Squarespace Website Builder Review

The Squarespace service has been positioning itself for many years as a simple and convenient solution for creating a website of any complexity without deep knowledge in the field of layout or programming.

This platform allows even novice users to create a full-fledged online store from scratch with all the necessary functions: product catalog, shopping cart, checkout page, accepting payments directly on the site, etc.

In this review of the Squarespace builder, we will focus on the user-friendliness of the interface, the ease of learning this system, talk about the possibilities for integration with popular services, and also give recommendations on what types of businesses this platform is best suited for.

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a popular platform that provides web hosting services and a convenient template-based website builder. The company was founded in 2003 in New York and currently has more than 900 employees worldwide.

The main audience of the service is people without proper experience in creating websites who need a simple and convenient service that is as easy as possible to learn. The platform allows you to create a full-fledged website, online store or landing page from scratch, with no knowledge of HTML, CSS or PHP required.

An overview of the Squarespace platform will be relevant for online businesses in almost any possible niche, because this service is suitable for creating:

• Sites for running small businesses (beauty salons, shops, cafes, coffee shops).
• Online stores and e-commerce platforms.
• Portfolio of photographers, designers, artists.
• Personal and thematic blogs.
• Selling one-page pages (Landing Page).

Benefits of the Squarespace builder

1. Intuitive interface. Even a user with no experience in web development can create a full-fledged website by choosing the appropriate design template. Moreover, this does not require knowledge of HTML, CSS or programming languages.
2. Opportunities for launching an e-commerce project. The Squarespace website builder has everything you need to create an online store – you can set up a shopping cart for placing orders, delivery and payment options, integration with analytics services.
3. Adaptive design. All templates are optimized for display on different devices – PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. The site will work correctly on screens of any resolution.
4. Great possibilities for personalization. You can change fonts, colors, backgrounds, location and size of content blocks. There are also tools for adding your own CSS styles. This allows you to create a unique website adapted to the company’s brand book.
5. Support service. The platform has a developed knowledge base with answers to frequently asked questions. You can also contact support by email – response time is approximately 24 hours. Support is available 24/7. Experienced specialists will help solve any technical issue regarding working with the system.
6. Safety. All traffic is encrypted using the HTTPS protocol, and an SSL certificate and domain are provided free of charge when connecting to a tariff plan. The resource is also protected from DDoS attacks, malicious code and spam.

Disadvantages of the Squarespace platform

• Not suitable for complex projects. For sites with non-standard logic and many sections, this constructor will most likely not be suitable. For example, this is not a very good choice for online stores with a complex product filtering system and many categories.
• No full control over the code. Experienced web developers often need access to the source code of a site in order to implement non-standard solutions. There is no such option here – you can only partially change the HTML structure and CSS style sheets.
• Dependency on the Squarespace platform. If you cancel your paid subscription, the site will stop working, and it will not be possible to transfer it in full form to another CMS due to technical limitations.
• Documentation and technical support are in English only. If you do not speak this language, solving some problems in the project can be very problematic.

Overview of Squarespace service tariffs

In a review of the Squarespace service, it is very important to mention the tariffs for using the platform, since this item must be taken into account when planning the monthly expenses of your online business.

The system offers 4 service packages:

1. Personal ($23 per month). This is a basic package that is suitable for a small website or blog. This does not include functionality for e-commerce, and it will not be possible to enable payment acceptance on the site. At the same time, you can create up to 6 landing pages using the capabilities of the built-in Landing Page designer.
2. Business ($33 per month). Features have been added here to create and support a full-fledged online store. Support for advanced analytics is also included for tracking sales, it is possible to offer discount coupons to customers, as well as connect integration with a CRM system or email newsletter.
3. Basic Commerce ($36 per month). The tariff is distinguished by the ability to synchronize sales and balances with offline points, as well as zero transaction fees. In addition, you can connect an existing store on Facebook or Instagram to the site.
4. Advanced Commerce ($65 per month). The plan allows you to sell products with a monthly subscription, use an API, provide discounts or free shipping on select items or for large order quantities. The user can also set up a mailing list for those customers who added products to the cart but did not complete the order.

Before paying for any tariff, you can subscribe to a trial period of 14 days. A lower price is also possible for all tariff plans for those who pay for the year at once.

How does the Squarespace website builder work?

To make it clearer to potential users of the platform how Squarespace works, we have made a short overview of the main features of this online constructor.

Visual editor

The visual editor allows you to manage website content even for beginners who do not have web development skills. This greatly simplifies working with the resource and speeds up both editing existing pages and creating new ones.

Using the built-in editor, you can not only add and modify text blocks and headings. It allows you to format content in one click – highlight it in bold or italics, insert lists, links or images. The administrator can insert videos from YouTube or Vimeo, and there is also a panel for quickly editing HTML code.

Content is inserted onto the page in entire blocks. It is possible to add an image gallery, a slider, social media buttons, a feedback form and much more. Any block can be placed in a convenient position by simply dragging it with the mouse. In addition, the edit history tracking feature allows you to return to the previous version if something goes wrong.

Built-in photo editor

The constructor allows you to process images before inserting them into the site. Built-in tools allow you to crop the image by cutting off unnecessary areas. You can also rotate the photo 90 degrees and flip it horizontally or vertically. This eliminates the need to use third-party editors.

In addition, you can easily set the exact size of the photo in pixels. If necessary, it is possible to adjust the brightness, contrast and clarity of the image. To give your images the desired style, you can use filters (black and white, sepia, blur, etc.).

Acceptance of payments and commission

To accept payments on your website, Squarespace supports integration with popular payment gateways – Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, etc. Connection takes just a few minutes.

You can accept payments by bank cards Visa, MasterCard, American Express and other payment systems. Multi-currency support has also been introduced, when the user can pay in dollars, euros or pounds, depending on his preferences, and the site owner will receive the currency specified in the admin panel to his account.

The platform itself does not charge any transaction fees starting with the Basic Commerce plan. Only a monthly subscription is paid for using the service. At the same time, payment gateways themselves usually charge 2-3% of the payment amount for their services. These costs must be factored into pricing.

Built-in functionality for creating an online store

Starting with a Business subscription, you can add an unlimited number of products to the site, divided into categories, and also write separate tags for each item.

For each product, you can fill in its characteristics in detail, as well as add a description, photographs, indicate sizes, colors, and configuration options. The price, conditions and amounts of discounts, and the number of goods in stock can be adjusted separately.

The operator can change the status of orders in the store – processed, paid, delivered, etc. Customer notifications via email are also provided. It is possible to integrate track numbers for subsequent tracking of delivery.

In addition, the items selected by the user are saved in the cart between different sessions. A store customer can enter promotional codes at the checkout stage. It is also possible to automatically apply a discount depending on the purchase amount.

The administrative part of the site provides the ability to publish customer reviews with pre-moderation, and you can add star ratings to products to sort them by popularity.

Built-in analytics

The internal analytics system allows you to track statistics of traffic and user actions on the site. You can analyze the dynamics of site visits, popular content, referral sources.

For online stores and payment sites, statistics on sales, conversion to purchases, and popular products are available. You can also estimate the share of mobile users, find out popular device models, and analyze the behavior of users who access the site from a smartphone.

In addition to the main module, there is also ready-made functionality for connecting a Google Analytics account and collecting statistics on visitors, sources, content and conversions through it.

Help Desk

Squarespace places great emphasis on providing multi-level support so that customers can quickly resolve questions and problems.

The platform’s website contains an extensive knowledge base with detailed instructions and answers on all aspects of using the Squarespace website builder. There are hundreds of articles here that will help you understand the settings.

Email support is also available – you can ask specialists a question on any topic of interest and receive a detailed answer within 24 hours. To solve current problems more quickly, there is a real-time chat (albeit only during business hours), where you consult directly with a company technical specialist.

POS

Using a special application for your tablet, you can connect a physical point of sale to your online store. In this case, the mobile application acts as a cash terminal – using it, you can enter goods using a barcode, accept payments, and print receipts. The terminal is synchronized with the site and payment can be immediately found in the admin panel.

Through the application, you can also keep track of inventory, place orders with suppliers, and manage prices, which allows you to optimize logistics. The system also generates reports on sales for the period, turnover, popular products.

At the same time, the POS (Point of Sale) application integrates with payment terminals, label and receipt printers, barcode scanners, which eliminates the need to purchase additional software.

Plugins and applications

The Squarespace app store offers many third-party plugins and modules from platform partners. They allow you to implement:

• Integration with CRM and marketing tools. There are plugins for connecting MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, Acuity Scheduling and other popular systems. This way you can set up an email newsletter or keep track of new leads.
• Additional payment methods. There are separate modules for connecting Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Wallet, so that the client can make a payment in a way convenient for him.
• Improved usability. There are useful applications for adding support chat, feedback widgets, site search, voice search.
• Link with social networks. Solutions are provided for integrating company profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and demonstrating social activity on the site.

SEO optimization

The website builder provides ample opportunities for SEO optimization so that user sites are better indexed and ranked in search engine results. Among the main functions:

1. Setting up meta tags. For each page of the site, you can set an individual title and meta description, which will then be displayed in search results. This increases the clickability of the snippet, and also directly affects the ranking of the site for given keywords.
2. Ability to set subheadings H1, H2, H3. The constructor allows you to highlight important subheadings on a page using tags of different levels. This helps improve the structuring of content and convey the semantic hierarchy to the search engine.
3. Creating a sitemap in XML format. Squarespace automatically generates and regularly updates an XML sitemap with all pages. This makes it easier for search robots to index new content.
4. Automatic image optimization. All downloaded images are automatically compressed without loss of quality, which affects the weight of the page and speeds up its loading.
5. Setting up redirects. If a page has been deleted, you can configure it to redirect to an existing page. This allows you to maintain the influence of the link mass on the resource rating.
6. Adding regional versions of the site in different languages. For local markets, you can make separate versions of the site with unique content and settings. This makes it possible to rank better in local search.

Internet marketing opportunities

The Squarespace dashboard provides several useful tools for solving online marketing problems that allow you to effectively attract and retain your target audience:

• Email newsletters. Using a list of ready-made templates and individual design settings, you can create unique mailings that reflect the style and image of the company. This is a great way to connect with your audience and stimulate sales.
• Synchronization with Instagram. You will be able to add products from the online store to posts on Instagram. This is a great opportunity to showcase products to your target audience and drive sales using one of the most popular social networks.
• Replenishing your Google Ads balance. Squarespace has a partnership with the largest platform for placing contextual advertising, which allows you to receive money on your balance, which you can later spend on advertising through this platform.
• Promotional Pop-Up. The tool allows you to create pop-up windows to attract visitors’ attention to promotions, discounts or other important announcements. This is a good way to increase the conversion of an Internet resource.