5 Reasons Why Square Space Dominates Wordpress

Five Reasons Why You Should Use Square Space

Square Space is the ideal platform for creative business owners

I have been on the internet for the past three years, first as a blogger working through Google's Blogger platform, then as a professional photographer working on Wordpress's Premium platform. While I applaud Google and Wordpress for offering free platforms for individuals who want to blog or start their own business, the platforms are all extremely hard to use for those of us without coding knowledge. To customize Wordpress and Blogger you must either hire someone who knows what they are doing (which I did) , or learn how to code (which I did too.. quite unsuccessfully!). 

And then my life drastically changed (for real) when I signed up for Square Space in August last year. So, for those of you who own your own business, for bloggers and for those of you in the creative industry, I want to share with you five reasons why Square Space needs to be your website of choice. 

1. It's So Easy A Kid (or your mom) Could Do It. 

Square Space's platform makes the back-end of your website so easy a kid with little knowledge of how websites work could set it up all by themselves. When you sign up with Square Space (I recommend you doing the highest package at $22/month) every step of setting up a website is laid out for you. From registering your domain name (OR transferring your domain name), to pulling all of your old data from your already existing Blogger or Wordpress site, it's literally as simple as a click of a button. They even have pre-made logos you can design through the square space platform if you feel like doing everything yourself. 

2. E-Commerce ROCKS.

ince I am a photographer, I do not sell many physical products. Instead I allow my clients to purchase mini sessions online as well as our Ember Sessions. I love LOVE Square Space because their Commerce platform makes it SO EASY to sell anything- downloads, physical products and services. I can set up shipping options, how I'm paid, taxes, and (my favorite) FORMS for the client to fill out after they purchase my service. 

Above, I've taken a few screen shots of the back end of what e-commerce looks like for me.

First, you'll see the main commerce page which gives you several different options on the left side. It makes things fast to add inventory after you've set up your Stripe account, your tax options, shipping prices and so on. 

When I click on "inventory" I can easily upload images of the item (or service) I want to sell, add the item price and description, add different variations, add a location and THEN (this is my favorite) create a custom form for my client to fill out when they purchase my service. I just drag and drop different information I want from them: their e mail, their physical address, whether or not they are purchasing my service as a gift and more! The form can be as detailed as you want it to be. I love Square Space's Commerce because it's not only easy for the business owner, but it's super clean and easy for my clients to use too. 

3. No More Re-Sizing Images. 

In the past, when I have worked on Blogger and Wordpress, I would have to open photoshop and resize my images to a smaller size (around 950 px) so that they would all be uniform AND would load onto the sites. This was SUPER time consuming for me because the majority of my site is filled entirely with images..I am a photographer after all! 

With Square Space, my images can be uploaded as-is and will be resized to fit my blog and galleries through square space. I have the option to choose between uploading a single image, creating a slide show with my images, a carousel (which is above), a grid view (which is shown in all of my galleries), or stack images (which is how I display the majority of images on my blog). It makes the experience easy on my end, and beautiful on the user (your) end. 

It also makes it more-than-easy to name each individual images so that my website is more SEO Friendly. As you name your images, always remember to name-them-like-this-so-google-can-read-it. 

4. Customization is FREE with your subscription

Unlike Wordpress and Blogger customization which require purchase of themes or services from coders, customization within the Square Space platform is always free with your subscription. 

What exactly does "customization" mean? Customization is anything that makes your website unique to YOU and your business. Want to change the font of your "tabs"? Easy! Want to change the size of the items on your blog that direct your visitors to other links? Super easy! 

The above photo shows the "Design" customization I did within MY square space site. I was able to change the font of my headers, AND my blog post fonts to match my branding. I can change my logo size, the forms that say "contact us" at the bottom of my blog posts and pages, I can even change the spacing between the letters of my font. 

Can't figure it out on your own? No worries!

5. Live Help is ALWAYS Available and FREE. 

That's right. When you have a Square Space account live help is only a phone call or a click away. A few months ago I was having trouble with my "portfolios" and the images piling on top of one another. Instead of having to pay someone to fix this, or spending HOURS to try to navigate the problem myself, I went directly to the Square Space help center and got a video tutorial on how to solve the issue within 5 minutes. This saved me valuable time where I could have been editing or responding to my clients' e mails. 

Live help never makes me feel dumb. If I don't understand what they are saying, they always spell things out for me. I'm not a coder, nor am I a website developer. I am a small business owner and a creative who is a photographer.. so computer jargon floats right over my head. When I'd ask for help within my wordpress site, it would take me DAYS to hear  back from the developer, and I would often not understand what he meant. With Square Space my questions are answered happily and are solved within minutes!

Are you convinced? No, Square Space is not paying me to write this post. I just truly believe every business owner and blogger needs to be on square space so that they can spend less time on their website and more time doing the things they love! This means more time with your family, more time with your clients, and more time making your awesome products. Head on over to square space's home page and find out why for yourself!