Top 5 Squarespace Myths
Squarespace is a high-end website building platform. My team and I use it to create luxury websites and we are absolutely convinced it is the best platform for smaller (and even medium sized) luxury brands who want a bespoke, stunning online presence. However, we sometimes struggle to get people to buy into the idea. For two reasons...
1. They believe they can create their own Squarespace site themselves. They can, but chances are it's going to look pretty average and very similar to hundreds of other Squarespace websites. My answer to this is always the same: give a guitar to Eric Clapton and then the same guitar to an amateur. Who's going to make it sing?
2. Misinformation online - often purported by web developers and other platforms. Remember the myth that hung around for years eggs were bad for you? This is a bit like that (eggs are very good for you by the way ;-).
So to everyone who doesn’t believe that Squarespace is super awesome, exceptionally high quality, and practically bullet proof, and to our future customers that need convincing, here are the top 5 Squarespace myths… busted…
Myth 1 - “Squarespace websites all look very similar. I want something bespoke, not from a template”
This is simply not true. We design completely bespoke, from scratch, custom-made luxury websites using Squarespace. Everything about them is unique to the client, branding, images, fonts, colours, layout, functionality, etc.
This ‘tough-to-shake’ myth may have come about because when you create a new site in Squarespace, you are forced to choose a template. As we are Squarespace Circle members, we have our own Style Packs, that we use which effectively allows us to start with a blank Squarespace canvas, complete with our favourite luxury fonts, colours and styles.
Squarespace also has both Google and Typekit fonts built in. This means our clients have access to pretty much every font ever created! This customisation also applies to colours (obviously), styles, layouts, etc. And when we need to create bespoke graphics (such as infographics, shapes, etc.) we design these separately and then export them into Squarespace.
All the above amounts to an almost infinite range of design options with a robust underlying code that is virtually unbreakable - try saying the same Mr Wordpress or Mrs Magento ;-)
Myth 2 - “My site needs unique functionality. Squarespace’s code is locked down so it can’t be modified?”
Again, not at all true. First and foremost, most of what a client will need is already baked-in to Squarespace anyway. This includes: adding forms, images, video, social media integration, eCommerce, email integrations, scheduling events, so on and so forth. But in addition, there is also the ability to change the code significantly if and when required - and it’s not often required. For this my team and I have a pages of proprietary CSS (code) snippets that we have created to do a variety of different jobs: from adding shapes and icons, to API integrations and member subscriptions.
I haven't come across a coding problem (yet) that can't be solved within Squarespace or through it's related plugins.
Myth 3 - “Squarespace is not a good platform when it comes to SEO (search engine optimisation)”
Quite the contrary in fact. It is very simple to add meta information such as title tags and descriptions, whether on a page or globally. These are picked up by Google quickly as is the other information, or rather the most important information - the actual content of each page. Site speed is also important to search engines nowadays and Squarespace is very clever in how it optimises and compresses images. Most of the sites we build naturally perform at over 80% site speed, which is very good compared to Wordpress for example.
In terms of Analytics, Google Analytics can be integrated with a simple paste and click - plus Squarespace also has it’s own built in Analytics which is very easy to use for the lay-person
Myth 4 - “Squarespace is a paid-for service whereas Wordpress and Magento Open Source are free”
This is true initially, but false when everything is added together. Although many platforms are free, clients still have to pay for domain name registrations, design, maintenance and hosting. This can amount to thousands of pounds. Squarespace costs peanuts in comparison and they bundle all of the above into one neat and cost effective package. A simple brochure website can cost around £10 per month, scaling up to just £30pm for a full eCommerce build - a price that a Wordpress or Magento developer wouldn’t even get out of bed for!
Myth 5 - “Squarespace is not well supported. What if you get hit by a bus? Who do I turn to?"
Firstly let’s hope no-one here gets hit by a bus, but in that unlikely event it is incredibly simple to hand a Squarespace site to one of thousands of Squarespace design & build companies worldwide (caveat - Luxury Lloyd is the only dedicated luxury one!) or better still the chances are you can make most of the changes yourself. With a few hours training, which I always provide, my clients can add/edit/delete content to their heart’s content without breaking the visual design.
So hopefully that busts some of the myths around Squarespace. I love it because it fits so well with the luxury ethos of creating bespoke, visually stunning websites that work like a Swiss watch!
To see some of the websites we’ve created please visit https://www.luxurylloyd.com/work/ or https://www.luxurylloyd.com/luxury-website-design
PS obviously luxury web design is only a part of the luxury branding jigsaw - with brand strategy being the key piece. Read my article about luxury brand strategy here: www.luxurylloyd.com/blog/luxury-branding-101
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