, WordPress is one of the hottest topics in this new era of blogging. But most of the people fret when they read about the technical things.

In this tutorial, you will learn the easiest way to move your blog from Squarespace to WordPress.

Squarespace provides the freedom to export the content of a blog only for WordPress. You just have to export and import the data.

What Do You Need To Do Before Starting

To start a blog with WordPress ( we are talking about WordPress.org ), you would need a web hosting and a domain name.

If already have a custom domain name with Squarespace then you may also want to transfer that. If you don’t have any custom domain name then buy a domain name.

But don’t make the domain name mistakes people make.

To start a professional blog, you should always choose a reliable web hosting which can stand for long.

We recommend Inmotionhosting and Bluehost. If you want more affordable hosting then try Greengeeks or iPage.

What Are The Steps Required To Move Your Blog from Squarespace To WordPress

Let me give you an overview.

1. Install WordPress
2. Export content from Squarespace.
3. Import content into WordPress.
4. Export Images from Squarespace
5. Export Other Content From Squarespace.
6. Set Proper Permalinks.
7. Explore WordPress.

These are the basic steps to migrate the whole data from Squarespace to your WordPress blog.

1. Install WordPress.

After buying a web host, you would need to install WordPress. Most of the web hosting providers give a one-click WordPress installation.

You can install WordPress using cPanel manually. You Can also use any other tool like Softaculous.

There are different tutorials as mentioned in here.

2. Export Content From Squarespace

Now is the time to export the content of your Squarespace blog.

Login to your account and go to Settings>>Advanced>>Import/Export.

Click on that option and you will see two options. One is for exporting the content and another one is to import.

Click on “Export” button.

A popup would appear where you can easily see the WordPress logo. Click on that logo.

Squarespace will gather all the data of your blog and after finishing, you will see an option to download it.

Just click on the “download” button and an XML will get downloaded to your computer. Keep this file safe and don’t make any changes.

3. Import Content Into WordPress

You have successfully downloaded the backup of your Squarespace blog. Now, you have to upload that data to WordPress.

Login to your WordPress login panel and go to Tools>>Import.

A new page would appear to you. You will see many options. As there is no specific option for Squarespace so you have to use the WordPress importer.

Click on “install now” link below “WordPress” and go head to install it. It’s a plugin which helps to import the data.

After installation, you will see an option to run importer.

By mistake, if you close that page, you can find the WordPress importer plugin in the plugin section.

After running it, you will see a button to “Choose file”, click on that button and pick the backup file from your computer you imported from your Squarespace blog.

After that click on the “Upload and Import” button.

The file will get uploaded within a few seconds depending on the size.

After that, you will be asked to assign all the posts to any WordPress user. Whether you can assign to the user you have created while installing WordPress or create a new one.

Click on the submit button and you will see the success notification.

You have successfully imported the data into your WordPress blog.

This is the most important step when you move your blog from Squarespace to WordPress.

4. Export Images From Squarespace

It’s possible that the images of your posts won’t appear in WordPress.

It’s because the WordPress importer doesn’t help you in exporting the images. You have to do it manually.

Save your images to your computer and add in your blog posts using the WordPress post editor.

Currently, there is no specific plugin which is updated and can do this job. So, you have to put some effort.

5. Export Other Content from Squarespace

As we’re talking about the limitations, Squarespace doesn’t let you export all the content.

If you have installed any audio or video file in Squarespace, you have to export that manually.

People are really into podcasting now. So if you too have uploaded any then again upload it to your WordPress media library.

Well, you would be happy to know that you can add video to WordPress without even consuming any space. Just use the YouTube videos and embed them into WordPress.

The same goes for the audios. You can embed audio in WordPress by using the SoundCloud server or any other website.

If you want to use the WordPress then you can even create an audio playlist in WordPress media library.

And if you were selling any products then use Woocommerce plugin to upload those products to your WordPress site.

6. Set Proper Permalink Structures

To match the permalinks of your Squarespace blog, you have to set it from your WordPress settings.

Just go to Settings>>Permalinks and a new page would get opened.

Choose the “Day And Name” option.

You would see the custom structure at the bottom.

In some Squarespace blogs, the permalinks may consist your blog name or simply “blog” as the prefix of the permalinks.

You should check that.

If there is any prefix then you have to edit the “Custom Structure” by adding that prefix.

Suppose the prefix is “blog” then the permalinks would be like this.

/blog/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

I have added “blog” in the front as a prefix.

If you don’t see any prefix then just use the date and name permalinks structure.

This is also an important step to move your blog from Squarespace to WordPress and keeping the SEO.

7. Explore WordPress

If you want to use the same beautiful Squarespace template on a WordPress blog then it’s not possible.

You have to buy a better-looking theme. You can also use a free theme from the WordPress repository.

But it’s always recommended to buy a premium theme which fits your blog.

There are many theme providers.

• Elegant Themes.
• MyThemeShop.

And if you want the design of your choice then the best thing is to hire some to build a custom theme for you.

You can contact us for that.

Install Plugins.

There are many WordPress plugins which should be installed to handle your blog properly.

For SEO, Yoast SEO is one of the best plugins.

You should know the contact form plugins so that people can contact you directly from your blog.

Learn about the basic SEO tips and tricks to achieve the better ranking.

There are many blog traffic tactics to drive more people to your blog. And don’t forget to learn about the WordPress mistakes people make.

Did You Move Your Blog From Squarespace To WordPress

If you have followed each and every step mentioned above, you would possibly be live on your WordPress blog.

I have experienced that people keep asking for the solutions in the Facebook groups because most of them have come to know about WordPress.

It’s one of the best open source platforms which provides many features.

You can do anything with WordPress.

Most of the professionals recommend WordPress to have a perfect and professional blog. I hope now, you can move your blog from Squarespace to WordPress successfully.

And if you’re directly starting with WordPress then you should read these 7 tips to start your own blog and make money from it.

If you face any problem, feel free to drop a comment.

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