If your Square Online site feels slow on a phone, you're probably right. On 11 and 12 October 2026 we worked on Madriz Ink, a tattoo studio in central Madrid whose site runs on Square Online. The studio approved being named. Here's what was slowing the site down, what we changed inside their own Square editor, and what we still couldn't fix.
The short version
- Total image weight across the site went from about 750 MB to about 80 MB.
- The home page fell from 9.07 MB to 2.93 MB on mobile.
- Layout shift on the home page went from 0.972 to 0.001, so the page stopped jumping while it loaded.
- Mobile Lighthouse on the home page rose from 10 to 36. That's better, but it's still slow, and we say so.
All of these are lab numbers (Lighthouse on a simulated slow phone), not real-user data. The before scores are the median of three runs on 11 October. The after scores are one run per page on 12 October.
Cause 1: images uploaded straight from the camera or design tool
This was the biggest problem. Square Online stores what you upload, and many images on the site were heavy PNGs. The Madriz Ink home page alone was 70 MB of images when we measured across the site. The /tatuajes-en-madrid-centro page was 418 MB.
What we did: we reviewed 405 images and replaced the heavy PNGs in place with compressed JPGs. We kept the alt text, links and order the same. The four new home-page illustrations went from 32.3 MB to 1.76 MB in total. The home page dropped from 70 to 6 MB of images and /tatuajes-en-madrid-centro from 418 to 39 MB.
What you can do: export photos as JPG before you upload them, at a sensible width. Don't upload PNG unless you need transparency.
Cause 2: the page jumps while it loads (CLS)
A Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.972 means the content moves around a lot while the page draws. Visitors tap the wrong thing, and Google counts it against the page. We fixed layout shift on the home and product pages, and the home page went from 0.972 to 0.001.
Cause 3: scripts and widgets you forgot about
Every embed adds weight. On this site, a duplicate Google Analytics snippet was also bypassing consent. We removed it and restored Analytics so it loads only after consent. We replaced Cookiebot with a lighter cookie consent banner (GDPR). Analytics and marketing tags now wait for consent, and the Elfsight Instagram, TikTok and review widgets load only after marketing consent. Nothing goes to Google Analytics or Meta before the visitor chooses. Total blocking time on the home page fell from 4.97 s to 2.86 s.
What we couldn't fix: Square's own code
This is where we have to be honest. Square loads its own scripts, around 1 MB that can't be edited from the site, and that caps what any optimisation can achieve. After the work, the main content of the home page still takes about 17 s to appear on a simulated slow phone (LCP went from 20.7 s to 17.2 s). Removing widgets you don't use can still help. A score in the 90s on Square Online wasn't realistic here, and we won't promise one.
While we were in there
Speed was only part of the job. On the same site we also:
- made a fresh, unpublished backup copy in Square before starting, and another before the second day's changes;
- published four legal pages (GDPR/LSSI): legal notice, privacy policy, cookie policy and terms of sale;
- rewrote page titles and descriptions, fixed social previews and added descriptive alt text to 235 images;
- added LocalBusiness / TattooParlor structured data to every page, validated in Google's Rich Results Test with no errors;
- dealt with Search Console indexing issues: an old URL that returned an error now 301-redirects to the right page.
The client kept full control of their Square account. Nothing was moved or rebuilt somewhere else.
Still open
Mobile speed, domain email protection (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), a privacy notice under the forms, alt text for newly uploaded images, and the shop's price format and thin category pages. We'll add Search Console and Analytics results to the case study after 2–4 weeks, once Google has recrawled the pages.
Is your Square Online site slow?
Start with a website audit ($500). It's a written, read-only review of your public pages that names the fault, the evidence, the impact and the fix. The fee is credited if you approve the repair within 14 days. We can then make the changes inside your own Square Online, Wix or Squarespace editor, and you keep your account. If the site needs a rebuild instead, web design and redesign start at $2,500.
Read the full case study, or see how we took our own WooCommerce shop from 40 to 82 on mobile.
Send a site → or write to info@remotemend.com.