Making Website Updates Without Breaking the Strategy
So you’ve launched your new website. It’s aligned with your branding, designed to convert, and built to support how your business operates and drive your goals.
As intended, the business continues to grow.
Over time you’ll have images to swap, blog posts to publish, offers to refine, messaging to sharpen. Perhaps your audience evolves. Perhaps your copy needs tweaking to match what’s true now.
This is where things can get messy without the right approach. Most website problems are caused by small edits made without seeing how they affect the larger system.
So the question isn’t whether you can make updates. Of course you can. The question is how to make them (or delegate them) without quietly breaking the strategy behind what’s working.
This guide will help you understand what’s safe to handle in-house, what deserves more care, and when professional support protects the investment you’ve already made.
Think of this as an owner’s manual for an active digital ecosystem.
Low-Risk Maintenance You Can Handle In-House
Think of this category as ongoing upkeep. Things like light text edits, swapping images, publishing blog posts, or updating your portfolio or project gallery. The kind of changes that keep the site current without altering how it fundamentally works.
When handled thoughtfully, these updates support the system rather than disrupt it.
1. Compress Images Before Uploading
After years of building websites, one pattern never changes. Large image files quietly destroy site performance (aka: website load times).
Uploading an 8MB image straight from the photographer will slow you website load time, impacting both user experience and search visibility.
What to do:
Always compress images before uploading. I use TinyJPG, their paid plan works even better, especially if you want to convert images into more efficient web formats like WebP.
Aim for files under 500KB, ideally less than 100KB (and around 200KB if you must, to preserve quality).
Use Squarespace’s built-in image editor only after compression, not instead of it.
Why this matters: Page speed affects search rankings and conversion. A slow loading site loses attention before your website has a chance to do its job.
2. Make Text Edits Without Disrupting Layout
Squarespace’s editor is flexible, which is great, but at the moment it’s super sensitive. You change one word and suddenly a section shifts, spacing feels off, or all of your elements have suddenly jumped across the section. (Although I do have to give the Squarespace team a lot of credit for always innovating and looking to improve the platform offerings - from design to selling).
A few guardrails:
Make small text edits one section at a time
Always check desktop and mobile before publishing
If something jumps, undo and try again with a smaller adjustment first. For example, Instead of changing the whole paragraph, which is causing the spacing shift and elements to jump around the section, try sentence by sentence. Is this annoying? Yes. Will it keep you from having to shape shift the entire section again? Also, yes.
Schedule these updates when you’re not rushed. Structural issues rarely come from big decisions. They come from hurried ones.
3. Don’t Skip the SEO Basics When Adding Content
Every time you add a new page or blog post, you’re also responsible for helping search engines understand what it’s about. Skipping this step doesn’t break your site, but it does make your content harder to find. Which semi-defeats the purpose of publishing it in the first place if you’re blogging to improve your website visibility.
For every new page, make sure you’ve covered the basics:
Page title. This lives under Page Settings and should clearly reflect what the page is about.
Meta description. A short, human-readable summary that sets expectations and includes relevant keywords. Use a max of 155 characters, it doesn’t matter that Squarespace gives you up to 400 characters.
URL slug. Keep it as short as possible and descriptive to what your post is about.
Proper Heading structure. Use H1, H2, and H3 intentionally. Not for styling, but for structure. Your blog title will already be an H1. Subheaders should be H2. Topics within those subheaders should be H3. That hierarchy matters because it helps search engines scan the page and understand what your content is about. Please do not use H1, H2, or H3 just because you like the size of the text. If you want something to stand out visually, bold it instead. Search engines can’t interpret design preferences. They rely on structure.
Image filenames. Rename images before uploading instead of leaving them as something like IMG_4837.jpg.
Alt text. Describe what’s actually in the image. Alt text matters for accessibility and SEO. It helps screen readers describe images to users who can’t see them, and it gives search engines more context about your content. You can include relevant keywords if they make sense, but always write alt text for the human first. If it wouldn’t sound reasonable read aloud, it probably needs adjusting.
For blog posts specifically, don’t forget to complete:
Blog excerpt and post URL completed
Add Categories (stick to the 3-5 blog categories you’ve defined) and tags (as many as you want)
SEO meta title (55 characters or less) and meta description (155 characters or less) filled in
Social share image selected
After significant updates, resubmit your sitemap in Google Search Console using: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml for Squarespace sites. This step helps Google recognize changes faster. It’s not glamorous, but it’s part of responsible upkeep.
4. Keep Your Content Fresh
Search engines like websites that show signs of life. So do actual humans. That doesn’t mean you need to post constantly or create content for the sake of it. It means your site shouldn’t feel frozen in time.
Simple, effective ways to keep things current and stay relevant:
Publish blog posts when you have something meaningful to share
Refresh your portfolio or project gallery with recent work
Update testimonials as new ones come in
Adjust service copy as your offers evolve
Consistency and quality matter far more than sloppy or generic volume. A site that’s maintained thoughtfully will always outperform one that’s busy but unfocused or sounds like every other fully AI-produced content. One important note while we’re here: if you’ve asked ChatGPT to draft a blog post for you, for the love of tacos, higher powers, or whatever you believe in most, add your expertise to it. Generic content is easy to spot. People can feel when something lacks lived experience, and that’s how authority erodes. Use AI as a starting point, not a substitute. Your insight is the part that does that actually carries weight.
Structural Changes That Require Intention
These updates affect how visitors move through your site, how they make decisions, and ultimately how your site converts. They often look simple on the surface, but they can have real SEO and usability consequences if handled carelessly or incorrectly.
This is where a the following insight will go a long way.
5. Enabling or Disabling Pages
First rule: avoid deleting pages unless you are absolutely certain they were never indexed or linked anywhere. If you’re not sure, assume they were.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about here…
Here’s how to handle this responsibly:
Best practices:
If you’re redesigning a page, you can reuse the existing URL once the new version is ready. When you publish the updated page, disable the old version. At that point, you can delete the old page entirely if you don’t need it for reference and don’t plan to reuse any of its design or content.
When adding new pages, make sure they’re properly linked from your navigation or from a relevant, high-traffic page. Pages that aren’t linked create dead ends and get missed.
If you run seasonal launches and want to redirect visitors during off periods, use a temporary redirect to the active or next-best page.
This is especially important for checkout and sales pages. If someone lands on a disabled page with no redirect, you’re losing opportunities to capture interest, build your list, or guide them to what is available. When launch time comes around again, that’s a larger, warmer audience you could already be speaking to.
Important note: this should be a temporary (302) redirect, not a 301. A 301 tells search engines the page is gone permanently.
If you disable a page that was indexed and don’t plan to bring it back, set up a 301 redirect to the most relevant alternative page on your site. This commonly applies to blog posts, gallery pages, or case studies that no longer reflect your current offers, positioning, or the evolution of your brand.
Handled thoughtfully, these decisions protect more than SEO. They preserve trust, keep momentum moving in the right direction, and ensure every visit has a clear path forward, whether that’s joining your list, exploring an active offer, or preparing for what’s coming next.
6. Understanding Your Analytics (Without the a Headache)
Data is only helpful if you know what you’re looking for. Too much creates noise and pulls your attention away from the signals that matter most. The goal here isn’t to monitor everything. It’s to understand whether your website is doing the job it’s meant to do.
Squarespace Analytics gives you a high-level view of what’s happening on your site day to day and serves as your quick pulse check. It’s great for answering questions like:
How much traffic your site is getting and where it’s coming from, including:
Sources (for example: Google, referral sites, Instagram)
Geography (for example: USA vs. Canada)
Device (for example: Mac vs. Windows)
Which pages people visit most and how long they spend on those pages
Search keywords you’re ranking for, which pages are ranking, and where in the ranking they’re appearing (for example: 1st vs. 40th position in results)
Google Search Console helps you monitor and improve your website’s visibility on Google search results, including:
The search terms people use to find you
Any technical issues Google is flagging
How your pages are performing in search results
Google Analytics provides insights into how visitors behave on your website once they land there.
One tool I especially love using is Microsoft Clarity.
Microsoft Clarity shows you screen recordings of real visitors navigating your site, along with AI-generated insights about user behavior. In simple terms, you can see how people move through your pages. Where they scroll. Where they hesitate. Where they click. Where they get stuck.
This is incredibly helpful for understanding whether your strategy is translating into real-world behavior. It also makes it much easier to spot friction points, confusing layouts, or moments where visitors drop off before taking action.
How often to check: Review analytics monthly. Look for patterns, rather than daily fluctuations. You’re not trying to micromanage performance, you’re checking whether the system is functioning as intended and where adjustments could improve clarity or flow to support your goals. Used this way, analytics become a decision-support tool, not a source of stress and a data black hole.
System-Level Changes That Require Support
Some updates don’t just change content, they change the system.
And yes, I get the temptation to tinker. When something feels close to working, it’s natural to want to adjust it yourself. The issue isn’t curiosity. It’s impact. At this level, even well-intentioned changes can affect strategy, conversion, and flow in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.
There’s a reason many of my clients maintain an ongoing partnership with me. As their businesses grow, they’re not asking for tweaks. They’re asking for things like new pages, course or membership additions, expanded e-commerce functionality, new sales pages, and systems that support how the business is evolving.
Those changes deserve a different level of care.
This is where professional support makes sense:
Changing the layout or structure of key pages
Adding new sections that weren’t part of the original design
Modifying site navigation
Introducing more complex functionality such as forms, bookings, memberships, or checkout flows
Anything involving custom code
Your website isn’t a collection of static pages, it’s intentionally designed to guide visitors toward specific actions. Structural changes made without that context can weaken what’s already working. This is about continuity.
If you’re considering updates at this level, reach out. I’m always happy to support changes that protect the strategy while helping the site grow alongside your business.
Your Website Is a Living Asset
Your website should evolve as your business evolves. The goal is to make purposeful updates that strengthen what’s already in place.
You invested in professional design and strategy for a reason, not just to launch something beautiful, but to create a digital system that supports growth, conversion, and clarity over time. Use these guidelines to maintain that investment, make confident updates where it makes sense, and recognize when support keeps the system working at its best.
That’s how a good website continues to earn its place on your team.
