Squarespace Evaluate
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Do you need a website builder that can help you create beautiful websites without learning all the technical stuff? Squarespace is an intuitive site builder that is an easy and quick way to create beautiful websites. The giant drag and drop website builder was started by a University of Maryland college student in 2004 and has since grown into an amazingly streamlined website builder that has built millions of websites.
Place compared to the best website builders
Squarespace excels for one main reason: it's amazingly easy to make beautiful websites for even the most clueless beginners. While Squarespace didn't make our list of the best website builders, it is still worth being ranked as one of the best website builders out there today.
In our review of the best website builders, we carefully looked through each website builder to identify the top four options for different needs and use cases. At this point, I've been building websites for years. So you can bet I know a thing or two about what makes a great website builder. Once you read it, you can make the most informed choice. Check out all of our top deals for the best website builders. Let's dive in.
Who is Squarespace best for?
Without a doubt, Squarespace is the best website builder for designers, artists, and ecommerce stores who want to create engaging websites with incredible graphics with minimal effort. This makes it a great choice for small business owners who want to put their feet up on the lookout but may not have the budget or know-how for everything.
Because Squarespace is a hosted solution, you don't have to take any additional steps to find a server or install software. You can create a beautifully designed website in one place right from your browser.
Bottom line? Squarespace is great for creatives who enjoy working with templates and a style editor that lets you personalize even the smallest site details. However, there are important advantages and disadvantages to consider.
Squarespace: the pros and cons
benefits
Responsive site templates: Squarespace has over 100 website templates to choose from. Best of all, they're already designed to be mobile-responsive. A benefit that you may not always get with templates from other website builders.
Unlimited storage space: Squarespace offers unlimited storage for every plan. This is great news for creative websites that will inevitably build a large media library over time. With Squarespace, you no longer have to worry about reaching a storage or bandwidth limit.
Supportive live chat: Stuck? No reason to worry. With the live chat feature, you will always have an agent available to assist you in solving any website creation problem.
Webinars and help guides: As with most website builders, Squarespace has a bit of a learning curve in the backend. To address this, an extensive library of detailed help guides and webinars has been created to get you to the Squarespace Expert level in no time.
Integrated email marketing: One of my favorite Squarespace features is the built-in email marketing tool. Simply put, it's an add-on that allows you to create eye-catching emails with beautiful templates without contacting a third party. I don't know about you, but the less software I have to use to get the job done, the happier I am. And you get a ton of built-in analytics to boot.
Tools specially developed for e-commerce websites: Squarespace doesn't stutter when it comes to who they serve. Once you find out about this, it is clear that you care about visuals, but also that you are being equipped with the best ecommerce tools to create a dynamic online store. This is a great way to narrow down your choice of web builders if you want to specifically build a great ecommerce website.
disadvantage
Limited control over your domain name: If you buy your domain name through Squarespace, you won't be able to migrate it to another hosting provider if you ever choose to. This can be a deciding factor in whether you want to call Squarespace on your website and purchase your domain name in-house.
Limited SEO functions: Many digital experts are questioning Squarespace's SEO capabilities. While there are many success stories of websites that rank on Google, optimizing your posts and pages in Squarespace isn't as intuitive as it is with other website builders like WordPress or Drupal. If SEO is the primary way to drive traffic to your website, this is a point to consider.
Squarespace Pricing
What exactly do you have to pay to use Squarespace and all of its beautiful templates? Well, you can choose from some excellent options.
- Personal – $ 12 per month billed annually
- Business – $ 18 per month billed annually
- Basic Commerce – $ 26 per month billed annually
- Advanced Commerce – $ 40 per month billed annually
Let's start by stating the obvious: Squarespace isn't the cheapest web builder and host out there. However, if your primary goal is to simply create stunning websites that will grab your audience's attention, then the price of a personal plan might not be an issue for you.
personally
Once you move on to the staffing tier, you get access to basic website features like a free custom domain, SSL certification, unlimited bandwidth and storage, additional SEO features, access to Squarespace extensions, and 24/7 customer support.
All for $ 12 a month. Still getting all of this and sometimes more with other web builders for less money, it's still worth looking into each of their tiers for a Squarespace plan that suits your needs.
business
Squarespace's store tier is great when trying to find a reasonable price for an online store with entry-level tools. The Business tier gives you everything in the HR tier plus a suite of fully integrated ecommerce tools that you can use to sell and track inventory, accept payments, and more.
You can also sell an unlimited number of products, accept donations, and give your customers the ability to create and send gift cards. Bottom line? The Business Squarespace tool should be a beginner to advanced ecommerce user.
Basic trading
Think of Squarespace's Basic Commerce tier like the older brother of the Business tier. While you get all of the business-level features, you get a few more powerful perks if you opt for $ 26 per month.
With Basic Commerce, your online shop is ready to quickly list and tag your products on Facebook and Instagram, access advanced e-commerce analytics, and even create customer accounts. While other webbuilders can offer a similar mix of services, Squarespace categorizes them so that they clearly serve online sales.
Advanced commerce
Possibly the biggest attraction of the Squarespace Advanced Commerce tier at $ 40 a month is that there are no transaction fees.
What does this mean for your ecommerce business? An integrated payment gateway ready to process payments without any fees that can quickly reduce your profit margin.
While you get everything in all of the previous levels, you also get advanced tools for shipping, advanced discounts, and an abandoned cart recovery strategy that can put more money in your pocket. It is clear that Squarespace has thought of everything when it comes to successfully building an ecommerce business, with special attention to both the front end and the back end. For that, I would say they deserve a lot of brownie points.
But don't take my word for it. I recommend reading through each of the pricing tiers carefully to determine which one is best for you. Once you are committed to one website builder, switching to a new one can take a lot of extra work and effort.
Now let's see how Squarespace's main offerings stack up and what you can learn about each offer in building your best website.
Squarespace Deals
Squarespace has tons of features for building and optimizing your website. Overall, their offerings are broken down into three different but helpful categories in which they focus their web builder tools. A closer look at each element can help you make the best web builder decisions.
Website builder and hosting
Squarespace likes to call itself the leader in web design. And this claim is not in vain. The drag-and-drop web builder and website templates allow you to create portfolios and professional-quality websites that will stand the test of time. In addition to the web builder tools, they also offer site analysis as a useful plus.
While I wouldn't call Squarespace the absolute best web builder for content management, it undoubtedly does its due diligence on the design and visual departments. It also improves the flexibility you need to create a portfolio that suits your design needs.
E-commerce
Squarespace also does its fair share in the ecommerce department, making it a strong contender for housing your online store. With their offers, you can sell anything, whether it's products, services or booking appointments of any kind.
If you're a brand that cares about first impressions to drive sales, Squarespace not only takes care of you with plenty of business templates, they also have a robust backend that can streamline your work order management. This sets it apart as a web builder tool for selling online as some others in this department just don't go the extra mile.
Squarespace goes so far as to allow you to create a membership site that speaks volumes about innovation and trends. Not every web builder out there gets specific with the tools they provide. This is another feature that sets Squarespace apart from the rest.
Brand building tools
If there's one thing Squarespace focuses on as a web builder tool, it's branding. We previously discussed Squarespace as a highly visual builder. However, that doesn't mean they lack tools in the branding strategy department.
Squarespace lets you create dynamic email campaigns that are just as creative and visually powerful as your website. This means that you can simply click and drag on the products on your website that you want to showcase or inform your audience of a sale across the store.
Unfold is Squarespace's unique "storyteller tool" alongside email. With it, you can create amazing social content that can be easily shared for additional brand awareness. With filters, sticker packs, and simple photo editing, you can tell your story as a unique brand.
Squarespace is a pioneer in web builders when it comes to serving a visual community. To do this, they combine powerful tools for creating websites that get results and the beauty of design.
As a website builder hosting at the same time, you won't see many other Squarespace-like builders that really compare. At the same time, many Squarespace features make it more of a niche website builder. It is powerfully aimed well at the intended audience.
The best website builders
Don't forget to read my in-depth review of four other top website builders that you should consider in order to make your best choice among website builders. Here is a brief overview for your convenience:
- Wix – Best for general use
- Weebly – Best for beginners
- Shopify – Best for ecommerce
- WordPress – Best for Content Management
Squarespace is a trusted web builder for creatives, artists, and ecommerce stores who want visuals to be the main focus of their business strategy. While the site plans tend to be a bit more expensive, Squarespace more than makes up for it by having your site built and hosted in one place, and providing you with a long list of site templates that you can customize to your heart's content.
Now it's your turn. What is your experience with Squarespace? I'd love to hear about it below.
Get started with Squarespace today and start building your website.
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