Squarespace vs Wordpress and why I chose to specialise in Squarespace website design

When I first started blogging, I set myself up on Blogger (to all the other bloggers out there reading this, remember those good old days?!) and all was right in the world. Blogger (which is sort of where the term ‘being a Blogger’ came from) was how I started dipping my toe into the world of graphic design (I used PicMonkey at the time to create banners and blog graphics) and it’s also where I first started learning about coding & custom CSS.

Once I started becoming frustrated with the limitations of Blogger, I started a separate blog on Wordpress. I tried both the self hosted and the hosted options, but I just found the whole platform to be VERY clunky. I also ended up with a million and one widgets that continually needed updating and at least once a month there would be some sort of plugin that I was using that would ‘break’ my site. And I’d end up spending hours trying to figure out which one it was, only to realise the person who had designed it hadn’t made an update for it and so it no longer worked for my site. It was soooo frustrating, and I felt as though I was just never able to make my site look like the picture in my head. And for me, I just wanted a pretty place to blog from, and one that I could control the look and feel of without having to spend hours searching for coding tutorials or having to rely on graphics and other design elements.

This is also when I delved into Wix, but this didn’t last long either as I found the interface even more confusing that Wordpress. And finally, when I came across Squarespace I just knew, even from my very first day of their free 2 week trial period, that this was the platform for me.

Everything was (and still is!) just SO beautiful!

And the best part about the platform, and the main reason why I use it to design websites for my clients, is just how easy and intuitive it is for my clients to be able to take over and make changes and updates themselves (yay!). This means it’s a win-win for both designer & client, because as a designer I’m able to ‘sign off’ a project and I know, that while I am available to ask questions and help, my clients will probably be able to solve most of their questions themselves. They are able to swop out images, update text, create more pages and work out how to do this in relatively small amount of time. Wordpress on the otherhand, while being an incredibly powerful content management system, has a MUCH steeper learning curve. If you know what you’re doing and are familiar with the platform, the options for creating beautiful websites are endless! But, when it comes to clients being able to make changes themselves (especially when it comes to blogging and writing posts), in my opinion (and this seems to be the general opinion of everyone I ask about it) it’s just not an easy platform to understand and learn how to make basic edits.

This also brings me to the next tick for Squarespace…their help forum is amazing! They have an incredible archive of tutorials that are laid out systematically and most importantly, easy to navigate! There is nothing worse than spending hours looking for a tutorial for the most basic of basic questions. And they have a forum where you can pretty much find the answer to anything and everything. And if you can’t, they customer service is pretty fantastic. When I made the move from Blogger to Squarespace, I had over 500 blog posts (can you even!!!) and comments on those posts and moving everything was pretty straight forward. I was (and am still) using DISQUS for my comment management system though, so this posed a few issues and I ended up loosing a whole bunch of comments because of URL re-directs failing etc. BUT it was less of a hassle than I thought it would be.

So now that you’ve heard from my personal experience, here are some of the other important (and more technical) reasons why I believe it to be the best website platform for the types of small businesses I work with:

• Mobile Responsive Design:

Squarespace templates are beautifully designed and have built in & unique mobile experiences that match the overall style of your website. This means your content will look great on every device, every time. Squarespace is design-driven, user-friendly, and performance-focused (doesn’t that sound fancy!).

• Simple User Interface

The back-end of Squarespace's platform is extremely intuitive and simple to use, even for complete technophobes! This means it's super easy to make edits yourself without having to get a developer/designer involved to help with small tweaks. Squarespace was designed with the do-it-yourself user in mind, making it easy for clients to maintain, update, and monitor their websites on their own. Building pages is a matter of dragging and dropping blocks in a page editor, and backend tasks are a snap with clearly labeled menus and panels.

• Peace of mind

Squarespace is a self-contained platform that works seamlessly and is fully managed from top to bottom. This means there’s never any need to update software, plugins, or widgets; patch security vulnerabilities; or worry that changing one component might break something else. It also means there’s rarely any need to investigate or pay for third-party apps or plugins since most functionality is native to Squarespace. I have only now (nearly 6 years down the line) had to implement any coding. You can pretty much figure out how to do just about anything your heart desires with regards to your site design, without having to know any coding.

• Free SSL Certificates

All Squarespace websites are given free SSL certificates, which means everyone can enjoy a secure connection throughout your whole website. This became a necessity in 2018, when some browsers started marking non-secure websites as a threat to users! Google also shows a preference to secure sites in their rankings.

• Built-in search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities

Every Squarespace website is equipped with all the elements needed for a strong SEO strategy. Site descriptions, page titles, custom URLs, search-friendly formatting, and other key elements are all easily managed. Each site also generates a sitemap automatically that helps Google crawl, understand, and rank a website. So all of those Wordpress who tell you otherwise, simply don’t know what they are talking about ;)

• Simple Pricing Structure

Squarespace's pricing is transparent and simple; you can pay monthly or yearly (from $12 per month when you pay annually for their basic plan…this is what I use…and $26 per month for large online store option) which includes absolutely everything you need. You can buy your domain within Squarespace, and this cost includes your hosting too - there are no extra costs! You can also purchase a custom email with Gsuite right in your Squarespace dashboard, so all of your billing is all contained in one easy place.

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So, if after reading all of this you’re interested in working with me, click below to find out more about my packages and how it all works to hire me for your website project.

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The top 5 tools I use to run my online business

I’ve been at this online thing for a good many years now, starting with blogging, then photography (I also sell my photos online through Creative Market) and where I am now, a website designer. In the process I’ve used loads and loads of different tools to help make my life easier, and now I want to share my favourites with you. These are the tools and resources I use all the time, and while there are a lot more than 5 (I might do another post on all of them!) these are the ones I use just about every day.

{This is an honest, unsponsored post but affiliate links have been used. What this means is that if you do choose to sign up through one of the links in this post, then I receive a small commission. This helps me maintain this blog and keep it running with your support & it means you also get a discount…it’s a win-win! Please know I only ever share brands and businesses that I use and love.}

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Email Marketing - Flodesk

When I first started blogging (way back when in 2010), I began my journey into email marketing with Mailchimp. At the time, it was the best platform for beginners, and while it had & has a lot of pros to it, I made the move to Convertkit once I really started to take my blogging seriously. Convertkit is an incredibly powerful platform, and AMAZING for anyone wanting to sell info products online, but it became too costly for me and my list of 2500 people.

I have since moved over to Flodesk, and I LOVE IT! Beautiful emails, seamless integration with Squarespace and a very user friendly dashboard mean that I’m spending less time trying to make my emails look pretty, and more time actually writing. They have gorgeous templates (and FYI having lots of images in the body isn’t affecting open rates) so now us creatives can have our cake and eat it!

It’s been a real game changer (and just a little heads up, here is a link that will get you 50% off their monthly plan, and you’ll be locking in that price for life…no matter how many subscribers you have!). I’ll be writing a full post on my move from Convertkit to Flodesk, as well as a post on what the Fodesk platform is like, so stay tuned for that.

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Have you received an email from me lately? What did you think?

If you would like to see what my emails look like & join my list, you can sign up here:

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Invoicing - Wave

When it comes to book keeping, I do wish I was a bit more of a wizz when it comes to accounts, but alas, numbers aren’t exactly my strong suite. I started off creating my own quotes and invoices in InDesign, mostly because I wanted to have complete control over how they looked, so that I could keep them as pretty as can be. But it became a huge pain keeping up with invoice numbers, making changes, and then as my service offerings changed, my invoices just got all muddled. Wave is amazing (and its FREE!) and I’m able to keep track of outstanding invoices, part payments, send reminders and their latest feature, email statements with amounts outstanding. Its super easy to use, and syncs with my bank accounts (something I can’t quote decide whether I like or not) but either way, its fantastic and simple, and perfect for small businesses.

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Blogging & Website Design - Squarespace

Oh the amount of good things I could say about Squarepace…it’s the reason I actually got into website design in the first place. I started off on Blogger, dabbled in Wix, spend a good chunk of time on Wordpress (both versions) and then jumped to Squarespace and have never looked back! It’s beautiful, user-friendly, and did I mention beautiful? It’s a wonderful platform to work with, and the best part is once I hand over a site to my client, they are able to make changes and updates themselves, really easily. Click here to find out more about working with me, and to see some of the sites I’ve designed.

I run this site on Squarespace, and have been blogging with the platform since 2015. There are an infinite number of customisations that can be done to each template they provide. Without having to know any coding, you’re able to take one of the templates and really make it your own. Squarespace offers a free two-week trial so you can really dig into to the platform without having to commit.

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Client File Management - Gsuite & Google Drive

It’s taken me a little while to figure out a good system for keeping track of my clients’ files & documents, but I like Google Drive for this. I have separate folders for my photography & website clients, and then I order them by year, the month their project starts, and then by name. I also add a colour to their folder if I’ve wrapped up their project. It’s a nice visual way to staying organised. I share their personal link with them so that we both have access, and then there is less back and forth of sending files. I signed up with Gsuite through Squarespace, which means I get a custom email address, as well as storage space for Google Drive, and while I know I could be doing a LOT more with it as it’s very powerful, I’m enjoying it so far. I have a few Google drive accounts; the ones I use the most are my personal one…this is how I upload and access my photos on my phone and my business one.

I am always tempted by Asana, Dubsado and Trello, but it’s been a big enough learning curve for my clients to use Google Drive (and most of them know or have experience using Google) and so I worry the extra step of understanding how to use a very new platform just to communicate with me might be off putting. But I might be wrong! Please let me know if you use a business management tool for client communication & staying organised that you love!

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Quick Social Media Graphics - Canva

I can’t believe I turned my nose up at this fantastic design app all those years ago. I liked to think I was a real ‘design pro’ having taught myself photoshop (I only really knew the basics!) and I was too good for the free app that claimed to help you make beautiful graphics, for free! Well, I certainly ate my words when I finally ended up trying it out for the first time, and now I use it just about every day.

You can make anything from posters, to Instagram Story templates, Zoom Virtual Backgrounds, Logos and Blog Banners & graphics…the list goes on and on. Oh, and did I mention you can do all the above for FREE! Their paid plan allows you to upload your own branding (logos, colours and fonts) and lots more.

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So there you have it. My top 5 business tools that I use to run my online business.

What I haven’t mentioned above, but for anyone interested:

• Camera: Nikon D750

• Computer: Macbook Pro 15”

• Photo editing Software of Choice: Lightroom

• What I use to actually speak to my clients: Whatsapp Video Chat/Zoom/Facetime

Is there anything that I’m missing? Are there any tools that you can’t live without? Is there anything else you’d like to know about how I run my business? Leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you right away…I’m always happy to share my ‘secrets’.

5 Quick Blog Makeover Tips

Is your blog feeling a little stale? Are you in need of a bit of a refresh when it comes to your blog design and layout? Here are 5 quick tips to help you breathe new life into your blog, quickly and easily without the need to hire a graphic designer. I found making these quick changes with my own blog really helped me to feel inspired again and I'm sure would do the same for you.

1. Change your Social Media Icons.

This could be something as simple as changing the colour of your social media icons or could even extend to changing the design of them completely. There are so many wonderful blogs offering free icons for download that you don't have to be stuck with boring icons ever again. Here is a quick list of some of my favourite ones. Just click on the images below to be redirected to the website:

2. Change your Blog Sidebar Labels.

A similar move to the tip above, but changing the design of your category/page labels can really give your blog a lift. Think about changing the font, the size of the font, the background colour, adding a photo as the background or going minimalist and just using a font. 

You can make new sidebar labels yourself using the following free online programs; Canva and PicMonkey.  When you do make your own labels just keep in mind the sizing of each one. Try and keep the size (and the design) the same to create uniformity on your blog. 

For me, I changed my image based labels to graphic based labels as I thought the images were distracting from the main content of my blog. I still like the image based labels on the left, but felt like I needed a bit of a change. Remember, it's your blog and if you make changes you don't like, you can easily go back and change them again:

3. Change your profile picture.

Update your profile picture every once in a while to keep your blog fresh. Or if you don't have one, add one! Your readers want to know who it is they are connecting with when they read your blog. Try to keep your colours in the same palette as your design theme to avoid distracting from your blog too much. I styled a few new photographs recently using items that show what it is I blog about. Be creative and most of all be you!

4. Remove the clutter.

Take some time to really look at your blog. Are there pages, widgets, buttons and other things in your side bar or header that you don't really need? Remove them and just keep the essentials. A great tip to implement is to include a search bar somewhere obvious on your blog. That way if people get a little lost (or if they are looking for something specific they can quickly search your blog instead of spending time getting frustrated and then ultimately leaving). Make your blog a pleasant and easy to navigate place for your readers.

5. Add a Landing page

A landing page (or home page) is the first thing people see when they get to you blog.  You may have multiple pages on your website (for example an About Page, Store Page, Contact Page, Press Page) or you might also have your blog set up as a separate page too as is the case with my blog. This can be very confusing for people who stumble across your website as they may have no idea what it is that you blog about. To make it easy for them to navigate, add a 'Home' page to your site. If you click on my logo at the top of my blog, or if you click on my actual 'Home' page you will be directed to a space that is clean and free of clutter. Your Home or Landing page needs to be very clear in stating what your webiste or blog is all about, as well as providing easy to see and use links to the different parts of your site.

As you can see my Home page has links to my About page, my Stationery Store, my Photography portfolio and my Contact page while also providing a sign up form for people to subscribe to my blog. Another thing to remember to include is your social media links so people can connect with you on all the platforms you use.

My site is run on SquareSpace and so setting up a landing page (or cover page as SquareSpace calls it) was super easy to do. If you blog using Wordpress or Blogger you can set up a new 'Static Page' which can act as your landing page. 

Remember at the end of the day you want your site to be easy to navigate and easy for people to find what they are looking for. You don't want people to get frustrated and end up leaving your site because they found another one that is better to navigate. People are also very visual, so try to include high quality photographs on your home page that add to the overall branding and aesthetic that you want to convey to your readers. 

Do you have any other tips for a blog makeover that you'd like to share? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below!

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