Squarespace for Designers—Is It a Good Platform to Use With Clients?
I have been a website designer (specifically, a Squarespace website designer) since 2017—and one of my most-asked questions is why I specialize in Squarespace websites (as opposed to WordPress, Shopify, etc…)
The short answer? Because both I and my clients love it.
The long answer is going to be much more than a sentence—so I dedicated this entire blog post to exactly why Squarespace is a great design platform choice for website designers.
P.S. Since I originally wrote this, I’ve fallen in love with Showit (another platform I love offering to clients!).
The first thing I will say before diving into the post is that Squarespace is mainly geared towards small business owners - online coaches, photographers, yoga studios, restaurants, etc. If you are planning to work with entrepreneurs, course creators, and local small businesses, then you’re in the right place!
Here are the top reasons why Squarespace is a great platform to build websites on for your clients!
It’s well-known
First, Squarespace is a well-known, popular, and widely-trusted platform.
Most of my clients heard of Squarespace long before they sought out a website designer—so when I talk about Squarespace, they say “Oh, yeah!” instead of “What?”
In fact, it’s not unusual for me to be sought out because I specialize in Squarespace website design.
It is very common for my clients to first decide that they want a Squarespace website, and then find me on Google for keywords relating to Squarespace website design or are referred to me by others who follow along with my work.
If you choose to work with a lesser-known platform, you risk losing that “searchability” and risk losing business to someone who designs using a platform their clients already know and trust.
It has a clean design that most clients love
One of my favorite things about Squarespace for designers is that its overall layout is so clean—and my clients love it, too.
Squarespace allows for minimalistic and professional design without leaving out anything important.
The fonts and layouts available are easy to read and navigate, sharp and clear, and stand out easily on any template or design.
I love that I can create stunning, unique websites for each of my clients without losing that Squarespace-esque minimalist and organized layout.
With that being said, not all websites look the same.
Beyond my SEO background, that’s my special sauce as a Squarespace website designer - I’ve had other business owners share with how shocked they are to find out that some pieces in my portfolio were built on Squarespace instead of another platform.
The drag and drop feature makes it easy to build websites fast
If you’re familiar with Squarespace, you would know that it used to only offer a grid layout on the 7.0 version.
When 7.1 launched and along with it, Fluid Engine, Squarespace became a much more customizable platform.
Things that would have required code in the past are no longer needed. And you can now edit the mobile version, arranging elements as you see fit.
Compared to building a website on Elementor, I’ve found that designing on Squarespace is much easier and less complex.
It’s easy to add elements as blocks (with the click of a “+” button) and move them around freely, quickly, and easily, in groups or alone.
This not only saves time, but keeps your website looking clean and organized. I can completely reorder the elements on a website page in progress without losing the greater design, which is a lifesaver when clients have edits or change their minds!
In addition, switching around images is easy for novice users, with easy-to-spot “replace” buttons that take them directly to their computer folders to select a replacement image for any photo on their website that they’d like to change.
Squarespace also has various pre-formatted sections you can choose from as a starting point, saving time and hassle. You can choose from various layouts for specific pages, such as services, team, testimonials, and more.
A new brand shoot? New products? No problem—and no hassle for you.
It boasts super-helpful customer service for you—and your clients
If you run into any problems, issues, or bugs while building your website, Squarespace’s stellar customer service is there to help.
Their fast response times and extensive knowledge help prevent any delays or missed deadlines on your end during the design process, making it a trustworthy option for website designers.
On the other hand, once you’ve turned over the finished website to the client, they can contact Squarespace’s customer service if they run into any software issues—and you can rest assured that they will be able to get the help they need in order to continue getting the most out of their website—without the need for you to step in.
This can actually turn out to be invaluable in terms of saved time on your end without feeling like you’ve abandoned your clients or given them a website with issues they can’t resolve.
I’ve overall had a very positive experience with the support hub and find that with the chat support option, I’m only waiting a few minutes. It’s every Squarespace website designer’s dream to get quick tech support!
It has the necessary built-in SEO tools to make websites Google-friendly
If you’re not family with SEO (search engine optimization), it’s a process in which you can tweak your website to help it show up for certain words and phrases people are typing into Google.
There are various reasons you need SEO on your Squarespace website, including:
Making sure you can have fast page load speed so ideal clients actually reach your website
Providing context to Google and visually impaired people about the topic of your images
Providing clear descriptions for people finding you from Google that determine whether they will click through
Ability to format your pages and blog posts correctly
Helping your website to rank at the top of the search results
There’s 2 parts to SEO - content and technical SEO.
And with Squarespace’s built-in SEO tools for the technical side of things, you can easy make your website Google-friendly. As a Squarespace website designer and SEO expert, I find it very easy to optimize websites I’m building for clients.
There’s a variety of elements you can optimize inside the platform:
One thing you can’t do inside Squarespace is resize your images (be sure to check out the step-by-step directions here!)
Read more:
Clients love how easy it is to make changes on Squarespace as opposed to other platforms
To make changes on WordPress or other similar website-building platforms, it can feel really overwhelming with their clunky and confusing backends.
On Squarespace, though, your clients can easily make small changes or updates to text or images without interfering with the design of the website.
The backend is much more streamlined and straightforward to navigate, which is one of my absolute favorite things about Squarespace for designers.
This is also great news for you because you don’t have to spend (usually unpaid) time making changes or updates to your clients’ websites for them—the DIY edits are simple since they see them in real time as they’re editing pages.
And, if they do run into any problems, there are thousands of video and blog Squarespace tutorials out there to help them get acquainted with the platform.
Here is a preview of Squarespace websites I’ve designed over the past few years:
The Bottom Line
I always recommend Squarespace for designers because it is what I use, love, and trust myself.
I have had amazing experiences using Squarespace to design websites for my clients—and they have expressed that they are equally happy with Squarespace as their website’s home platform.
If you are looking to get into website design, start with Squarespace and save yourself time, energy, and a lot of headaches! There’s a wide range you can charge for Squarespace website design services depending on your skill level and experience. But everyone starts from somewhere, and there’s always room for more designers who want to enter into this space :) Hope you found this blog post helpful!
If you aren’t looking to do the designing yourself, and are instead looking to hire a Squarespace website designer and expert, I encourage you to check out my services below!
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