Squarespace User Opinions

My research showed up that Squarespace had, in my opinion, the best and most professional templates. Its SEO features were good and well considered and the company seem to have all bases covered. So far I have had only positive reviews although I will no doubt adapt my site’s content over time. My experience with customer support was not so good as I found it difficult if not impossible to contact the help desk; however in the end everything worked as it should. My site is based on the Avenue template which is relatively straightforward – I would not relish the more complex options.

The templates are very professional. The actual setup and adding of photos etc is not that simple if you have limited skills on working with computer images etc. Once it was setup it is easy to maintain and manage and edit. It looks great.

I did quite some research to find the best solution for my photography portfolio website. The requirements were to have a stock photo section with links to my stock agency images and to showcase my work in a portfolio section. And the website had to be bilingual.

My first choice was photoshelter, a great site for photographers. But they don‘t offer a bilingual solution. Then I looked into photodeck which offers a multilingual solution. But they are more expensive and according to website-builder comparisons more complicated. However, if I would sell my photos „rights managed“ I would probably opt for photodeck.

I also looked into wordpress. But I don‘t have any coding knowledge and I didn’t want to dive into web coding. And, as far as I understood, I would have to puzzle together templates and code snippets from different sources to get the website I want. This could include problems of parts not properly working together or future updates of one snippet causing problems in other templates etc.

Therefore I chose Squarespace. Besides beautiful templates I get (almost) everything from one source, hosting and SEO included, a great and fast email-support, updates taken care of, an extensive knowledge base including explanatory videos and much more. To make it clear, Squarespace doesn‘t offer real multilingual support but there are ways to include it.

Nevertheless it took me a lot more time and effort to create the complex bilingual site than I originally expected. I had several drawbacks, had to search for code snippets to alter style or functionality. Each Squarespace template has its limitations according style or functionality. For example, I use the Marquee template and the background color can only be set for all pages, not for individual pages. To change the background on my portfolio page I had to search for a code snippet at answers.squarespace, alter it by trial and error and inject it on the individual page. And so forth. And if you want a special feature of another template you can’t probably use it in the one you have chosen.

But despite all cons and difficulties I am finally happy with my Squarespace site,

Without the knowledge and help of these people my website would not exist. Therefore credit goes to:
tooltester.com – which helped to clarify and finalize my decision for a website builder.
Multilingualizer.com – for the code to create a multilingual website
www.usingmyhead.com/squarespace-7-template-comparison-chart – shedded light on the squarespace template jungle
Mike Coffey’s book: www.usingmyhead.com/squarespace-help-book – helped a great deal when I was totally stuck.
answers.squarespace.com – where I found code snippets provided by helpful forum members
Squarespace support – friendly, supportive and fast.

For the website that I developed, Squarespace worked very well. I needed a mobile-friendly website and easy to edit/ update platform. I researched several of them in advance and I guess some of the others may have worked too, but I selected Squarespace and really liked it.

I looked at and tried several website builders before settling on Squarespace for my new SEO website copywriting site for UK businesses: www.connectedcopy.co.uk
The great thing about Squarespace is you get a month’s free trial so you can ‘play’ before committing. Have to admit I found it a sharp learning curve and it took me time to understand its functionality but once I’d practiced and followed the video guides they provide, things fell more and more into place. I had a few queries along the way but the support was great – I asked a question and the support person quickly made me a quick video explaining the function I needed using my own site and sent it within 20 minutes – superb.

The templates all look great but you can alter them a fair bit to suit yourself. Squarespace also has a partnership with Getty Images so you can get great affordable stock images (just 10 dollars per image for multiple use on your site) and source them very easily through its source function. Squarespace has also partnered with MailChimp and Googlemail so you can set up automated email campaigns super easily as well as get a custom email address for your site.

I thought a lot about the SEO functionality of each website builder and particularly liked Squarespace’s strengths with this and the fact that it has a field for editing all your search engine descriptions (ie meta description and meta title) so you feel very in control of this side of things which is pretty crucial. I found this website very helpful: http://www.usingmyhead.com/squarespace-7-template-comparison-chart/ as well as Miko Coffey’s book: http://www.usingmyhead.com/squarespace-help-book/ which is pricey but a great resource to have by your side.
I think you can get a better-looking, more individual site with Squarespace compared to more of the bog-standard website builders out there and really recommend it. Squarespace rocks, as far as I’m concerned!

I have yet to complete my website, however I am still unsure of which site builder is best for me. Currently I am looking at Webflow and Webydo, but I may find others that are aimed at designers.

It would be wonderful if WebsiteToolTester.com approached the choosing from different points of view – for instance microbusiness, designer, simple site – people are looking for different things.

Comment form Josep, WebsiteToolTester: We don’t have a page specifically for designers but you can check out our page for artists. We also have pages for photographers, online stores, small businesses and freelances.

I used Squarespace to create my website. It’s very user friendly, especially for someone who is not technologically oriented. There were enough templates to choose from. Customer service has been better than I could have hoped for. Pricing is fair. I have recommended Squarespace to several people.

I’ll keep it short. If you are serious about building a site (especially a blog), just use Squarespace. It will require a lot of time to get to know the system, but when you are serious that won’t be an issue. If not, use something else. There’s is always something to improve so I give it 4 stars.

Website builder was easy to learn and produces a great looking website. The builder provides good flexibility while still being easy to use. All support emails are promptly returned. SquareSpace has a great “help” tool that includes helpful videos.