Why You Should Use Squarespace to Build Your Next Website
I work with a lot of small businesses and a major pain point for most of them is their website. Their existing website might not look great from a design perspective, or it’s not optimized for mobile, or they might not be comfortable making updates to their site. And most of the time, I recommend building a website on Squarespace. I love Squarespace and I’m going to explain why I think you should use Squarespace to build your next website.I started working with Squarespace a couple of years ago at my old full-time job. At first, I didn’t like it because I felt like the easy drag and drop functionality meant that I was going to be limited on what customizations I could make. I was completely wrong. Not only do Squarespace websites look great, but they also easy to build and maintain, and they are totally customizable.
Here are a few more specific reasons why you should choose Squarespace for your next website:
Includes free domain name
If you pay annually when you sign up, Squarespace includes a domain for free. This is the perfect option for anyone just starting their business. But, it can also be a great added value for any business who is looking to add a similar or keyword based domain. You can build your Squarespace site and use your existing domain, but you can also set up your new domain to forward to your website. This can help users find your site whether you want to choose a similar domain or keyword domain. I might already own samdinicola.com but maybe I want to choose samdinicoladigital.com as my free domain. Or, I might choose squarespacedesign.com as my free domain. It’s a great added value.
Great looking templates
Squarespace has a ton of well designed and beautiful templates to choose from. They even separate them into industry categories. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, find your industry and choose from there. Although you can use any template for your website, some lend themselves to certain industries and styles better than others. Another great thing is that you can easily switch templates at any time. If you decide you want to freshen up your site down the road, you can choose a new template and design it, all before you make the changes live. If you want to flex your coding muscles, Squarespace is also flexible enough to make a ton of changes to your base template, resulting in a truly custom website.Easy to ManageFor any small business owner who is worried about being able to make updates to their site in the future, Squarespace is a great option. The drag and drop functionality and visual design allows users to easily see what their changes will look like and the backend setup is pretty easy to get comfortable with. Anyone, even people who aren’t tech savvy, will be able to quickly and easily make updates to their site with just a little bit of practice.
Squarespace handles all upgrades
Unlike Wordpress and a few other website solutions out there, Squarespace handles all site updates and upgrades for you. No more worrying about backing up your Wordpress site before completing an upgrade, only to realize that somehow your site is broken. You don’t have to worry about plugins being incompatible with sitewide updates either. All you have to worry about is making changes to the content of your website whenever you want, Squarespace will take care of the rest.
User-friendly e-commerce solutions
Small businesses that rely on e-commerce may have had to deal with WooCommerce and Wordpress in the past, but here, Squarespace offers another easy to use solution. It’s simple to list your products, whether their digital or physical. Their e-commerce integrates with Stripe and Paypal to ensure that your e-commerce can run business as usual. You can even set up recurring payments if you want to offer payment plans.
Mobile friendly design
The first thing I check when someone asks me if they need a new website is if it’s mobile friendly. If your website was not designed for mobile, you need to make a new website a top priority. According to Think With Google, “67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they're more likely to buy a site's product or service.” You really can’t afford not to have a website that’s optimized for mobile. Luckily, Squarespace does that for you. Just design your site and you can toggle between desktop, tablet, and phone view to see how it looks on each device. This is a game changer for anyone hoping to build their own site but has no web design experience.I’ve been choosing Squarespace websites for my clients for almost two years now and I still love it. That’s why I’ve created a new service, Online In No Time, specifically for small businesses who need a simple website, that’s easy to use, and that looks beautiful for just $500. If you’re ready to get a new website, email me at sam@samdinicoladigital.com or contact me to find out more.
