Why I use Squarespace in my Web Development Business
I began my journey into web development purely using code. What that means is I didn’t use web builders like Squarespace or Wordpress to create a website; I coded every part from scratch.
This practice has its benefits for certain types of businesses and is even a complete necessity if you need a high level of technical functionality.
However, the businesses I wanted to work with were small businesses ready to level up their online footprint, and I found that coding their website from scratch was the exact opposite of what they needed. I had actually spoken to a handful of small business owners that had gone down the “coding from scratch” route, and honestly, what I heard was very unsettling and actually quite sad!
TO NAME JUST A FEW:
Never being able to make small edits yourself (updating a headline or image) and actually having to pay a developer large fees to do this for them.
Having to pay large fees upfront for the cost of the website. Coding a website from scratch takes a lot of time and tends to be a lot more expensive in the long run.
Having to employ an SEO specialist on top of your developer fees.
I feel that as experts in our industry, it’s our responsibility to recommend to our clients the right direction to go in when investing in one of the most important parts of their business—their website. In very few scenarios I have needed to recommend an fully coded from scratch website to my clients.
Why Squarespace?
Squarespace understands branding; that much is clear from their own website. They understand the need to appear sleek and sophisticated while making sure that the nuts and bolts of their backend are tight enough for fast loading times and tweakable SEO.
Their easy-to-use pre-built page sections and versatile template options give a small business owner the ability to upload their own content, products, and details without needing to rehire a web developer in order to maintain an up-to-date online presence.
Design
Whilst Squarespace isn't unique in offering a platform to design websites, the UX (User Experience) and finished result has something that others like Wordpress or Showit don’t have. Squarespace’s overall finished appearance is much more enticing and premium, which, let’s face it, is a big factor in your clients’ willingness to spend their hard-earned cash.
People often think that Squarespace is limited to using one of their pre-made templates and just adding content… but they would be wrong. You can inject code snippets into Squarespace, creating widgets and plugins and also completely changing the structure and appearance of the pre-built coding structure.
The customisable elements of Squarespace websites allows coders to add in code snippets which boost your websites performance, ratings and SEO as well as being able to add custom CSS to design and develop the overall “shop front”.
Whilst all of this may sound a bit confusing and overwhelming to someone who doesn’t code, don’t worry…. The code customisations are there, but that doesn’t take away from your ability to upload new pictures, content, or products without any knowledge of coding at all.
It’s best to think of this in terms of a race car. In your car, you might have a turbo, you might have some beautiful mahogany trim lining the interior, or you might have some really sophisticated air bags - th’re there to improve the end product in terms of speed, safety and design, but you don’t need to be a mechanic, carpenter, or engineer to drive the car successfully.
Costing
The cost of Squarespace can vary depending on what package you go for, varying between £10 and £30 per month (whilst paying annually). Which as a salary for your hardest working team member is not a great deal, in my opinion. Squarespace gives you a free domain for a year and hosts it for you, whereas that would be an extra cost with other platforms. There are also a lot of other features that will come with your plan.
Mobile Responsivity
Mobile responsivity, is majorly important in this day and age.
From 2015 to 2021, using mobiles (cell phones in the US) to access websites has risen from around 30% to around 50%.
Meaning there has never been a more important time to make sure your website works seamlessly on phones too.
Squarespace uses AMP (‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’) format.AMP, which is a Google-backed project, loads your pages faster by removing certain bits of code. This generally means you're going to have a much higher conversion and retention rate of customers on your site. We have all been there, on our phones, waiting for that page to load and thought, d’ya know what, this aint worth it.. I’ll look later… and never to look back again. This unseen feature of Squarespace also gets you into google's good books, as they will rate pages based on loading times.
Analytics + Marketing
Another couple of big hitting pro’s of Squarespace is their one-stop-shop approach for analytics and marketing.
Website analytics are super important as a small business owner, you want to be able to hone in on key demographics, where your traffic is coming from andwho they are so that you can adapt your business to pursue current trends, develop successful areas or boost areas you’re wanting more attention on.
By learning about your prospective clients gender, age and location you are able to build up a pretty comprehensive view as to who they are and where they’re coming from - this data allows you to be in control of moulding your website and email marketing campaigns to target specific markets or attract specific customers.
OH, did I mention? There’s an App as well, so even when the conversation dwindles down at the local or you’re needing some entertainment while on the loo, you can be checking up on who’s stopped by your website and making informed decisions as to where to go next.
eCommerce
Some people put down Squarespace’s ability to host large eCommerce websites, and in many ways they would be right. However, any issues that derive from this can surely be ousted by the Shopify integration that Squarespace offer, and although it may not be as simple as the click and change design functionality, I can and have integrated Shopify successfully.
This is something you will want to get a hand with as it can be a bit more techy and fiddly, but the end result is an online shopping experience that you can be proud of and feel confident in. You’d be leaving your very best manager on the till instead of a competent supervisor.
Customer Service
Last, but not least - Squarespace support. It’s phenomenal!
For the size of the business, the customer service has not been neglected. There is a live chat option or email support, and from personal experience, they don’t disappoint.
I’ve had a client who had an issue connecting a new domain from an old domain provider - a somewhat fiddly task for most platforms. I emailed them and within an hour they had emailed back and expedited the process. So, in two hours the website was up and running, all necessary (Tech jargon alert) DNS records were sent through so I could add them into the backend and complete the transfer.
The only downside is they don’t provide support on custom coded elements, but that's where I come in.
Conclusion
Squarespace for developers is great, and as a small business owner, who wants a website that stands out from the rest, you’re going to want to employ a web designer to use Squarespace and integrate custom code to ensure a unique and tailored finished product.
Squarespace offers a fab starting point for web developers to take them to the next level in terms of sophistication and abilities. You’ll want someone to add in unique, bespoke customisation through code, whilst knowing that the way this is done means you can keep on top of your website yourself, putting the control and power really back into your hands.
They’ve priced it fairly, the support is there and compared with what else is on the market currently, Squarespace really is the place where you can gain substantial resource for minimal outlay. The platform bridges the gap between the technical side of your business (your website) and the reality of your business no matter what it is.
