Squarespace Review

Life is hard. Some days you wake up, walk to the kitchen, and open the cupboard in an attempt to grab a bowl to throw your delicious cereal in. As you go to open the cupboard ominous music plays and the ground begins to shake.

All of your tupperware greets you for the day with a big hug. You just know it’s going to be a bad day.

You sit down and cry. It’s been a tough morning—a tough month, really. If we’re being honest, this year has been difficult in general.

All you can think about is how you have to build a website for your boss today and the idea of trying to master the art of creating a website seems damn near impossible.

Pause for moment – take a deep breath, hold it, release… feel better now? Good. That’s the same kind of feeling you’ll get when using Squarespace. It just makes life easy.

Visibly excited, you see how simple it is to make a beautiful website quickly and easily with Squarespace. A smile spreads across your face as you realize everything will be okay. 

The Low-Down

If you’re looking for a way to build a clean and simple website within a template as quickly as possible then Squarespace is the right website builder for you.

It is easier and quicker to create a beautiful finished product with Squarespace than anywhere else. What it lacks in features it makes up for in ease of use and finished product.

If you want the chance to build a fully customized website with fantastic customer support and a great community to help you build a website then you should also check out Wix.

Wix differs from Squarespace as it is a truly blank canvas where you can create the exact website you have envisioned. While it is a little more difficult to use – the options are endless.

It all comes down to personal preference and the type of website you are looking to build.

Who Squarespace is for

The idea of building a website can be overwhelming if you’ve never done it.

However, not having prior experience or training is not a hindrance when it comes to building websites in the 21st century.

The fact of the matter is that sometimes your boss comes in and asks for help building a website to showcase his collection of doll heads.

In scenarios like this you need to turn to great website builders such as Squarespace—and quite possibly the authorities.

Squarespace is made for people who want to be able to create beautiful and professional websites with minimal effort.

The ability to customize everything isn’t the priority of Squarespace but what it does is offer a diverse collection of templates that are easily edited to create what you have in mind.

Drag-and-Drop

There are numerous website development services that have drag-and-drop functionality. Wix and Weebly are the other big players in the drag-and-drop website builder area.

You take an element you want to build on the page and drag it to where you want it.

You drag it, then drop it!

Wix allows the freedom to create anything you want. With that freedom comes a sea of overwhelming options and presents the opportunity to mess up many aspects of the website you’re building.

The design interface of Squarespace is as simple as it gets.

You take an element you want to build on the preset template and it into a preset position it can be placed. The whole process is standardized to ensure your website stays cohesive and stylized.

Living in Squarespace’s World

The best Sqaurespace quality is that it makes building a stunning website in no time a breeze.

Squarespace is all-inclusive and provides literally everything you need to build and grow your website.

Staying all on one platform with everything owned and developed by Squarespace makes everything easier. They even provide website analytics and metrics right there for you.

When you pay for Squarespace, you know why you’re doing that.

The abundance of fantastic templates and easy-to-use drag and drop functionality allow you to produce fantastic looking websites.

If you aren’t obsessed with having control and customizing every single bit of you site, but want a nice looking and preforming web presentation, then Squarspace should definitely be at the top of your list.

The Not So Good

Depending on your opinion this might not even be bad. The worst thing about Squarespace is the inability to customize. With the greatness of the template comes the curse of the template. (Curse of the Template.. hmm.. it sounds cool Might want to trademark that.)

With a template you can only put certain elements in certain places. While this usually isn’t a problem – as you’re building your website you might get a great idea.

As you try to implement this idea you quickly see it isn’t possible. Getting creative with a template usually results in disappointment.

There are a few other issues with Squarespace that will be highlighted below but none of them should stop anyone from using the software. The only other truly noteworthy aspect that is negative is that Squarespace is a little pricier than competitors.

Who Squarespace is actually for

You should use Squarespace if you want to drag-and-drop but you also want your website built as soon as possible. A high priority for you is that everything looks sleek, professional, and uniform without the need to fiddle around with a bunch of settings to make it look that way.

If a beautiful and simple website is your goal without wanting to overcomplicate things then put Squarespace is for you.

However, if you aim to truly express yourself through your website then you might want to continue looking for other website builders that will fit your need–unless baring your soul looks like a Squarespace template. I’m not judging if it does!

Breakdown

Ease of Use

Squarespace is the best website builder in terms of functionality and ease of use combined. Naturally, you’ll be able to find builders that are either packed with a greater number of features, or easier to use. Those that are easy to navigate usually don’t showcase great performance.

There are website builders with more features as mentioned before in Wix and there are website builders that are easier to use. As a general rule all of the options that are easier to use are pretty bad.

One of the best Squarespace feats is that it makes the whole process so straightforward and intuitive. Scrolling down the list of elements and choosing the one you wish to edit makes the whole process a lot easier.

On the other hand, you can also click on the element right on the page, and avoid scrolling throug said list, to make things even faster.

Templates

This section is the reason why someone would choose Squarespace over Wix. Squarespace has the best templates. Not only are they the best, each and every single one they have is awesome.

It is absolutely possible to pick a template, change all the text and pictures and be done with your website, in under an hour. This is the reason to use Squarespace. It’s so easy with their templates to make a simple and truly beautiful website.

The problem comes when you actually want to customize it further. There isn’t a whole bunch you can do to customize a template to what a lot of people would want.

Squarespace templates are perfect for showcasing awesome photography with a few text descriptions. If that was all my website strived to be, I would use Squarespace every single time.

Not only do the templates look beautiful on a desktop but they are all mobile-friendly to the max. It goes so far as some templates don’t even let you edit the mobile version of your website.

Integrations

Every website builder has integrations. A lot of website builders have more integrations than Squarespace. The great thing about Squarespace’s integrations is that they all work flawlessly.

Whatever they lack in amount they make up for in quality. I didn’t manage to think of any integrations I could want that Squarespace doesn’t have either. You would really have to find a hipster software to use in order to find something not available.

Squarespace includes certain integrations such as Amazon affiliate tracking, Mailchimp, Instagram, and Pinterest, to name a few.

Going Beyond the Template

The backend capabilities beyond sticking within a template on Squarespace can be downright difficult. If your goal is to meander from the template you are probably going to have a bad time.

I once saw someone try to use Squarespace by picking a template – proceed to delete all of the elements from the page – and then try to build something from scratch. I laughed at him and told him good luck.

If that is your plan, again, look for a different option. Squarespace is not designed to be used that way.

Trying to build out a cohesive webpage from scratch on Squarespace is like trying to build a dresser from IKEA in your own personal and creative way. In the end you might have something that kind of looks like it might be a dresser if the drawers fit in it.

Actually stick to the template or don’t use Squarespace.

Knowledge Base and Support

This is one area I found Squarespace to drop the ball a little bit. If you need help it is definitely there to be had. The problem is, wait time can be a bit longer than you’d prefer.

Since Squarespace’s greatest strength is being simple yet powerful there isn’t that much you would need to use the knowledge base for. Yet, if you need it – it is all there.

It makes things a whole lot easier when you’re having troubles finding some elements or tools. A quick search will nudge you in the right direction in no time.

The only time you should have any issues is if they are technical in nature. At that point you would have to contact the support team.

Blogging

Blogging is rather effortless with Squarespace. All of the blog functionality you would expect is there. A great feature that isn’t in all website builders is the ability to schedule posts for publishing later.

Other features include liking, comments, and a sharing icon. You can also enable an RSS feed and set up a podcasting integration.

SEO

Just like any other website builder – SEO is fine on Squarespace. Their SEO features include auto-generated sitemaps as well as customizable page titles and meta descriptions. If you plan on blogging and optimizing SEO then Squarespace will work for you.

The only time Squarespace should be avoided is you really plan on going all out with SEO. This usually isn’t the case for people that are using website builders in the first place.

Pricing

The great thing about Squarespace is that it offers a 14 day free trial. With the trial you can begin building your site and see how you like the software. This is more than enough time to see if you actually like using Squarespace.

After your free trial ends you are presented with four different options. Two for a normal website and two for e-commerce.

If paid annually – Squarespace’s subscriptions are right in line with competitors. If paid monthly – the cost is relatively high. Just like with any website builder you’re paying a premium for ease of use and an all in one solution.

Conclusion

Squarespace should definitely be at the top of your list for building a website. If you’re going to go the website builder route rather than hosting and using WordPress your choice should come down to Squarespace and Wix.

There are countless awesome websites living on the internet that were built with Squarespace and I assume most of them were built extremely quickly.

References and image credits:

• ConceitCode.com
• ITarian.com
• Poetry2u.com
• Verint.com
• BusinessProcessIncubator.com