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What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a website builder. Like WordPress, which we will cover shortly, it is a platform meant to make it easier for beginners to set up a starter website without the heavy cost of a professional website build. This arrangement naturally will suit some businesses or entrepreneurs who may either have strong local SEO combined with social media, or a solo individual who may get a lot of business via LinkedIn or closing deals in person. But still, what exactly is Squarespace?
Well, in the early 2000s, websites were starting to emerge from just using basic markup language (HTML) and some style instructions. There were new options to play with, and websites were getting flashier. More people wanted to have one, though options were limited. You had to know how to write HTML back then. But people wanted to have their own websites and blogs, without those skills, and that’s where Squarespace came along. They became a solution for blogging, which evolved into a solution for people to get started with providing business information to customers, and later on, incorporating e-commerce into the mix.
And while Squarespace isn’t the most comprehensive website-building tool, it is simple to use out of the box. For people who simply want an online presence or have the need for complete control over their site might want to start with Squarespace, especially if they have limited experience building a site or a very tight budget.
Costs: Is Squarespace Free to Use?
Squarespace is not free. The fee for the most basic level of Squarespace has usually been marginally higher than basic hosting plans but does allow the usage of templates, appointment scheduling, a personalized domain, and a place to park your website. Higher priced tiers will also have more features, such as basic website analytics, e-commerce functionality, advanced shipping features, and at the highest and most expensive tiers, allow for the sale of subscriptions to customers. The highest tier does come at a relatively high cost, though, so this makes more sense for a business that is established enough to see regular profits.
Can You Use Squarespace to Build a Website?
Yes, as mentioned above, that is the purpose of Squarespace. Like Wix, Weebly, WordPress, Shopify, Jimdo, Zyro, and others, Squarespace allows the user to choose from various templates, add some degree of customization like colors, logos, fonts, and images, and then add content to various pages. Building out a homepage, about page, contact, and product page, for example, is a very straightforward process. Slightly more advanced users can even play around with some of the tools to optimize their site for search engines or even drop tracking codes and hook up Google Analytics.
Pros of using Squarespace
- Ease-of-Use
- Plug-and-Play Design Templates
- Some SEO Options
- Some E-commerce Options
- Reliable, with Regular Security Updates
- The ‘Build-it-and-Forget-it’ approach means low maintenance
Cons of using Squarespace
- Limited Design Customization
- Server Speed and Performance
- High Recurring Hosting Cost
- Sacrifice Control and Ownership of Site
- Limited SEO and Third Party Integrations
- Not suitable for Larger Businesses
SEO and Paid advertising on Squarespace
Squarespace has some basic, built-in SEO tools for on-site SEO. That means it can help optimize your titles, descriptions, and other on-page elements. Because SEO is often a manual task, and local SEO is done externally, it isn’t going to be possible to carry out an SEO strategy or even build one automatically within any website framework, including Squarespace. Instead, Squarespace offers a suite of tools that help you understand more information about your traffic, including organic.
When it comes to advertising, this should be managed externally as well, as this would be done through a third-party platform such as Google or Facebook. However, Squarespace can make it easier to build ads landing pages and see important data about your ad campaigns that land on these pages.
What are the Best Types of Websites for Squarespace?
Portfolio Sites
For simple sites such as a work portfolio, brochure site, art portfolio, or hobbyist site, Squarespace works. That’s because WordPress, despite the fact that it handles these types of sites with ease, is harder to learn and might not be worth it for something that serves a simple or temporary purpose.
Smaller Business Websites
Squarespace is very appropriate for smaller businesses or ones that are just starting out thanks to the platform’s low cost of entry, ease of use, and time-saving layouts.
Non-Profits
For non-profits that may be short of manpower and have to manage funds carefully, starting with Squarespace can be a good choice as working toward optimization and learning how to use forms with WordPress might be overkill. Plus, community websites such as for a church or youth sports team might only be visited by a small group and only need rudimentary functionality. Such websites are easier to manage, as you wouldn’t want them going down – something that shouldn’t happen with Squarespace hosting.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is another framework used to build websites. WordPress uses a theme-based system, rather, the part of the website that is tied to the design of the site, or view, is theme-based. This means that if you have a page about houseplants, with a blue background and a headline in Times New Roman font, you do not necessarily have to use a style sheet or markup language to change the look and feel. You instead select a theme you’d like to use and it transforms the appearance of that page. Of course, it is more complex than that. You can still manually use HTML and CSS files, which is the markup language at the core of your WordPress website, but you don’t have to. You can enhance a WordPress website with forms, buttons, counters, and so much more. These enhancements, called plugins, exist with thousands of options from third-party creators and allow you an almost unlimited capacity to make any kind of site within your power. With WordPress, it’s worth noting that you control the behavior of your plugins and menus through a dashboard. The dashboard allows you to set up a new post, publish new pages, make changes to your theme, add new plugins, and much more.
Obviously, this tool differs from Squarespace in sheer scalability, but the key takeaway when choosing between WordPress versus Squarespace is that WordPress is much less limited. It gives the author much more control over the website environment, the hosting, and type of technology that can be implemented on a website itself.
Costs: Is WordPress Free to Use?
For non-profits that may be short of manpower and have to manage funds carefully, starting with Squarespace can be a good choice as working toward optimization and learning how to use forms with WordPress might be overkill. Plus, community websites such as for a church or youth sports team might only be visited by a small group and only need rudimentary functionality. Such websites are easier to manage, as you wouldn’t want them going down – something that shouldn’t happen with Squarespace hosting.
Can You Use WordPress to Build a Website?
WordPress is the leading tool for building websites, both hobbyist and professional. Not only that, but WordPress has the functionality to build any type of website. You’re only limited by the type of server and security technology you use, as well as if you have coding skills or the means for specific plugins if what you need is very specific types of behaviors on your web application.
Pros of using WordPress
- Much more flexibility to build without restrictions versus Squarespace or drag-and-drop builders
- Multitudes of themes and plugins for any situation
- Full ownership of website and code
- Can decide on where site is hosted
Cons of using WordPress
- Steeper learning curve than Squarespace and other similar services
- More time-consuming to build your website
- Need to pay a dev or pay for premium tools for some basic functions
- Must provide your own hosting service
- Need to delve into setting up mailing records, shortcodes, and more whereas Squarespace holds your hand for common implementations
SEO and Paid advertising on Squarespace
As with Squarespace, it isn’t so much the builder that you use as it is the strategy that you have in place for any type of advertising or SEO. WordPress can either allow for more SEO-friendly websites, or ones that break every rule, depending on which themes you use, what type of plugins you add and the content you put on your website. There are several well-known tools to help you visualize your pages and traffic, and just like Squarespace, there are ways to help you optimize your on-page SEO.
Ads are managed through their corresponding platform, whether it be Google Ads or Facebook. You can also make a landing page quickly and easily with WordPress just as you can with Squarespace, so overall, both Squarespace and WordPress sites have the capacity to enjoy full optimization and be the destination for ad campaigns.
What are the Best Types of Websites for Squarespace?
Medical Websites
Medical websites can be some of the more complex applications under the hood. You often have integrations with CRMS, HIPAA compliancy to consider, and custom pages that will adapt specific features. WordPress is perfect for all of these things, and as the practice grows, so too can the website.
E-commerce Websites
E-comm often involves a lot of tracking, forms, filters, and customization. There is almost no better way to build such a site unless you build it on a custom framework. WordPress is a very happy medium. It can allow even larger businesses to sell their products and implement custom coding or even a repurposed plugin.
Lead Gen Sites
Similar to a brochure site, lead gen sites are used by service-based businesses, primarily, to capture the attention of users and collect leads. This can be accomplished in Squarespace, but we like WordPress better for it simply because some of the best lead-gen sites will want custom tools and interactive elements.
Complex or More Custom Sites
If it seems like some of your ideas for your future site are spiraling into a place of, ‘should we add this?’, ‘do we need that?’, then you might want to just plan on starting with WordPress. Even if you don’t need it now, you might soon, and if you’re considering it to begin with, there is probably some degree of complexity to your business that will require you to get a little more sophisticated. You should ask yourself, can I get away with the bare minimum of a homepage, a contact page, about us, location, and main service? If you say no, then identify why and start considering WordPress, even if it might take some time to learn, or you need to work with a developer.
Verdict: Is it better to use WordPress or Squarespace?
Both WordPress and Squarespace allow you to build your own website. While it’s easier, faster, and requires little to no understanding of what goes on behind a website when using Squarespace, it might be worth the extra time to look into WordPress if you can spare it. Overall, it is more robust and allows for handling more traffic, more customization, and gives you complete control over your site.
However, if you’re just starting out in a new business, and you have limited funds or limited time, it might be worth going into it building out whatever you can with Squarespace with the full knowledge that you’ll need to likely upgrade later. With a limited budget, you might want to put some of your money into either paid ads or SEO, depending on the situation. The one thing that you’ll want to make sure of is that you use your own domain (i.e. www.yourwebsite.com), which you can do using either WordPress or Squarespace.
Do you think you have a handle on getting your website up and running? For a basic website, a lot of people or small businesses can get something online and linked up to social profiles and even their Google Business Profile, but after that, you might be at a loss. While building a website can be fun and creative, to get the most out of it, your next step is a transition into digital marketing. Whether you want to run light ads, go strong on Facebook, perfect your branding and messaging, or come up with the best SEO strategy for your company, consider consulting an expert. Today’s Business specializes in medical, service-based businesses, enterprise websites, and more. And yes, we even build websites! Let us know your goals and set up a consultation today by reaching out online today.
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