Love INC of Cuyahoga County had years of helpful content stuck on an old WordPress site that was hard to use and hard to update. I rebuilt it in Squarespace, cleaned up the menu, and moved all 39 of its old posts over by hand. The new site went live on October 19, 2026.
Love INC of Cuyahoga County is a Christian nonprofit in Ohio. Its name is short for Love In the Name of Christ. It works with local churches, volunteers, and community partners to connect neighbors with practical help, caring relationships, and Christ-centered support. I did this project as an independent contractor for Accordus, a web agency that manages the site.
Key Takeaways
I rebuilt about 16 pages and moved 39 old posts from WordPress to Squarespace by hand, from July to October 2026.
Building the menu around who visits (people seeking help, volunteers, donors, churches) gave each group its own starting point.
Moving old posts by hand takes longer, but every post gets checked and no messy WordPress code comes along.
Every old post kept its full web address, so links shared over the years still work.
Find out who controls your domain settings before the build starts. That one detail delayed this launch by about a month.
Project at a glance
| Detail | Project facts |
|---|---|
| Client | Love INC of Cuyahoga County |
| Type of organization | Christian nonprofit and community assistance |
| Project | Move from WordPress to Squarespace, plus a full rebuild |
| Platform | Squarespace 7.1 |
| Timeline | July to October 2026 |
| Planned launch | September 2026 |
| Actual launch | October 19, 2026 |
| Pages rebuilt | About 16 |
| Posts moved | 19 News & Events posts and 20 Stories of Hope |
| My role | Squarespace designer and developer, as a contractor for Accordus |
My work covered the whole build. I planned the page layout, designed the site, chose the fonts, and wrote and edited copy. I also set up the donation and contact forms, moved the old posts and photos, and handled search settings, accessibility, and launch prep.
Why the old WordPress site needed to go
The old site had plenty of good information. The problem was that nobody could find it easily, and it was a chore to keep up to date.
WordPress is a popular website platform, but it often needs add-ons and regular upkeep. Accordus manages most of its client sites in Squarespace. Moving Love INC there meant one system that both the agency and the client’s staff could run after launch.
This wasn’t a copy-and-paste job. Years of additions had left overlapping pages and a crowded menu. The move was a chance to decide what still belonged, where it should live, and how visitors should get from one page to the next.
Building a menu around the people who visit
The old site served several groups at once. People looking for help, donors, volunteers, churches, community partners, and Life Skills class members all landed in the same place.
I reorganized the sitemap, which is the list of pages and how they’re grouped in the menu. Visitors shouldn’t have to understand how a nonprofit is organized to find what they need. I grouped related pages, combined pages that repeated each other, and split the main menu into clearer sections.
The finished site now gives each kind of visitor a clear starting point:
Learning how Love INC works
Asking for help
Volunteering and getting involved
Giving online
Finding Life Skills classes
Reading Stories of Hope
Catching up on news and events
Learning about church and community partnerships
Meeting the team
There are fewer competing choices in the menu now, but every program still has a home.
Designing the new Squarespace site
I rebuilt about 16 pages in Squarespace 7.1, the current version of Squarespace as of 2026. I started with the homepage, because it set the look and layout for everything else.
Accordus supplied the brand graphics, and the colors were inspired by the old site. I picked the fonts and carried the brand through every page. The design uses rounded cards, pill-shaped buttons, and the same style of call to action throughout. That keeps pages with very different jobs feeling like one site.
The homepage now does a lot of work in a small space. It explains who Love INC is and what it does. It features current Life Skills classes, shares community feedback and a Story of Hope, and shows recent news. It also points visitors toward volunteering and giving.
Moving 39 old posts by hand
Moving the old posts was the biggest part of the job. I rebuilt 19 News & Events posts and 20 Stories of Hope one at a time.
For each post, I placed it in the right section of the site and checked its formatting. Then I added its photos and connected it to the right category. Doing it by hand took longer than an automatic import. But it meant I could review every post as it moved. It also kept leftover WordPress code from coming along for the ride.
Every old post kept its full web address after the move, so no redirects were needed. That matters because Love INC had shared these posts for years on church websites, newsletters, social posts, and emails. Those old links still lead to the right post. The whole address has to match, not just the slug. A slug is the last part of a web address, like the “/our-story” in a link. For a similar move, see our EvanTell WordPress-to-Squarespace case study.
News & Events now lives in one place for announcements, fundraising updates, impact reports, and event recaps. Stories of Hope have their own section. That way, personal stories about the ministry’s work don’t get buried under general updates.
Making the news pages easy to keep up
The news and story pages show each post as a card with a title, a short preview, a photo, and a “Read More” button. Titles and previews come in all lengths, which can make cards look uneven.
To fix that, I added custom CSS. CSS is style code that controls how a page looks. Mine keeps the cards lined up on every screen size and puts each button in the same spot. Future staff can publish new posts and they’ll fit right in.
I also set up three admin accounts so Love INC staff can log in and keep the site current after handoff.
Connecting donations and forms
Several pieces depended on details from the client. These included the donation platform, Life Skills class information, and the email addresses that should receive form messages.
Once the donation form code was ready, I added it to the Donate page and linked that page in the main menu. Before launch, I clicked through every button and text link on the site. I fixed links that went nowhere and made sure each one reached the right page or outside service.
Now, help requests, volunteer interest, class questions, and donations each have their own clear destination. They no longer compete for one general contact form.
Adding custom code where Squarespace stops
Squarespace’s built-in design controls cover most needs, but not all. Where they fell short, I added custom CSS and code injection. Code injection is a Squarespace feature that adds custom code across the whole site.
Here’s some of what that custom work does:
Adds dividers and rounded dropdown menus to the desktop navigation
Adds small animated arrows to buttons
Adjusts the menu text size on phones
Styles the newsletter signup fields
Keeps the news cards the same height, with matching “Read More” buttons
Switches the news pages from two columns to one on small screens
Updates the year in the footer automatically
Turns off smooth scrolling for visitors who have reduced motion turned on
Because the site uses code injection, it needs a Squarespace plan that includes it. As of October 2026, Squarespace’s code injection help page lists the Core, Plus, and Advanced plans, plus some older plans. This kind of custom work is a regular part of our custom web design projects. None of this replaces Squarespace’s normal editing tools. Staff can still add pages and publish posts the usual way.
Making it work on phones and for everyone
I adjusted every layout for desktop, tablet, and phone. I paid extra attention to the menu, buttons, news cards, and forms. Those are the pieces that change most when a page goes from several columns to one.
I also worked on accessibility, which means making the site usable for people with disabilities. The W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are the common standard here. My work included a clear heading order, link text that says where it goes, and alt text (image descriptions for screen readers). I checked that text stands out clearly against its background. Links and buttons work with a keyboard and are big enough to tap on a phone.
Other Accordus team members then did a separate quality check. I made the changes they found and checked the site again after launch.
Getting the site ready for Google
I handled search setup during the move, not after launch. That covered page titles and descriptions, heading order, and links between pages. It also covered image file names and alt text, and the preview info that shows when someone shares a link on social media. I set which pages Google should show in search and set up cookie and privacy settings.
I wrote the page structure and copy so search engines and AI tools can tell the different parts of the site apart. Services, classes, stories, partnerships, and ways to get involved each have their own clear pages.
Working as part of a bigger team
This was a team project. I built the website as a contractor for Accordus. Their Team Lead talked with the client and gathered feedback. A Senior Team Lead oversaw the project.
Other Accordus team members ran the formal quality checks. I handled the Squarespace recommendations, build decisions, revisions, and technical fixes that came out of those reviews.
A separate domain manager handled connecting the domain name. I got the website and its links ready for launch. The launch itself had to wait until the domain manager got access to the DNS settings.
Why launch waited a month
The site was supposed to launch in September 2026. The build, revisions, forms, and phone layouts were all finished by then.
What held things up was DNS, the settings that point a domain name like loveinccuyahoga.org to a website. The team was waiting on access to those settings. Once the domain manager got access, they pointed loveinccuyahoga.org to the new Squarespace site. It went live on October 19, 2026.
Nothing had to be rebuilt during the wait. It was an access problem outside the website itself.
What you can take from this move
If you’re thinking about moving your own site, these are the lessons from this project I’d pass along.
Find out who controls your domain early. The build was done on time, but launch waited about a month for DNS access. Ask now who has the login for your domain, before any design work starts.
Organize the menu around your visitors. Group pages by what people come to do, like get help, give, or volunteer. Don’t mirror your internal departments or programs.
Decide how to move old posts. An automatic import is faster. Moving posts by hand takes longer, but you can check each one and leave old formatting behind. For 39 posts, doing it by hand was worth the time.
Plan for your old links. Keep the full web addresses of old pages and posts the same where you can. If any have to change, Squarespace’s URL mappings feature can send visitors from the old address to the new one. People may have shared those links for years.
Check your plan before adding custom code. Code injection needs a paid Squarespace plan that includes it. Confirm this before you count on it in the design.
What Love INC has now
Love INC of Cuyahoga County now has a Squarespace website that’s easier to run and built around the people who use it. Neighbors looking for help have a clearer route. Donors, volunteers, and church partners each have their own paths, and Life Skills classes have dedicated pages.
The site also has a working online donation page and a simpler menu. It works well on phones. All 39 old posts are preserved, staff have their own logins, and there’s a repeatable way to publish new stories and updates. Accordus can keep managing it on a platform it already knows.
It’s too early to talk about traffic or donations, so I’m not making any claims about those yet. What I can confirm is that the move is done. The pages, old posts, forms, donation page, and domain all work together in one system.
You can visit the finished Love INC of Cuyahoga County website to see it live.
For another move like this one, read the Cities Frontline Fellowship website migration case study.
Thinking about moving your website?
Moving an established website takes more than rebuilding the pages people see. Old web addresses, past posts, forms, photos, phone layouts, search settings, and outside tools all need a plan before the old site goes away.
If that sounds like your site, tell us about your project. We’ll look at what you have, confirm what needs to be done, and explain the next steps. If you’d rather pay monthly, our Out-of-the-Box Web Design plan is one option at $199 a month.
