What Is SquareSpace?

SquareSpace’s website builder is designed for almost anyone to be able to create a professional-looking website in a matter of hours.

Like many website builders, SquareSpace doesn’t require you to know any code or have any development skills. This makes it a great option for beginners.

The process of getting a website up and running with SquareSpace is simple:

1. Create an account
2. Choose your preferred template
3. Edit it using their tools and features

SquareSpace is extremely popular with photographers, people who want to create online portfolios, and artists. Their designs are out of this world. Their professional and creative templates are guaranteed to wow their customers.

Millions of people are using SquareSpace. However, if you’re not 100% sure whether you want to sign up for one of their pricing plans, they do offer a 14-day trial which is absolutely free.

This is reassuring as it confirms they’re confident in their ability to provide an awesome service.

Some examples of companies that use SquareSpace include:

• Lumio
• BigHuman
• UberEats

Whilst there are plenty of sites built with SquareSpace, I decided to sign up for them to give you a real view of their features so you can decide whether they are right for you.

My reviews are always 100% honest and aim to give you an overview of their usability, features, tools, customer support, designs, pricing, and pros and cons.

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Pros & Cons

Who is SquareSpace Best For?

Now that we’ve reviewed SquareSpace’s templates, features, and pricing, it’s time to think about who SquareSpace’s platform is most suited to. Of course, anyone can use SquareSpace’s platform, but like many website builders, they tend to be geared more towards a certain audience.

Bloggers

Bloggers will have a field day with SquareSpace. There are tonnes of built-in blogging features that make great use of SquareSpace’s design-focused platform. You can have multiple contributors, so if you’re a blog owner with content writers at your disposal, this is a useful feature.

We mentioned earlier about social media integration. Well, this is great for bloggers as you can share your latest work with your social media followers. You can also use SquareSpace’s handy app to manage your blog or pick a blog-specific template to create your website.

Business Owners

If you own your own business, you’re going to want to make sure your website is unique to your brand. SquareSpace’s customisation options make this very possible, whilst making life a lot simpler in the process.

Creating a website can be done in a matter of hours, so you can get your brand out there sooner rather than later. If you want to increase engagement with your users, you can create email campaigns and use SquareSpace’s analytics features to monitor your website visitors.

Personal Websites

There’s a whole selection of personal website templates at your disposal. Whether you want to create an online CV or portfolio, SquareSpace’s templates are a brilliant starting point. You can replace images with your own images, use stock images, and really personalise your website to you.

If you want to include a blog on your personal website, it’s easy to add a blog page and integrate this with social media. There are plenty of tools and features to get any personal website started, whilst maintaining a professional look.

Online Stores

As we saw in SquareSpace’s pricing structure, there are two plans that are specifically designed to help people set up their own online store. Each plan comes with a free SSL certificate which is an essential tool to get started.

There’s a wealth of handy tools included, such as abandoned cart recovery, inventory management, coupons, etc. Because SquareSpace focusses on design, you can create a beautiful website and online store at the same time.

SquareSpace gives store owners the ability to sell unlimited products online. There are also handy marketing tools so you can monitor your own analytics. What’s more, if you want to sell offline too, you can do this!

SquareSpace has recently partnered up with Square, so if you’re out and about selling products, you can use your SquareSpace app and a Square card reader to take payments. All of your sales will sync with your online inventory so you can carefully manage at home or work, or on the go.

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Ease of Use

SquareSpace features drag and drop functionality meaning you can design your website how you want it to look. However, it’s a little different to Wix in the fact you can’t drag and drop willy nilly. SquareSpace’s templates have sections that you can edit. This may not suit everyone, however, I feel it’s quite useful to ensure that your website will look great on any device.

The editor itself is simple to use and generally makes sense. Everything about it feels easy, though it may take a little while to get used to if you’re more familiar with website builders like Wix.

When you make changes with SquareSpace, it is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). Unlike WordPress, you can see your changes as they happen, rather than having to use a separate preview mode.

For example, if you add a new image or text box, you can see exactly how that’s going to look if someone were to view your website. I find this a lot easier to work with, especially for those that don’t have any coding experience.

The beauty of SquareSpace is that you don’t need any experience. However, if you do have any coding knowledge, you can use it. For this reason, SquareSpace is a great fit across all skill levels, making it one of the more versatile website builders on the market.

If you have a smartphone, you can download the SquareSpace app. From here, you can edit your website, create blog posts, and change settings on the go.

I mentioned earlier that SquareSpace isn’t as beginner-friendly as some other website builders. That’s simply because it takes a bit longer to get the hang of. It’s pretty easy to figure out, but there are plenty of articles and guides on their website to get you started if you find yourself stuck at any point.

Themes & Templates

SquareSpace’s designs are hard to rival. They are really good, although there are fewer of them. Whilst Wix offers hundreds of templates, SquareSpace focuses on quality. This can be seen through their selection of designs available.

When you choose a template, you can filter between different categories including portfolios, photography, online stores, blogs, non-profits, weddings, restaurants, and lots more. It’s easy to click on a category and view the templates available.

If you like the look of a template you can choose whether to start building with it, or preview it and it features beforehand. The preview feature allows you to view the template across multiple devices like desktop, tablet, and phone.

All of SquareSpace’s templates are free to use. The price is included in the subscription which starts from just £10 per month, but more on pricing later.

Each template comes with its own features designed for the purpose it was built for. For example, if you’re choosing a portfolio template, you’re going to have access to different features than that of a restaurant template.

Unlike Wix, you can change your template whenever you like, even after your site has been launched. One of the features that I often rave about is the ability to create multiple designs. This way, you can choose as you go along, figuring out what’s best for you.

Customisation

Some users may be happy to take a template and run with it, whilst others might want to inject more creative flair into their site. That’s the beauty of SquareSpace, you can choose either option.

If you want to make your website unique, the world is your oyster. You can customise each of your website pages to be just how you like them.

Their templates are very versatile, allowing you to change images, add/delete sections, and choose elements you want to use (or not use).

As SquareSpace is heavily design-focused, you’ll start to realise that you’re going to need to use high-quality images and videos. If you don’t, you’re going to find the designs start to look a little off, and we don’t want that for your website.

If you don’t have access to high-resolution images, SquareSpace has partnered up with Getty images so you can use their stock photos. There are quite a few free images, but more premium content will cost you around £8 to £10.

As I mentioned earlier, if you do have some coding experience, you can put those skills to good use. You can edit colours, background and even fonts to make your website even more individual. SquareSpace does say, however, not to use custom code to make changes to layouts.

If you don’t know any code, you can still edit elements like fonts and colours, it’s really down to you how you want to make the changes. It’s really easy to add new pages (or delete ones you’re not going to use).

Pricing

SquareSpace offers four pricing plans. You can choose to pay them annually or monthly, but opting to pay annually will net you some decent discounts.

SquareSpace’s core features are designed to get a basic website up and running. Their basic and advanced eCommerce plans include all core features, so I won’t include them here for this purpose.

If you want to market your website, I’d opt for at least the Business plan.

If you want to start your own online store, SquareSpace offers some basic eCommerce features on their Business plan. You won’t get any of these with the Personal plan, so bear in mind what you want your website to be used for.

For those that are serious about selling online, the eCommerce plans are definitely the way forward. You’ll get access to way more eCommerce features compared to their other plans.

Visit SquareSpace.com

Tools & Features

SquareSpace has a wide range of tools and features at your disposal. Choosing the right pricing plan will unlock different features, so make a note of what you want from your website and review this in our pricing section.

Social Media Integration: Billions of people use social media every day. In fact, many people focus their advertising and marketing efforts on social media more and more. With this in mind, it’s important to be able to integrate your website with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. SquareSpace gives you the ability to integrate with many social media outlets, as well as being able to display your social feeds via your website.

SEO: If you want people to visit your website, you’re going to need good SEO on your website. SEO means your website will rank higher on search engines, generating more traffic towards your website. SquareSpace’s SEO tools mean you can set up your website to be SEO-friendly. You don’t need any knowledge in this area, as they will guide you through most of it. For example, you can manage your keywords, alt text, meta descriptions, and titles. If you don’t feel confident about SEO, SquareSpace offers an in-depth introduction to SEO on their support pages.

Marketing: SquareSpace offers the ability to integrate with MailChimp. If you’re not keen on this, their own email campaign platform might be more suitable. Their in-house system provides the tools needed to ensure your brand is consistent throughout your website. If you can nail your marketing and SEO, you’re onto a real winner.

Security: All of SquareSpace’s pricing plans come with a free SSL certificate. When someone views your website, they’ll be able to see the lock icon next to your URL to indicate that your website is secure. This gives confidence to your users that your website is protected against any potential threats. If you’re creating an eCommerce store, this is an essential feature to be able to take payments online. On top of this, SquareSpace’s security has built-in tools to protect you against malware and DDoS threats.

Backups: I’m sure we’ve all made mistakes when creating a website. Whether it be a customisation error or something bigger, SquareSpace has a feature where you can restore deleted pages for up to 30 days following their deletion. Although they don’t offer an autosave process, their editor makes it easy to undo or redo changes you have made. SquareSpace’s backup system makes backups of your website across multiple servers and off-site physical locations. If you make changes whilst on the app and your connection dies, you won’t lose any of your work.

Domains: When you sign up to SquareSpace, you’ll be offered a free domain for the first year. If you already have a domain, you can connect this to your new website. If you want to register a domain and keep everything in one place, SquareSpace sells domains via their website. They’re a little more pricey compared to some domain name providers, but nothing completely out of reach.

Summary

SquareSpace is definitely up there as one of my favourite website builders. It’s easy to use, after a little bit of time and effort investment, and will certainly produce good results.

Although it’s more expensive than some other website builders, I truly believe the expense is worth its weight in gold. The features you get in return are simply outstanding, along with professionally designed templates that are guaranteed to generate the wow factor.

Whether you’re a professional web developer or a newbie, SquareSpace is accessible by all. It also offers great scalability. If you sign up to their personal plan and decide you’d rather have access to more features, or you want to start selling online, you can easily upgrade your plan and just pay the difference.

I highly recommend SquareSpace to anyone that wants a well-designed website. If creativity and design isn’t your thing, you may find Wix a better alternative, as they offer more templates and easy drag and drop functionality.

However, SquareSpace isn’t just about design. Yes, their templates look stunning, but they offer so much more than that. If you’re still not sure, I’d recommend reviewing SquareSpace’s pricing which contains a lot of their features, to decide whether it’s right for you.

Visit SquareSpace.com