Squarespace Review: Pros & Cons

Squarespace is a website builder that has been around for a few years now. It allows for non-coders to build a website using pre-designed templates, that can be customised to suit the needs of the user. Unlike other online website builders, the templates are pretty impressive to begin with, and with a bit of tweaking and some basic customisation, can be a great cost-effective alternative to a custom built website. For this reason we recommend it to our clients who need to get a basic website up quickly, and may not need all the features of a custom WordPress site. Check our Squarespace review below to see if this is the right platform for your business.

Pros

Great Templates

Squarespace currently has 84 base templates to choose from – with more being added all the time. All the templates are super sexy and completely on trend in a contemporary minimalist style. Although geared towards sites with rich photography, with a few tweaks we’ve built great websites across many different industries. From HR and accounting, to fashion and non-profits.

All Inclusive

Packages include the website builder, hosting, 24/7 customer support and even a free .com domain name for the first year.

Fully Responsive

All Squarespace templates are responsive so they will look great on all devices. All your content, text, imagery, slideshows and plugins will resize to give your customers the optimum viewing experience*.

Drag and drop editor

Even though you’re starting off with a template – nearly everything is customisable so you can add and remove whichever sections you like. It’s easy to use and results in a less “templatey” looking website.

Apps!

Squarespace has multiple apps for smartphones that allow you to utilise elements of your site without having to log in on a desktop. These apps include Squarespace Blog which allows you to write and edit posts and manage comments. A great app for those less tech savvy as the user-interface is super simple. Squarespace Portfolio synchs with the galleries on your Squarespace site. It presents them in a clean and professional portfolio style template that’s accessible without an internet connection. Great for those in the creative industries like artists, photographers, interior designers and architects who need to present their work in meetings where internet may be unavailable. Squarespace Analytics is for monitoring your website performance on the go and great for team members who need to reference these statistics but may not need full website access.

Social Plugins

Pre-built modules that allow seamless integration with your social feeds. And they work both ways – feeding into and out of your website. A handy way of keeping your homepage looking fresh without making any updates! This feature also allows for posting blogs automatically to Facebook, LinkedIn and other social channels at the click of a button.

 

E-Commerce

Squarespace has recognised that a lot of its customers are selling products online and is enhancing their e-commerce offering all the time. It offers great features like order and inventory management and abandoned checkout emails; a feature that sends automatic emails to customers who abandon checkout before completing an order. You can also track how many sales and how much revenue are recovered. They have also recently added PayPal and Apple Pay to their payment options.

Cons

It’s still a template site

No matter how many modules, fonts and colours you change, it’s still a template and may not have the features you need or the template to suit your design requirements. (And that’s why our site is built in WordPress, because we’re designers and like to have control over how every element looks, no matter how big or small).

Weird template restrictions

Sometimes Squarespace templates have strange restrictions – for example you might want to add a search bar to your menu. Well sorry no can do – the menu areas of the site are often very restricted in what they can and can’t do. Unless you’re a bit of a coding whiz and feel confident in customising your template code, some things that might seem simple to do are virtually impossible.

Responsive styling*

Did you see the little asterisk in number 3 above? Well, in 99% of instances the responsiveness is great, but 1% of the time it wigs out and won’t resize your text formatting in a logical way. Resulting in text way too big or too small for a mobile screen. However, this can usually be fixed with additional coding.

Site Speed

Google now uses site speed in its algorithm used to rank pages, this combined with shortened attention spans means that load times are more important than ever. Unfortunately you don’t have much control over optimisation for speed in terms of the underlying code. Squarespace was previously bashed by developers for being too slow, but this is being optimised continually so the speed issue is now debatable.

Pricing

Squarespace is competitively priced and we believe great value for what you get. But – because it’s all inclusive and not an open source platform like WordPress, there’s no option to shop around for another hosting platform. This also means that Squarespace can charge what they like and can change their pricing whenever they like.  And you’ll just have to deal with it.

Plugins

Unlike WordPress where there are endless plugins available, Squarespace does not allow 3rd party applications. This approach does ensure that everything just works. However, unlike Apple or Shopify, there’s no regulated system for quality extensions and apps to get integrated into your site.

This blog was originally published on benchcreative.com.au