Tips for Selecting a website platform

Choosing a website platform from many options can be challenging, but the decision ultimately depends on three essential factors. Therefore, before determining if Squarespace is suitable for your business, take the time to answer these critical questions:

1) What do you need the website to do?

To develop ideas for your website, consider your customers' needs and website-related processes, and look at other websites in your industry. For example, determine if you require video backgrounds or other visual features and if the website should integrate with other software. Additionally, identify what actions customers should be able to perform on your site.

2) How comfortable are you with technology?

If you're considering setting up a website, you're concerned about how easy it will be to maintain and update it. Your coding knowledge, ability to learn new software, and enthusiasm for new tech tools will factor into this decision. If you're confident in your skills and expertise, ease of use may be refined. Choosing a user-friendly platform is essential if you need to become more familiar with these areas.

3) What are the possible future changes to your website?

To ensure future growth, it's crucial to consider whether membership plans or an online store are in the works when building your website. After determining your criteria, it's important to note the many benefits of using Squarespace as your platform.

8 Reasons to Use Squarespace For Your Business

Squarespace is a highly favored website builder for small businesses and solopreneurs. If you appreciate the qualities listed below, Squarespace is a satisfying tool.

1) Squarespace is an all-in-one solution

With hosting, templates, analytics, and SEO tools included, Squarespace makes creating a website look great and function flawlessly. But that's not all. Squarespace also offers additional services to support your business, such as Email Campaigns for list building, Acuity Scheduling for appointment booking, FreshBooks for accounting, and more. Connecting your website to these tools is a breeze – with just a few clicks, you can take your business to the next level—Trust Squarespace to help you succeed online.

2) Squarespace is easy to use

Creating a website without coding is achievable with Squarespace's highly intuitive platform. Unlike WordPress, Squarespace's real-time editing feature allows for an effortless drag-and-drop interface, making it easy to see changes as you make them instantly. In addition, Squarespace's streamlined design process separates styling and content, allowing you to quickly move around elements such as text, images, and galleries for a customized layout. Once your content is complete, the styling editor offers full control to customize your logo, colors, fonts, and more. With Squarespace 7.0, you can even switch between templates to preview different styles for your content.

3) Squarespace is low-maintenance

Your website will run smoothly without the need for constant maintenance. WordPress requires regular plugin updates to guard against hackers or hiring someone to do it. I do not charge maintenance fees as I believe in educating my clients on using Squarespace themselves. This enables them to make updates independently, without my assistance.

4) Squarespace has beautiful templates

With its exceptional design quality, Squarespace undoubtedly sets itself apart from other website builders like Wix or Weebly. With around a hundred expertly crafted templates created by experienced designers, the platform offers a range of clean, modern, and professional design styles. So regardless of your prior design experience, you can effortlessly create a stunning and sophisticated website by selecting one of their templates.

5) Squarespace pricing plans are affordable

With Squarespace, you can confidently take advantage of their 14-day free trial. After the trial period ends, you can choose from four different pricing tiers. The Business Plan ($18/month) is perfect for informational websites, while the Basic Commerce ($26/month) is the most popular pricing plan and ideal for online stores.

6) Squarespace websites have good security

Rest assured that as your website gains more traffic, it is not prone to security vulnerabilities. This is because Squarespace is a closed system created by an in-house development team, making it a safer choice than open-source systems like WordPress. Furthermore, Squarespace's built-in features are designed with security in mind, ensuring your website is secure.

7) Squarespace has 24/7 customer support

If you encounter any issues or require assistance, Squarespace Support can always help you via 24/7 emails or live chat. In addition, their highly skilled technicians will go the extra mile to assist you, including accessing your site from the backend to identify any problems or walking you through specific edits step-by-step.

8) Squarespace has solid SEO features

Squarespace makes optimizing your website's search engine ranking effortless, as no coding is required. The platform has various pre-built features that seamlessly enhance your site's SEO, including auto-generated site maps, SSL security, automatic redirects, and mobile responsiveness. Moreover, Squarespace simplifies adding titles and meta descriptions with an SEO tab available for each page and blog post.

When is it not recommended to use Squarespace for your business?

Although Squarespace has advantages, there may be better choices for some businesses. Consider other options if the following five situations apply to your business.

1) Multilingual websites

While creating a website in multiple languages on Squarespace can be accomplished, the process can sometimes be complicated. It will require you to create a separate set of pages for each language, which can lead to additional work if you need to include numerous languages on your website.

2) Online stores that solely sell products

If you want to showcase products on your website, using an e-commerce platform designed explicitly for that purpose is best. While Squarespace is great at creating visually stunning content pages, Shopify has a broader range of e-commerce features that can benefit your business. With Shopify, you can accept payments in multiple currencies, enjoy more inventory management options, and choose from various payment gateways (compared to the limited three options on Squarespace). Choose Shopify for an e-commerce platform that can meet all your business needs.

3) Large online shops

Regarding larger online shops, Squarespace needs to be a better platform. Although it permits up to 10,000 products on a Store page, the challenge of organizing these products and integrating with third-party services escalates as your product count increases. Consequently, Squarespace is not the most optimal choice for bigger online stores.

4) If you need complete freedom of functionality

WordPress is the optimal choice if you are looking for a website with advanced features and complete control over functionality. On the other hand, Squarespace is designed in-house, making it challenging to find external developers who can help with coding a specific feature. Although these limitations ensure Squarespace is secure and user-friendly, larger websites may have better options.

5) If you need complete freedom of design choices

If you're a web designer or creative, you may have a clear vision of your website's appearance. However, while Squarespace is a great platform, it may only offer the customization you need with extensive use of CSS. Luckily, there are alternatives like Showit (which requires no coding) or Webflow (which does require coding) that better fit your needs.