Is Squarespace The Right Fit For Your Business Website?
Squarespace is one of many website builders that enable you to build a website for your business without having to know how to code.
There are some clear advantages and disadvantages to using Squarespace for your website. So let us break down the key pros and cons of Squarespace as your website design platform.
In this blog we will discuss:
How to choose the perfect website platform for your business
Pros: 7 Reasons to use Squarespace for your business
Cons: 5 scenarios when you shouldn’t use Squarespace
Let’s get started!
Which Website Platform is the Right Fit For Your business?
Choosing one of the many website builders out there can be a tough decision. There are 3 main criteria that will help you make a strategical decision for what’s best for your business. Before you choose Squarespace, take a moment to think about the following three criteria:
1) What is the purpose of your website? What features do you need to achieve this purpose?
Before you make a decision on design, features or website builders take a moment to reflect on the key purpose of your website.
Is it to attract direct bookings of your services?
Put your business on the local map?
Share your expertise or showcase your past projects?
Once you are clear on your website purpose, start thinking about the specific features you would like to include on your website:
Do you need video backgrounds or other specific visual features?
Do you need the website to be able to integrate with any other software (e.g. direct booking, payment processor, email marketing etc.)?
What do customers need to be able to do on your site?
Don’t forget the tasks after setting up your website, like adding pop-ups for marketing campaigns or writing blog posts.
2) How confident do you feel with technology?
Considering you are reading this, chance are you would like to set up your website yourself or at least be able to update and maintain it yourself after the initial setup. The ease of use of a website platform is therefore crucial.
Do you know how to code?
Are you generally able to learn new tech skills fast?
Are you interested in investing time in learning these skills?
If you are feeling unsure about at least one of these questions, picking a user-friendly platform will be essential to not only save you time but also to ensure the effectiveness of your website.
3) What might change in the future on your website?
You might only be starting out or thinking about launching a basic website. However, think ahead and consider where (ideal scenario) your business might grow to become.
Do you want to start selling products?
Will you offer membership plans?
Will you expand your marketing activity?
Answering these questions will ensure you pick a platform that can grow with your business – not limit it!
7 Reasons to Use Squarespace For Your Website
Squarespace is one of the most popular website builders for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. Let’s take a closer look at the main advantages of using Squarespace for your website.
Squarespace is an all in one platform
Running a small business means you don’t have months to wait for your website to be ready but instead you need it up and running quickly and effectively. While a regular website development project takes 2-3 months on average, the website design process for Squarespace can be done in days. This is because Squarespace has already taken care of hosting, domain, templates, features, security, analytics dashboard, SEO tools, basically every aspect of your website.
2. Squarespace is super user-friendly + does not require much maintenance
Squarespace allows you to create websites without any coding. It’s simple drag-and-drop editor makes website building an intuitive process with changes being instantly visible. This is very different for WordPress where your edits are made from the back-end and you’ll have to flip between the design and the editor.
Once your website is created, you can be assured that it will continue running smoothly without any upkeep. This is a major benefit compared to WordPress where you have to regularly update plugins to keep your website secure from hackers (or pay someone else to do it). In fact, we don’t offer any maintenance packages as we hand over all our website with in depth training videos, making our clients feel confident in maintaining their websites themselves.
3. Squarespace has beautiful website templates
The entire ethos of Squarespace revolves around making elegant design accessible for small business owners. Squarespace offers hundreds of website templates designed by creative professionals for you to choose from. With their templates as a starting point, you can create a stunning, sophisticated website look without design experiences.
Pro Tip: Whereas the new fluid engine in SquareSpace 7.1 makes adding and moving elements even more intuitive, it can mix up the layout of elements for your mobile-design. Remember to always check the mobile version of your website on SquareSpace!
4. Squarespace allows you to customise your website
Picking up from the previous point, Squarespace does allow you to entirely customise your website template with custom CSS code to suit your unique brand and requirements. You can add custom animations to bring your website to life or customise the mobile version of your website to ensure your website remains mobile-friendly at all times. Really, the sky's the limit!
If you want to learn more about CSS and how to customise your SquareSpace website, head to our Instagram channel where we often share SquareSpace tips & tricks!
5. Squarespace website are affordable
Pricing plays a major role when picking your small business website -we get it! Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial so you can experience the tool completely risk-free. After that, you can choose between four pricing tiers. From a simple website all the way up to a more complex e-commerce site, the cost of the plan rises with the additional features yet remain affordable.
6. Squarespace websites are secure
Getting hacked is one of the worst nightmares for a business website. And unfortunately, the more your website grows in traffic, the more attractive it becomes as a target for hackers. Since Squarespace is a “closed” system developed by an internal development team, there’s a much lower chance for your website to have security vulnerabilities compared to an open-source system like WordPress. All their built-in features are developed with security in mind so you can have peace of mind.
7. Squarespace has solid SEO features
A website is only effective if it gets picked up by search engines. Whereas SEO can be a bit of a rabbit hole, Squarespace offers several built-in features that make your site SEO-friendly, such as auto-generated clean site map, automatic redirects, SSL security, and mobile responsiveness. Further, every page has an SEO tab, making adding meta tags, alt texts and SEO descriptions very straight forward.
SEO can seem like a daunting subject! That’s why we summarised some easy SEO tips & tricks in our blog post that you can start implementing today!
When Should You Not Use SquareSpace For Your Website?
Despite the many advantages of using SquareSpace for your business, there are a few scenarios that would make SquareSpace the less obvious choice.
1. If your main purpose is selling products via your online shop
SquareSpace’s main strength is to create beautiful content pages. If your website purpose is to display and sell products, you’re better off using a platform specifically built for eCommerce like Shopify. You’ll be able to take advantage of a wider range of eCommerce functionalities, such as being able to receive payments in multiple currencies, more inventory management options, and a number payment gateway options (which SquareSpace only has 3 choices).
2. If you have an extremely large product portfolio + online shop
Related to our previous point, Squarespace is not built to host a large amount of products or online shop. Despite having p to 10,000 products on the Squarespace eCommerce platform, as your number of products grows, it will become more difficult to organise your product items and integrate third-party services to streamline your processes. This makes Squarespace a poor choice for large online shops.
3. If you need complete freedom of complex functionality
If you have a complex website or simply prefer absolute freedom of choices with functionalities, your best bet will be with WordPress. Since Squarespace is built in-house, it’s hard to impossible to find outside developers who can help you code a specific feature. These limitations are what keep Squarespace secured and easy to use, but they almost make the platform not a good fit for large websites.
4. If you need complete freedom of design choices
Despite being able to customise a good bit of the Sqaurespace templates using custom CSS, there are a few limitations when it comes to design on Squarespace. If you are looking for a very specific design, the better alternatives for you will be Showit (no code) or Webflow (require coding).
5. If you want to conduct complex email marketing campaigns
We mentioned above that Squarespace has an in-built email marketing platform, which is really simple to use and if you’re comfortable on Squarespace you will find the interface a breeze. It’s also cheaper than many of its competitors, but that’s because it’s not nearly as sophisticated. If you anticipate having a large email list, with lots of different sign up forms, and segments, Squarespace’s email platform will not be the best option for you.
