When it comes to marketing, your website plays a crucial role in turning potential customers into loyal ones. Your website is where your target audience forms a first impression of your company, which explains why you should invest in developing a stunning website. And the best place to start when making a good website is by choosing a good website builder.
Website builders have become all too common today, as it allows people with minimum web development experience to bring their personality center stage. This is also often the most economical choice for smaller businesses, as they can bypass having to hire a professional web designer. But if you are a small business looking to make their mark on the internet, which website builder should you choose?
With the rise in demand for independent creators making their own websites, many companies have risen to the challenge of providing a great platform to create a website. One of these platforms is Squarespace. Squarespace is one of the biggest website creators currently available in the market, but is it for you? In this review, we will go over Squarespace, the features that it offers, the Pros and cons, and its unique selling point.
Pros and Cons
Squarespace is an amazing website builder with multiple features and quirks, making it incredibly fun to use. That is not to say that there are no shortcomings in Squarespace. In fact, there are places where Squarespace requires major upgrades to compete with the competition. So without further ado, here are some of the Pros and Cons of using Squarespace.
Pros
- Mobile Apps – One of the major benefits of Squarespace is that it has a multitude of different mobile apps available for use. There are a total of four apps, all of which help developers control their site. The best one –called Squarespace – allows you to control almost every aspect of your website from your phone. From the blog to the store and even the pages, you can control and change everything. Unfortunately, the major app is only available for iOS devices, but the company has plans to bring its app to the android market.
- Customer Support – Mobile apps are not the only unique benefit that Squarespace brings to the table, as its customer support is unlike anything people can find on other website development platforms. It offers a live chat feature that lets you message the support team and receive an answer in a matter of minutes. Moreover, you won’t be chatting with bots, but rather real representatives who are looking to help you with problems. And if you are having trouble navigating the site through the steps they mention, you can always ask for screenshots. Their team of representatives also provides screenshots for steps that you should take to fix the problem you are facing.
- Blogging Feature – People looking to create a good blogging site will find Squarespace a better alternative to other website building tools. They have pre-installed modern commenting features that allow your readers to leave their feedback on your blog posts. You can also schedule your posts to post later while having AMP support. Squarespace even allows you to host podcasts on its websites, which is a nice touch considering how popular podcasts are getting.
- Templates and Designs – Now to the cream of the crop: the templates and the designs. The templates and designs that Squarespace offers are incredibly diverse and unique in their fonts, images, and style. These templates are also highly customizable, which means that even if two people use the same template, it is very unlikely that both sites will look the same. A feature unique to Squarespace is that you can change the template of your website, without shifting or losing content. With this feature, you can quickly adjust seasonal themes without having to rework your entire website.
Cons
- Page Speed – The speed at which your page loads has a big impact on the overall page landings and the number of visitors who are willing to stay. To make matters worse, templates take longer to load on smartphones, which are the most commonly used device to access websites. This is a problem that occurs because of the heavy customization of the templates, as they take a little longer to load. On the other hand, the good news is that Squarespace is actively working to improve this issue and better optimize their websites.
- One Sub-Navigation – Although the Page speed may not be a very big issue, in the long run, the one sub-navigation is a very serious issue. One sub-navigation essentially means that you will not be able to make too big of a site with various menu options and multiple languages. So in the event that your business does grow big enough, you will have to jump ship. This lack of navigation is especially bad for business owners looking to make good eCommerce stores.
Squarespace Contracts and Plans
Squarespace is a fairly economical website builder with different plans, each built for a different type of customer. There are four main types of plans, each of which is great for a specific business.
- Personal ($12)
The personal plan is the cheapest package that also gives you most website building features. One of the major features that this package has is the online store. Other than that, users still get access to various templates and blogging options.
- Business ($18)
The business package is an upgraded version of the personal package, with a few added features. This is better suited for mid-sized businesses or brands that can use some of the more advanced features.
- Basic Online Store ($26)
This package is a great place to start your online store, as it gives you all of the basic tools that you will need to make transactions. Moreover, with this package, you can sell goods without having to deal with transaction fees.
- Advanced Online Store ($40)
The advanced online store is the last and most expensive package that Squarespace provides. This contains all of the more advanced eCommerce features that bigger online stores will use.