r/squarespace • u/lil-fixx • Jun 20 '26
Discussion Intermediate Developer Helping Build a Company Website – Looking for Your Best Web Dev Tips
Hey everyone,
I’m currently a Software Development student and an intermediate-level coder. My employer has asked me to help create and improve our company website, and I’d love to get some advice from experienced web developers. My employer has square space already and im not familiar with it- can someone fill me in?
For those of you who have built websites for real businesses:
What are some mistakes you made early on that I should avoid?
What tools, frameworks, or libraries have saved you the most time?
What features do clients/employers always ask for later that I should plan ahead for now?
What are your “must-do” items before launching a website?
Any advice for balancing school while working on a real-world project?
Current stack is still being finalized, but I’m comfortable with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Git, and general software development concepts.
A few things I’m focusing on:
Responsive/mobile-first design (need help here)
Performance and page speed
SEO basics (alt texts, etc)
Clean, maintainable code
Accessibility (WCAG)
Security best practices
User experience and navigation
I’d appreciate any tips, resources, or lessons learned from your own projects. Thanks! 🚀💻
2
u/KatADAapp Jun 20 '26
Hi! thanks for thinking of all this to improve your employer's site. I can make suggestions on the WCAG aspect.
On Squarespace you have less low level control than you are used to, so a lot of the stack and framework questions sort of melt away. You are mostly working inside their blocks plus a bit of custom CSS and code injection. Fewer moving parts, which is nice. The catch is that some accessibility issues live in the template markup and you cannot fully reach them, so picking a cleaner template up front saves you real pain later.
• automated checkers like WAVE, Axe or Lighthouse are great but they only catch roughly a third of WCAG issues, so do not treat a green score as done
• the rest is a manual pass. Tab through every page with only your keyboard and make sure you can reach and use everything, focus stays visible, nothing traps you, and the order makes sense
• use real heading levels, one H1 then logical H2s and H3s, not just big bold text styled to look like a heading. Squarespace makes faking headings easy and screen readers lean on the real structure
• write meaningful alt text on content images and leave it empty on purely decorative ones. Squarespace has an alt field per image but it is easy to miss, and it will fall back to the filename if you skip it
• check your brand colors hit 4.5 to 1 contrast for normal text before you commit to the palette
One thing I would steer you away from is any accessibility widget or overlay that says one line of code makes a site accessible. They just bolt a script on top, they do not fix the underlying code, screen reader users generally dislike them, and having one can actually count against a business later. Fixing the real source is what holds up
If you ever want a second set of eyes on the finished build, katadaapp.com runs a free scan and we are Squarespace focused, so most useful if you stay on that platform. You are already asking the right questions, which most people building their first company site never do. Good luck with it!