WordPress has been the #1 blogging platform for years, but recently I created a blog for my Mom using Squarespace.com, and I have to admit, I was pretty impressed, and am now convinced that it’s a great option for bloggers, especially those who are “technology challenged”.
In this blog post, I’ll go over some of the features of Squarespace that make it a valid option for a business blog. Yes you’ll need to pay a monthly fee to have a website through Squarespace, but most WordPress bloggers end up paying monthly anyway for the software that Squarespace builds into its websites.
1. Popups & Notification Bars
If you blog in WordPress, you’ll most likely need to install plugins to add pop-up forms and notification bars to your website, and sometimes these can be difficult to set up. You may also need to pay a monthly fee for premium features. Squarespace makes adding these features to your website easy, with no extra cost for Business Plan customers.
Here’s a screenshot from a Squarespace website owned by a friend of mine showing an example of the built in notification bar at the top of the page:
And here’s a pop-up on my same friend’s website:
2. Easy Freebies
One of my biggest headaches early in my blogging career was figuring out a simple way to set up multiple freebies within Mailchimp, meaning when someone signed up through a particular form, they would receive a free download advertised through that form.
Well, I figured out an easy way to do that in Squarespace, by using password protected pages. See, you can set any page of your Squarespace website so that it requires a password to view it, so if you create a “Freebie Library” page, you can create email signup forms to advertise whichever freebie you want, then provide a link to the freebie library and the password in a welcome email that automatically sends whenever someone opts in to your list.
This form was built entirely in Squarespace:
3. Email Automation
Squarespace pretty much eliminates the need for a separate email provider (which will save you a LOT of money once your lists starts growing!) thanks to the ability to create multiple lists and send them automated emails. However, if you prefer to use a separate email service provider, Squarespace integrates with most of the major email service providers, including Mailchimp and ConvertKit.
When you create a new email signup form in Squarespace, you can connect it to whichever of your email subscriber lists you want.
4. SEO
Squarespace makes it really easy to optimize your website for Google and other search engines. All you have to do is click a few buttons in order to edit the title and description that will show up in search results.
5. E-commerce
Have an ebook or other product you want to sell on your website? You can do so easily without having to use a separate service to host your product. Then you can set a series of emails to send out after someone purchases your product (perhaps leading to an upsell!).
6. Social Media Optimization
Squarespace makes it easy to control how your blog links appear on social media sites such as Facebook, as well as add buttons for social sharing. (This isn’t hard to do in WordPress, but you do have to know which plugins to install).
7. Analytics
Connecting Google Analytics to your Squarespace account is as simple as Copy & Paste. Then you can see from your Squarespace analytics dashboard how many people are visiting your site, and where they’re coming from, and you can even track them using Facebook Pixel.
Conclusion
I used to be pretty convinced that WordPress was the only real choice for anyone who was serious about blogging as a business, but after getting to know Squarespace a little better, I feel pretty confident that it’s a good choice for bloggers who are looking for a more user-friendly option.