How to Optimize Your Squarespace Website for Mobile Device

In today's digital landscape, it's increasingly common for people to access websites directly from their mobile devices. The analytics show nearly a 60/40 split between desktop and mobile views. If your website shines on a desktop but requires pinching and zooming on a phone, you're doing your brand a disservice. Not only does it discourage visitors, but it also negatively impacts your SEO, potentially costing you a significant amount of web traffic and revenue.

It's Great That Squarespace's responsive design adapts your site for every screen, from desktops to mobiles. However, there may be instances where you want more control over the mobile layout to ensure it aligns with your design vision. Achieving a professional look on mobile devices can make a big difference in user experience and engagement.

In This blog, we'll guide you through ways to check, optimize, and maximize your mobile layout in Squarespace, ensuring your website looks fantastic on every screen. Don't miss out on potential customers due to a subpar mobile experience. 

How does Squarespace’s responsive design work?

Squarespace's versatile platform caters to both mobile and desktop users, allowing website creation and management in both formats. You can edit your site on the go, and the mobile editor in Squarespace 7.1 Fluid Engine empowers users to tailor their mobile website separately from the desktop version without impacting its functionality. While you can customize columns for mobile, the desktop site remains unaffected. However, keep in mind that certain features are desktop-exclusive, necessitating consideration of mobile-desktop differences during customization. Squarespace automatically optimizes your site layout for mobile viewing, though some templates are more mobile-friendly than others. The platform strives to make website editing and customization a seamless experience for users across both mobile and desktop platforms.

Improve Squarespace Website Load Time.

Improving page load speed is a vital aspect of mobile-friendly design. When users access your website on their mobile devices, their gadgets need to download all the page's content. Given that mobile devices often have simpler hardware and rely on cellular networks, pages loaded with heavy content may suffer from slow loading times. This can be detrimental to both SEO and user experience.

To enhance your page load speed, target keeping each page's content under 5 MB. If you find the need to reduce your content's size, here are some practical tips for quicker loading:

Optimize image size: Strive to maintain images below 500 KB each while preserving an optimal width of about 1500-2000px for full-width images. In general, .jpg images tend to have smaller file sizes compared to .png. You can resize images using image compressors like CompressPNG or CompressJPEG.

Streamline embedded content: Embedded content, especially videos, can increase page load times. If your website features an abundance of media content, consider distributing it across multiple pages instead of housing it all on one page.

Trim gallery size: Aim to limit photo galleries to fewer than 50 images each. For larger galleries, simply provide links to them on different pages.

By implementing these measures, you can significantly enhance your website's mobile loading performance.

Optimize Your Squarespace Font Sizes for Mobile View.

While Squarespace automatically adjusts font sizes for mobile devices, you might want to further enhance legibility by customizing font sizes. This can be done through custom CSS in your site's backend under Design > Custom CSS. The following code template allows you to fine-tune font sizes for various styles on mobile. You can specify your preferred sizes, but remember to remove any lines you're not modifying:

Css Code:

@media screen and (max-width: 640px) {
  p {font-size: __ ;}
  h1 {font-size: __ ;}
  h2 {font-size: __ ;}
  h3 {font-size: __ ;}
}

Customizing font sizes can provide a more tailored experience for your mobile visitors.

Optimize Mobile Device Image Focal Points.

On mobile devices, images can sometimes get cropped in a way that doesn't highlight the key part of the image. Squarespace's default behavior preserves the center of the image, which might not be ideal for every case, especially when text overlays the image. To resolve this issue, you can control the focal point of your images for mobile viewing.

When you access your image settings, you'll notice a small circle representing the focal point. You can easily drag this circle to your desired position on the image, indicating where you want the emphasis to be when it's cropped for mobile screens. Just remember to save your changes before exiting the image settings

Eliminating Excessive Spacing Between Content.

When crafting a visually pleasing website, you often use spacer blocks to fine-tune the spacing between different sections, ensuring it looks perfect on desktop screens. However, this meticulous spacing can sometimes create a less-than-ideal viewing experience on mobile devices, where excessive gaps can disrupt the flow.

So, what's the solution? Here are two clever Squarespace hacks to ensure your site looks fantastic on both desktop and mobile:

Double Up: Spacer Block Twins

If you've noticed excessive spacing on mobile due to spacer blocks, don't fret. There's a simple trick to eliminate that extra space on mobile without affecting the desktop layout.

Instead of using a single spacer block, consider using two spacer blocks placed side by side. These twins work like a charm – they cancel each other out on mobile while maintaining the desired spacing on desktop screens.

Smart Spacer Blocks:

When viewing your website on a mobile device, you might occasionally find the spacing between sections excessive. This usually happens because you've added spacer blocks for better desktop aesthetics, but they translate differently to mobile.

Here's a lesser-known but highly effective trick: Spacer blocks placed next to other content blocks aren't displayed on mobile devices. To optimize this, use two spacer blocks side by side; they'll balance each other out.

In the end, your website will maintain the desired spacing on desktop views while appearing sleek and well-organized on mobile devices. These simple tricks are part of the toolbox for any savvy Squarespace user.

Customizing Logo Size for Mobile.

For some, the default settings in Squarespace might not display their logo optimally on mobile devices, potentially making it too small to be easily readable. In such cases, manual adjustments are the way to go, specifically for mobile viewing.

While the capacity to customize logo size on mobile can vary depending on your chosen Squarespace template, here's an illustration of how it can be done.

It's essential to be aware that most Squarespace templates don't offer the option to upload a distinct mobile logo. So, unless you're well-versed in custom CSS coding, the best approach is to employ the same logo for both desktop and mobile and adjust its size as needed through the method described above.

Evaluate Every Page for Mobile Usability

Make sure to thoroughly examine each new webpage you create to ensure its compatibility with mobile and tablet devices. Squarespace offers a convenient feature within its editing interface that allows you to preview your content on different screen sizes. When editing a webpage, just hover over the Device View panel at the top of the page. This will provide you with options to view your page on desktop, mobile phone, and tablet screen sizes.

While Squarespace's built-in Device View is a valuable tool, it's also a good practice to perform a live check on your own mobile devices. This live check can reveal any browser-specific issues that may not be evident in Squarespace's mobile Device View.

Here's a tip: To perform a live check without making the new page visible to other website visitors, consider publishing the page with password protection. Additionally, Google offers a free Mobile-Friendly Test tool, which not only checks how easily visitors can view your page on mobile devices but also alerts you to any page loading issues that may affect your site's mobile performance.

Remember, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is essential for providing an optimal user experience and maintaining a competitive edge in today's digital landscape.