Translate your Squarespace website

Making a Squarespace website multilingual using the native solution can work for very small websites, but it’s not sufficient for larger websites or ecommerce stores. 

That’s because the official solution requires you to duplicate pages and use a cover page for your users to choose their preferred language – however both languages will always be displayed in the main menu. 

At Weglot, we wanted to make creating a multilingual website on Squarespace as easy as possible – without cover pages or the need for multiple languages to be displayed on 1 website. Our near-automatic process means you’ll have a fully translated website and the hassle taken out of displaying that content. 

Want to see an example?

Before digging in, you can check a demo website we’ve setup: weglot-translate-sq.com. You can also check out our guide where we discuss all the Squarespace multilingual solutions available.

This sample Squarespace site has been translated into French and Spanish with Weglot. Click on French or Spanish in the header to see the translated versions and the dedicated subdomain URLs for each language.

• English version (original website): weglot-translate-sq.com

• French version: fr.weglot-translate-sq.com

• Spanish version: es.weglot-translate-sq.com/

• German version: de.weglot-translate-sq.com/

Let’s start translating your Squarespace website

Ready to try Weglot out? This guide will help you set up your Squarespace website in a few minutes.

10 minutes

1) Create an account on Weglot

2) Add your new languages

You’ll then be prompted to enter your website URL, the original language of your Squarespace site + the new language(s) you want to translate and display your site into.

IMPORTANT: If you’ve yet to purchase your domain name and are currently using a temporary Squarespace domain ending with .squarespace.com – you will need to use this integration

Click ‘Next’ and the below will be generated (your DNS records). This will be different depending on the languages you choose, the example below shows French. You will need this in the next step!

3) Setup language-specific subdomains

Here you’ll create and connect your language specific subdomains e.g. fr.mysite.com (example for French) which is where your translated content will appear. 

This requires you to copy and paste your DNS records from step 2. 

Go to your Squarespace dashboard > ‘Settings’ > ‘Domains’. 

Or, if you purchased your domain name outside of Squarespace you will need to go to your domain name provider account and add your entries there (need help? Contact support@weglot.com) 

Your domain name will appear under ‘Managed by Squarespace’. Click on it, and then ‘Advanced settings’. To add another entry select the drop down where the ‘A’ appears and choose CNAME.

Then copy your DNS records from the step before. E.g. the language code of the language you’ve added to your site in the first column and ‘websites.weglot.com’ in the IP address section, then click ‘ADD’. The example screenshot shows both German and French.

Now go back to your Weglot account, click “Check DNS” and you should see a green tick icon; this means it worked! Click on “Next”.

4) Add your language switcher

Disclaimer: You can only customize your code on a Squarespace Business plan or higher.

The last step to making your website multilingual is to add a language-switcher to the front-end of your Squarespace website. You’ll find your Javascript code in your Weglot Dashboard under ‘Project settings.’

Copy and paste this into your Squarespace dashboard, under ‘Settings’ > ‘Advanced’ > ‘Code Injection’ and ‘Header’. If you already have something in this field, just paste the Weglot code after it.

5) Your Squarespace site is now multilingual!

You just need to wait a few minutes for Squarespace to display your language button. After that, your multilingual website will be live! Use the language button to change the language on your website. You can now edit your translations on your Weglot account.

Optional – Put the language button in the menu

By default, the language switcher will appear at the bottom right of your website. You can edit this so it appears in the menu of your website instead.

Go into your Squarespace admin dashboard ‘Pages’ > ‘Main Navigation’. Click on the ‘+’ icon and select ‘Link’ from the options.

In the ‘LINK TITLE’ type the language (this will be appear in your website menu) and in the ‘LINK’ section ‘#Weglot-’ and the 2-letter language code (find them here). Our example screenshot is for German: 

Click ‘SAVE’.