What Should I do if I Want a Squarespace Template That's Not Available in a Specific Language?

What You Can Translate on Squarespace

All User-Created Content

Everything you write - page headings, body text, button labels, navigation items, blog posts, product descriptions, and form field labels - can be in any language. Simply write your content in your target language. This covers the vast majority of visible text on your site.

Site Language Setting

Squarespace includes a site language setting (Settings > Language & Region > Site Language) that controls system-generated text - button labels like "Read More," "Add to Cart," "Submit," date formats, and other interface strings. Squarespace supports dozens of languages for this setting. Change it to your target language and most system text updates automatically.

Navigation Labels

Navigation menu items use the page titles you set. Write page titles in your target language - "Accueil" instead of "Home," "À Propos" instead of "About," "Contact" stays the same in many languages. Each page's navigation label can be customized independently of the page title.

What Requires Manual Translation

Commerce Checkout Text

Some commerce checkout labels and messages may not fully translate through the language setting. Check your checkout flow in the target language and use Custom CSS or Code Injection to override any remaining English text. For checkout customization, our guide to Squarespace e-commerce customization covers checkout configuration.

Form Submit Buttons and Prompts

Form block submit buttons and validation messages may appear in English even after changing the site language. Override button text in the form block settings. For validation messages, Custom CSS can hide default messages and replace them with translated versions.

Error Pages and System Messages

The 404 error page, password-protected page prompts, and other system messages may remain in English. Create a custom 404 page in your target language. For password pages, the prompt text may need CSS overrides.

Building a Multilingual Squarespace Site

Option 1: Separate Pages for Each Language

Create duplicate pages for each language - one set in English, another in French, another in Spanish. Use navigation folders or a language switcher to let visitors choose their language. This approach keeps all content on one Squarespace site but doubles (or triples) your page count and maintenance workload.

Option 2: Separate Squarespace Sites

Create a separate Squarespace site for each language - yourdomain.com for English, yourdomain.com/fr for French (using a subdirectory redirect), or fr.yourdomain.com for a subdomain approach. Each site is fully independent with its own content, navigation, and language settings. This is cleaner but requires maintaining multiple subscriptions. For multi-site management, our guide to multiple sites on Squarespace covers setup and billing.

Option 3: Third-Party Translation Tools

Tools like Weglot and Bablic integrate with Squarespace through Code Injection to provide automatic translation and a language switcher. They detect your content, translate it (with machine translation that you can manually refine), and display the correct language based on visitor preference or browser settings. These tools add a monthly cost but dramatically reduce the maintenance of multilingual content. For Code Injection setup, our guide to custom code injection on Squarespace covers adding third-party scripts.

Changing System Text with CSS

For system-generated text that the language setting does not translate, use Custom CSS to hide the default text and display a translated version. This technique uses the ::after pseudo-element to inject translated text while hiding the original with font-size: 0 or color: transparent. This is a workaround - not an ideal solution - but it works for small amounts of untranslated system text. For CSS techniques, our guide to adding custom CSS to Squarespace covers text replacement methods.

SEO for Multilingual Squarespace Sites

Hreflang Tags

If you have multiple language versions of the same content, add hreflang tags to tell Google which version to show to visitors searching in each language. Add hreflang link tags to Code Injection > Header for each page, specifying the language and URL of each version. Third-party translation tools like Weglot handle this automatically.

Localized Keywords

SEO metadata (titles, descriptions) should be written in the target language using keywords that speakers of that language actually search for. Do not just translate English keywords - research what your target audience searches for in their language. For SEO strategy, our Squarespace SEO guide covers metadata optimization.

URL Structure

For multilingual sites, use a consistent URL structure that indicates language - /en/about, /fr/a-propos, /es/sobre-nosotros. This helps search engines understand the language of each page and serve the correct version in localized search results.

Right-to-Left Language Support

If your target language reads right-to-left (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi), Squarespace's default templates are left-to-right. You need Custom CSS to flip the text direction: body { direction: rtl; text-align: right; }. Additional CSS adjustments are needed for navigation, layout, and form elements. RTL support requires more extensive customization than left-to-right languages.

Best Practices for Non-English Squarespace Sites

Set the site language first. Change Settings > Language & Region > Site Language before adding content. This ensures all system-generated text starts in your target language.

Use proper character encoding. Squarespace supports UTF-8 encoding, which handles characters from all languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Cyrillic. You do not need to configure anything - just type in your language.

Test thoroughly. Check every page for untranslated text, especially commerce pages, form prompts, and error messages. System text can appear in unexpected places. For design consistency, our Squarespace design tips guide covers visual quality across all content.

Choose fonts that support your language. Not all fonts include characters for every language. If using custom fonts, verify they support the character set of your target language. Squarespace's built-in fonts generally support Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek characters. CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) characters may require specific font choices. For font management, our guide to adding custom fonts to Squarespace covers font selection. For broader customization, our guide to customizing your Squarespace website covers the full site setup process.

Build Your Squarespace Site in Any Language

Squarespace templates work in any language - the platform is language-neutral by design. Set your site language, write content in your target language, and handle the remaining system text through settings or CSS overrides. For full multilingual support, third-party tools like Weglot automate translation and language switching.

The template is not the barrier. The content you create on top of it determines the language of your site.