How to share your unfinished Squarespace website
If you know you’re going to be brave enough to ask others to take a look at your Squarespace website as you’re designing it, there are things to set up early in the process. You’re going to want to know these tips and tricks before getting started to give your reviewers the best access to your “under construction” website.
Reasons to share your website
While you may already know why you’ll want to share early versions of your website, there may be other benefits to sharing your website that are new. Here are some reasons I can think of for sharing your website before it’s ready to launch to the public.
Sharing with your besties
Whether you’re creating your own website or having someone design it for you, the main reason you'll want to share it is to get feedback about the design, the content, and the usability of your website. Clients I've worked with have shared their unfinished websites with trusted friends, colleagues, their grown children, their spouses, and their knowledgeable neighbors. I've even had clients who had full advisory teams with whom they shared their websites as they were being developed.
Sharing with potential business partners
Another reason to share a website with a select few is to test-market the website to a chosen group of potential investors, partners, distributors, clients, and influencers. Websites are usually close to being finished when this type of review is done, but the feedback from these early viewers can change the direction of the design or even the product or service offered by the business.
Sharing with yourself
The other reason to make your website available for sharing is so you can see the website as it will appear to visitors. You should always preview the website as you're designing it with the Desktop/Mobile preview windows in your website editor. But you'll find that the actual website can look very different when viewed on small vs. large monitors, laptops, tablets, and a variety of phone sizes. Always check your website on several different devices to make your website usable to as many people as possible.
Setting up sharing
With your website open in Squarespace, go to Settings - Site Availability.
Click Password Protected and type in a site password.
Click Save.
Still within the Settings list, click Domains. Write down the built-in Squarespace domain name that ends in .squarespace.com. That's the built-in domain name you will give to your reviewers.
Pro tip: Changing your built-in domain name
Squarespace gives your site a quirky built-in domain name. When I design websites for clients, I change the name to be something more memorable and closer to the actual business name. You can do this at any time, even after your website has been made live. Go to Settings - Domains. Click the arrow next to the built-in domain name and change the first part of the name to something you prefer. The squarespace.com part of the domain will be added. Confirm the change.
The Big Reveal: Sharing your website with others
Give your reviewers the Squarespace built-in domain and tell them to open the website in a browser. If you added a password, tell them to type in the password you assigned to view the site.
Pro tip: Reviewing your own website while designing it
If you want to review your own website as visitors will see it without logging out of Squarespace, you must open a new private/incognito browser window. Then type in the domain name for your site. If you don't open a private browser window, Squarespace will open the website in the Squarespace website editor.
Get ready to hear what others have to say
This is undoubtedly the most difficult part of the process. I’ve had clients share their websites with others and it has changed the direction of the design altogether. While it may make you wince, as long as your reviewers are people you trust and are representative of your ideal customer, the questions, suggestions, and feedback that result from sharing your website will be valuable for your business. But as the business owner, you get to decide which suggestions you put into place and which ones you politely decline.
