Squarespace, WordPress, or Shopify?
Getting your new website built and ready for showtime is an exciting time for any business owner! But choosing a website platform can be tricky. It’s a costly endeavor, and there are so many options … WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Joomla, GoDaddy’s tools, and so on.
All of those website platforms have something in common: their marketing teams work hard to make it all sound so easy to do-it-yourself.
But for most business owners, it’s not so easy after all. Many people contact us after spending days trying to DIY it on various platforms … they figure out a few simple tasks, but soon discover that building a business website is not a piece of cake and it’s taking up all of their time. (Read When & Why to Outsource Your Digital Marketing for more perspective.)
Even when you outsource your website build to an agency like ours, you’ll still be faced with a daunting choice: Which platform to choose? (And if you’ve talked to an agency that doesn’t give you a choice, please keep shopping around!)
We get this question all the time. We’ve also been building websites for a long time, and have worked with a variety of platforms and business types. So here’s our perspective with no strings attached; you’ll see no affiliate (for pay) links here. You can trust that these are our honest opinions based on experience.
3 Pieces of Advice
DIYers: If you’re determined to build your website yourself yet you’re not an experienced website builder, please know that despite every platform’s promises of “ease”, it’s more complicated than it seems. We’ve worked with so many clients who got started on their own but ended up completely frustrated … they just didn’t have the technical skills to understand all of the nuances and references while site-building. We realize you don’t want to break the bank with your website, but try to view it as an investment and get it done right. (It should help that websites are almost always tax-deductible … talk to your tax expert.)
Top Choices: The top few industry-standard website-building tools for small and medium-sized businesses are WordPress and Squarespace, with Shopify being right up there for selling products. We’ve worked with all of these and more.
Most website platforms can produce the same basic results; they just have different ways of getting there.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization), if it’s given the right amount of attention, is essentially the same starting point on all platforms. (Some WordPress people will disagree, but they’re probably not well-versed in other platforms, which are continuously improving.)
All 3 mentioned here cost *roughly* the same; be prepared to spend $350 - $600/year for basic functionalities with any platform. (That’s for the platform itself, not agency fees.)
The advice here is to work with an agency that 1) is experienced with these and other platforms, 2) is willing to really learn the details of your offerings and goals, and 3) understands your desired level of involvement when changes are needed. Only after those 3 criteria are met should an agency recommend the best solution.
How Wordpress and Squarespace are Different (and How to Choose)
What’s your investment level, and what’s your nature … do you like “everything in 1 spot” or are you comfortable with a more complex approach?
It’s a critical question because while WordPress is one of the most referenced website platforms, it’s like a giant mall. WordPress is the structure, but almost all key functionalities are from third parties (the many different stores in the mall, if you will).
And each store in the mall has its own prices, policies, features, and compatibility levels. And they can change at any time.
You’ll need 3rd party plug-ins, themes, extensions, etc. for things like hosting, domain names, SSL certificate, eCommerce functionality, multi-channel inventory management, scheduling tools, email marketing, and more.
Because of this, WordPress and its wide variety of options is best used by very technical DIYers or business owners willing to pay a premium to a marketing agency for the life of their business. (Or you should plan to hire an in-house marketing team.)
For many clients who want to try to DIY it, it’s the most time-consuming platform to understand and use. It can be done, but we’ve been hired several times by WordPress DIYers who make their way through starting a WordPress site but quickly found themselves lost in the woods (er, wandering the mall aimlessly).
At tax time, if WordPress plus all plug-ins and functionality are in your business’ name, you’ll have a lot more invoices to collect.
Bottom line, there’s a lot of flexibility and options with WordPress, but we find that the long-term maintenance (agency) costs and risks of many moving parts don’t fit well for all SMBs, especially solopreneurs just getting started.
Squarespace and Shopify (and Wix) are more like going to a department store than a mall. There are several functionalities (departments) all housed under one roof.
Squarespace has the most “departments” to choose from. Here are some of the features that are already easily integrated into Squarespace:
domain name
hosting
SSL certificate
website builder
blogging
e-commerce capabilities including subscriptions, donations; integrated payment processor options (eg. Stripe, Paypal)
email marketing
membership areas
courses
scheduling tools
video libraries
and more
It’s easy to see how this would be an attractive option for artists and small-medium-sized businesses. There are so many options and they keep expanding. The initial agency investment level for a professional business website in Squarespace is also lower than WordPress.
Squarespace is also a bit more DIY-friendly, but it isn’t perfect. Clients can get lost fairly easily if they’re trying to do something that they don’t do daily or weekly. We’ve had issues where a client deleted an entire section on a webpage by accident; one accidentally made a small picture huge, filling up the entire page, and another deleted our “invisible” code markers, breaking the navigation. The drag and drop functionality takes practice, and there are lots of features that are not obvious nor easy for casual users.
Our monthly Technical Support Plan fees for Squarespace are lower than WordPress. Squarespace has some quirks, but they keep adding bells and whistles in a great way. We can also add any code to further customize the site as needed. 95% of our clients end up choosing Squarespace. It’s a solid choice.
Conclusion
We hope this provides a good starting point for your decision-making. Schedule your free consultation and let’s get your business growing!
