Why Squarespace is the Best Web Platform for Small Businesses

Jan 14

When people ask me what platform they should use for their website, 90% of the time I tell them, “Just go with Squarespace and save yourself the headache.”

I have personally built websites on three platforms, Wordpress, Wix and Squarespace, both for myself and for others and I can say pretty much across the board, Squarespace builds are the only ones I have actually enjoyed.

A long time ago, when I was a humble blogger working on my own site, I followed some advice and made a site on Wordpress. This experience made me feel like I was exceedingly stupid, artistically inept, and overall just kind of a knucklehead. My website was always broken, I couldn’t do anything right, and any new trick I learned immediately caused some unforeseen problem.

Fast forward 10 years and I’m building Wordpress sites professionally, and honestly, the experience was more similar than it was different. Our daily work flow would look something like this:

Step One: Make a plan to code something
Step Two: something weird and mesmerizing breaks
Step Three spend the next six hours trying to fix it
Step Four: spend the last hour of the day maybe getting to code the thing you were trying to work on. Or just try again tomorrow.

When I moved over to Squarespace, I kept waiting for that sort of thing to happen, and it just never did.

My experience with Squarespace has been and continues to be, that it almost always just works. Which as a web developer feels pretty uncanny.

Now, there are drawbacks, Squarespace is limited. There are cool animations and CSS tricks that are years away from being available on Squarespace. If you are trying to wow people with that sort of developer skill, it’s harder to do. But unless your target audience is web developers, most people won’t notice or care. And if you are developing a site that requires any kind of complex backend, you’re going to need a bigger boat. But for most small businesses, sole proprietorships, artists, bloggers etc. a Squarespace site is all you will ever need and it will do that job better.

Here’s why

Squarespace is easy to edit

That doesn’t just save you time and headaches, it will give you a better site. Websites shouldn’t be static. A good website is ever-evolving and should reflect any updates you make to your business (price changes, new products, updates to your offerings/services, new blog entries, new photos every so often). You should feel confident going into the backend of your website, and with Squarespace you can. No design or web development experience needed, and that feels pretty darn empowering! You are more likely to work on it yourself, and that means your website is more likely to be accurate and up-to-date. Which means people will use it more, which will improve your SEO, which means people will use it more.

It’s an All-in-One Platform

Squarespace covers the bases and offers pretty much everything a site could need - blog, e-commerce, appointment scheduling system, email marketing, social media integration. With other systems, you’ll need plug-ins or widgets, plus the extra know-how, to get the same functionality, and that can get complicated and confusing. For sure you’ll end up paying for tools that you haven’t used in months. It is much easier to keep everything in one place.

It Doesn’t Break (much)

For me, this is my number one reason for using Squarespace. No need to worry about fixing lines of code that might break a section, page or even a whole site. While Squarespace does offer the option of using code for advanced functionality and design, it is absolutely not necessary to make a stellar site. In fact, I avoid using custom code whenever possible. Web designers love to show off by doing that little something extra, but for the most part, people aren’t looking for that. Unless you are selling to web designers, the little animated squiggle in the corner of your photo isn’t really impressing anyone. I mean, I like doing that stuff, it’s fun and cool, but necessary? Probably not.

Squarespace Customer Service is Awesome

If you do run into issues with your site, Squarespace support is very responsive (it’s offered 24/7) and does a fantastic job. You are talking with real people very soon, who work on your problem until it's fixed. I have yet to be disappointed.

Mobile Optimization is So Easy

Squarespace automatically designs your website with mobile view in mind, but with the click of a button, you can view your site from the perspective of a mobile, tablet or desktop device.

SSL Security is Included

Squarespace does this automatically. No more embarrassing browser icon telling visitors your site is unsafe!

Built-in SEO features

Squarespace is designed with SEO best practices in mind. Examples include SSL certificates, site map, search engine and page descriptions, headings and tags, clean URLs, automatic redirects and accelerated mobile pages (AMP).

Analytics is Included

In the Squarespace back-end system, you can easily monitor your site’s overall performance and visitor behavior. Check stats like traffic overview, see where your traffic is coming from, search keywords, see your subscriber numbers and more. You can connect your account to Google Analytics if you need a more detailed report, but this does the trick for most small businesses.