what is Squarespace?

Wordpress, Joomla, Wix, Umbruco, Drupal, Shopify, Hubspot, Magento… I’ve used all of these website platforms and I have no hesitation in recommending Squarespace as a better content management system option for most businesses.

Squarespace was started in 2003 as a design-driven DIY website builder that allowed users to create professional-looking websites without the need for coding or technical skills.

Over the past 20 years it has grown from a service offering a set number of easily recognisable templates into a powerful system that offers lots of customisation and built in features including member areas, email campaigns, scheduling, ecommerce and more.

I’ve seen some people mistake the beauty of Squarespace for a shallow website experience that can’t measure up to big competitors like Wordpress. That’s a costly error and here’s a list of reason why you should be using Squarespace to support your online growth.

Squarespace is easy to use.

Squarespace has an WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that makes it really easy for users to create websites without technical skills or knowledge. Powered by its Fluid Engine, you can drag and drop content blocks around your pages to create the exact design you’d like.

The intuitive nature of Squarespace’s menu layout means you can easily navigate to your page elements, style controls or marketing and domain settings. You won’t lose time searching through complex hidden menus to find that one setting or widget that is broken.

Squarespace’s DNA as a DIY website platform means its easy for our clients to take care of their own website updates and management - you won’t need to call a designer for every little change.

It looks good on all platforms and screens.

Our Squarespace templates are designed to incorporate cutting-edge UI/UX best practices, while looking beautiful on any size screen. With mobile traffic accounting for more than half of all website traffic it’s critical that your content looks good on the smallest smartphone, while also performing on a large screen.

Squarespace’s designs and templates are built for responsive design and easily translate from one screen size to another without a lot of extra work for the designer or website owner. You won’t need to repeat the design process for a smaller screen size - and you can easily check how your content will appear on a large or small screen as you work.

It’s secure doesn’t require constant updates.

Squarespace is fully self-contained. Your website is hosted on the platform, and it doesn’t rely on a different plugins on widgets to work.

As a website owner that means you won’t need to update software or widgets every other day to patch security vulnerabilities, or worry that changing one item may break something else on your site. Not only do you get piece of mind that your website will just work - you’ll also save money on third-party apps or plugins, as the vast majority of functionalities you could need are actually native to the Squarespace platform.

You can manage everything from one place.

Between your CMS, hosting, domain management, email management and cloud storage, there can be a lot of different platforms to access with a website. Squarespace can simplify this process with in-platform management of domains and Google Workspace.

As well as taking care of hosting, you can purchase domains for your site in Squarespace and set up Google Workspace - which means you can avoid messing around with name servers and MX records. However, if you already have a domain in place - you can easily connect it to your Squarespace hosted site.

Squarespace also offers free SSL certificates for all Squarespace domains and connected third-part domains. This means your visitors will enjoy a secure connection on every page.

Built in SEO features.

Every Squarespace website has all the elements you need for a strong SEO strategy built into the system. From site descriptions to page titles, custom URLs, and search-friendly formatting, everything you need to increase your search engine optimisation is easily accessed and managed.

Squarespace also offers a range of helpful resources to help you build and implement a solid SEO strategy.

Room to grow.

Whether you need a quick one page website to collect feedback on a project, or an online store - you can do it on Squarespace. In fact, I once built an entire School of Bridge membership based website on Squarespace - complete with programmed card games, interactive quizzes and different levels of membership access.

Squarespace is used by 4.2 million users across the world, from solo entrepreneurs through to large companies, such as Pixar and The New York Times.

With Squarespace continuing to expand its services through membership areas, ecommerce features, appointment scheduling and email campaigns there is so much potential to grow your online presence through Squarespace.

Want to give it a go?

By default Squarespace offers a two week trial to test out its features. As a Squarespace Circle member, I can offer clients an extended six month trial - but you really don’t need that long to get your website up and running.

After designing more than 40 Squarespace websites for a huge range of clients, I have a tried and tested process that can deliver your website in a matter of days - not months. So if you want to give DIY a go - or have someone look at your website for you, let’s chat.