Using Squarespace To Build Your Website
When you are starting your business, one of the many things you need to consider is how you will build your website. A company website is an essential part of your business as it is the primary place people go to get information about what you offer.
There are many website builders out there like Wix, WordPress, SiteBuilder, and Shopify. You may have also heard of Squarespace. Squarespace is a website builder and content management system (CMS) which is an easy-to-use solution for building and managing your website.
What Is Squarespace?
Squarespace is a cloud-based website builder that is an all-in-one solution for someone looking to build a website that will make an impact online. Squarespace allows you to grow your website and business without needing to know how to code.
Squarespace is a CMS, which is the user interface that you interact with to design and develop your website. Through the CMS, you can set options for customizing the front-end and back-end of your website.
Benefits of Using Squarespace
There are many benefits to using Squarespace to build your website.
Quality Templates
When people visit your site, you want them to have an experience they won't forget. Part of that experience is what your website looks like. You’ll want to modify any template you use to customize it for your business and your brand.
Squarespace comes with a variety of pre-built quality templates that allow you to easily format your site content. In addition, some templates are designed with specific business types in mind, such as musicians or restaurants. You can even filter the templates through these categories. Once you select a template, you still have the option to change it at any time.
Prebuilt Functionality
Since Squarespace comes with so many pre-made quality templates, it makes designing your website so much easier. You don't need to know how to code to make the website function well. All you have to do is fill in your templates and update your information over time. If you are not technically inclined, you can always work with a partner to help set things up for you.
The templates are also very user-friendly. So, people visiting your website will have an easy time getting around and finding the information they need. This is essential because people are likely to click away from your website if it is difficult to navigate.
Responsiveness
Another key aspect of your website that will keep customers coming is how responsive it is. If your website takes too long to load or doesn't format properly on all types of devices (mobile, tablet, desktop), you will lose people.
Squarespace is known for being reliable and having quick and correct loading on all types of devices. This responsiveness will help keep visitors on the website long enough to find what they are looking for.
Easy To Update
When you create a website, it can be tempting to create everything and never touch it again. Unfortunately, this isn't a good strategy for a couple of reasons.
If you never update your website, it will end up looking out of date and may have information that is no longer relevant. This is going to turn visitors away when they come to the website. Also, you may stop coming up as often in search engines because the algorithm will think your website is no longer being actively used.
Thankfully, updating your website on Squarespace isn't difficult at all. You don't need to have any programming knowledge to make updates. You need to go back to the website builder, click on what you want to update, make whatever updates you need, and click save and publish.
Also, since Squarespace is cloud-based, you don't need to worry about backing up your data anywhere or applying updates. Instead, all of that is handled on the back end.
Cost-Effective
If you are just starting up your business, the cost of creating and maintaining a website may be a concern to you. With Squarespace, this isn't something you need to worry about. Below is a breakdown of the costs of creating and maintaining a Squarespace site. If you work with a partner to help set up your site, the will be costs in addition to the service these service plans.
For the popular business plan, it will cost you:
$18 per month if you pay annually
$26 a month if you pay monthly
For a basic commerce plan, it will cost you:
$26 a month if you pay annually
$35 a month if you pay monthly
For an advanced commerce plan, it will cost you:
$40 a month if you pay annually
$54 a month if you pay monthly
SEO Friendly
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is what gets your website to show up high on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Therefore, it is important that you take some time to set up good SEO practices on your website.
Squarespace makes having good SEO easy. Here are examples of SEO practices that are easy to implement on Squarespace and will help your website be prioritized on the SERP.
Making your site mobile-friendly
Generating a sitemap.xml
Using clean HTML markup
Providing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for blog posts
Allowing you to add alt tags to images and meta descriptions (important for accessibility)
Providing Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security
Designed for Marketing
Creating your website isn't enough to get your business name out there. You will also need to build a website that generates leads, and Squarespace makes that easy for you.
Within Squarespace, it is simple to integrate with various marketing tools like social media accounts and MailChimp. It is also easy to do the following:
Set up promotional pop-ups
Add lead generation forms
Add announcement bars
Add European Union cookie and privacy banners
Conclusion
Starting up a business is a big investment and is filled with a lot of decisions. One decision you can easily make is to use Squarespace as your website builder. This cloud-based content management system is easy to use and will get you going quickly.
There are multiple benefits to using Squarespace, including quality templates, pre-built functionality, responsiveness, ease of updating, cost-effectiveness, being SEO friendly, and being designed to help you market your business.
We can help you set up a professional, high-performing website on Squarespace. Contact us today.