5 reasons why SquareSpace is a superior web design platform.
SquareSpace started in 2004 and by 2006 it had one employee. Fast forward to 2018 and they sit just a hair under 800 employees. SquareSpace was originally thought of a website design company for creatives: Photographers, videographers, artists, and the like.
However, over the last five years, SquareSpace has been transforming the way that websites are built across all industries. In our firms short history, we’ve build websites in industries such as:
Information Technology
Junk Removal
Home Remodeling
Churches & Non-Profits
Medical
SquareSpace isn’t only for designers anymore, it’s for darn near every industry. At the end of 2019, we decided to be exclusive to SquareSpace. The reason being is because every other platform we developed on had shortcomings and at the end of the day, were not user friendly for our clients.
Don’t get me wrong, there may be a rare time where a custom HTML build is needed and that is one of the reasons WordPress has been so successful. The customization is nearly limitless—but the learning curve is far more difficult—especially when you weigh who the average user is going to be.
The reasons.
[1] Simplicity
I’ve talked about this a little bit, but SquareSpace reminds me a lot of Apple. It just works. The platform is streamlined, there is a vibrant, knowledgeable developer community online, and the customer service is first-rate. The templates are open-ended and can be customized with HTML or CSS. There are also built-in plugins for social media and tracking platforms, such as Google Analytics. Simple, but deep.
[2] Cost
This is a biggie. Cost is important. Right now, a client of ours will pay $272 per year for their domain and website storage. That works out to $18 per month. It’s a justifiable cost. There are no hidden fees for security or private registration. It’s everything you need in one package. Need e-commerce? They do that too and also include a tier with 0% product commission.
[3] Design
A lot of people say that SquareSpace websites look alike. And they’re right. But so do WordPress, Wix, and Weebly. It’s not just an issue with SquareSpace. But the biggest issue is the templates and what the designer does with them. Our websites look “uniform” but they are all demonstrably different.
I equate this is a videographer who has a style, but each video tells a different story in a different way. The color grading or shots may be similar, but the depth and story are different. Moreover, on SquareSpace you can use third-party plugins to custom the way the site looks and give it an even more personal touch.
[4] S.E.O.
Yes, SEO. The thing that most people say WordPress has an advantage on. The fact is, sites like Wix and SquareSpace have been upping their SEO game for years and they are competing with WordPress sites for function and overall SEO efficacy. Also, anyone that solely chooses a platform based on SEO is mistaken. There are many, many, many external factors that contribute to SEO. It’s not all about what’s on the page.
I consistently evaluate websites that are built on WordPress with terrible SEO and great SEO. This is the same case for websites on Wix and SquareSpace, too. It’s all a matter of how the website is put together and if the designer and marketing team know what they’re doing. We’ve taken websites from WordPress and moved them over to SquareSpace and in about 90 days, their top 5 keywords where within the top 10 spots on Google.
[5] Support & Permissions
As I’ve mentioned before, the support structure of SquareSpace websites is great and the community is deeper. SquareSpace does a great job of policing their contributors and they also provide great mechanisms for controlling permissions and allowing clients and contributors alike to manage the websites.
This is also an important point because clients want to get into the back end of their website and sites like WordPress and even Wix to some degree make it unattainable due to the learning curve being so large.
Whether it’s SEO, support, function, layout, design, or integration, SquareSpace should be the platform of choice for the majority of small businesses. It’s the platform we exclusively use and we wouldn’t recommend anything else (for the most part).
