DIY vs Hiring a Squarespace Expert: What’s Worth Doing Yourself?

Squarespace is one of the best platforms for getting a professional site online without a dev team. But there’s a point where DIY stops being efficient and starts being expensive — in time, lost leads, and messy workarounds.

This article helps you decide what’s genuinely worth doing yourself and what you should hand off to a Squarespace expert.

What’s worth doing yourself (high leverage, low risk)

1) Writing your content (or at least the raw draft)

No one knows your business like you do. You should own:

• what you sell and who it’s for

• your proof (testimonials, results, case studies)

• the objections you hear on sales calls

A developer can structure and polish it, but the substance should come from you.

2) Building the first draft pages

DIY works well for:

• Home

• Services

• About

• Contact

• Basic blog layout

Squarespace’s editor is designed to get something respectable live quickly.

3) Basic SEO hygiene

Squarespace makes it easy to cover the basics, and these early wins compound over time.

DIY SEO tasks that make sense:

• page titles and descriptions

• clean heading structure (one clear main heading per page)

• image alt text for important pages

• hiding pages you don’t want indexed

4) Simple payments for services

If you sell services and want a fast way to get paid (deposits, one-off services, retainers), Squarespace’s built-in payment options are simple enough to handle yourself.

What’s usually not worth DIY (where owners waste weeks)

1) Mobile layout that actually converts

Most business owners design for desktop and hope mobile “just works.”

In reality, mobile is where conversions are lost when:

• pages get too long

• calls-to-action are buried

• spacing feels off

• sections appear in the wrong order

An experienced Squarespace expert treats mobile as its own conversion experience.

2) Custom code (especially “just a small tweak”)

Squarespace allows custom CSS and code injection, but this is where DIY often backfires:

• layouts breaking after style changes

• scripts conflicting with each other

• tracking firing twice or not at all

• issues that only show up on mobile

If something feels “almost simple,” that’s usually a sign to bring in help.

3) Performance and speed troubleshooting

Basic image cleanup is fine to do yourself. But deeper speed issues get technical fast.

Performance problems often come from:

• oversized media

• heavy page layouts

• unnecessary scripts

• inefficient section structure

A pro can usually spot and fix the biggest issues much faster.

4) SEO structure for competitive searches

Ranking for competitive terms usually requires:

• intentional page structure

• smart internal linking

• avoiding thin or duplicated pages

• clear service positioning

DIY SEO can work, but it’s easy to spend months doing tasks that don’t move rankings.

5) Analytics and tracking you can actually trust

If you run ads or want real insights, tracking matters.

DIY tracking often ends up as:

• “I think it works”

• mismatched numbers

• duplicate events

• no clear idea what converts

That’s risky when you’re making business decisions.

A simple decision framework

DIY if:

• you’re early stage and need a clean presence

• “good enough” is fine for now

• you can invest time without hurting sales

• your site is mostly standard pages and forms

Hire a Squarespace expert if:

• your site is live but not converting

• mobile feels messy or too long

• you need custom sections or integrations

• performance and SEO matter beyond basics

• you’re spending money on ads and need reliable data

The best-of-both-worlds approach

The most efficient setup for many businesses is:

1. You build the first draft (structure + rough content).

2. A Squarespace expert does a focused improvement pass:

   • mobile cleanup

   • layout hierarchy

   • call-to-action placement

   • speed improvements

   • SEO structure

   • tracking setup

This usually costs less than a full build and produces much better results than DIY alone.

Want a quick, honest opinion on your site?

If you send me:

• your Squarespace URL

• what your business sells

• what you want more of (leads, calls, sales)

I’ll tell you what’s worth fixing yourself, what’s worth hiring for, and the top 3 changes most likely to improve conversions on your site.