Many businesses urgently need to get a business website set up at the moment, in order to shift to online sales due to the COVID-19 situation. However, choosing which type of website is right for you is often a barrier for small businesses. There are dozens of website building platforms on the market, so it's easy to become overwhelmed by it all!

At GippsTech, we build small business websites using both Squarespace and WordPress; so we are not biased towards one or the other. We recommend both options in some situations, dependent on your business needs. We've created an unbiased review of our two website building platforms of choice, to help you make your decision. 

Read on to find out which type of website is right for your business! 

What type of website is best for me?

There are many different website creation tools on the market such as Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Webflow and Weebly. Each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and suit varying wants and needs. There are many factors we must consider when choosing a platform for your business website, such as cost, functionality, design customisation and user friendliness. 

Other website builders (Wix, Weebly etc) tend to be too simplistic and difficult to create a professional looking website. For websites we build for our clients, we recommend either Squarespace or WordPress as being two website building platforms that can be used to create a professional looking website while fitting within a small business budget. Wix is also popular for starter websites by people looking to build a website themselves, since it’s even simpler and easier to get started with than Squarespace, but Wix websites often don’t look professional and need to be replaced quickly as your business grows, so we don’t recommend Wix for our clients.

Squarespace and WordPress are the two platforms we recommend in different circumstances. Read on to see which is right for you, wordpress vs squarespace.

Here is an overview of the features of Squarespace which fare favourably to us: 

▪ Minimal ongoing costs

A Squarespace website is a great fit if you run a side business or a community organisation which has very limited ongoing funding. The monthly running costs are minimal at approximately $35 per month; and there is no need for software updates or security management. Squarespace offers built in security to fight off bugs or malware (3). This keeps the running costs of your website down, while still keeping you safe online. In contrast to this, WordPress requires ongoing security updates and maintenance, which results in higher ongoing costs. 

▪ No worrying about security

Squarespace automatically manages security and software updates for you, so you never need to worry about security of your site. WordPress, on the other hand, requires regular security updates, similar to your Windows or Mac computer. We recommend signing up to a maintenance plan that lets us handle security updates for you, since that means you never need to worry about applying those updates yourself. That does increase ongoing costs, however, from $35/month for hosting only to $100/month for hosting + security maintenance.

▪ Squarespace is simple enough to use for non-professionals to be able to create a beautiful site from scratch

If budget is a determining factor for you, and you are thinking of building your own website, Squarespace is easy enough to use, even for non-professionals. Pages are templated and designed so you can easily drag and drop your content or images to suit your wants and needs. What you see is what you get, so when editing your webpages, what you see on your screen is how your page will appear as a live site (3). 

▪ You can easily add new pages to your website

Using the templates provided by Squarespace, it is easy to add pages and update layouts and colours which can dramatically affect the look of your website. Keep in mind, however, that your choice is limited by the templates on offer by Squarespace. If your website has been developed by GippsTech, you can make major changes or add entire new pages yourself, so Squarespace is a good fit if you want to be able to make major changes to the site layout and design on your own going forward. For small changes such as adding blog posts or making text changes to the site, WordPress can be just as easy to use if it’s set up correctly, but major changes, such as creation of new pages, or creation of an entire site from scratch requires a professional developer. 

Whilst Squarespace is a fantastic tool, here are some of the disadvantages:

▪ Backups are unavailable

If you are performing large edits or changes to your website, Squarespace can pose a potential risk as you cannot create offsite backups. This is one area where Squarespace’s security is lacking by comparison to WordPress. If your site is hacked, or you make a mistake in editing, or your developer or an employee goes rogue and takes control of your website, it cannot be restored from backup and the site may need to be rebuilt from scratch. We recommend storing your website images and copy as documents on your hard drive or computer so that you can rebuild your website again easily and quickly, if you ever find yourself in this situation. In saying this, the team at GippsTech now offers automated back-ups to clients who sign up for a technical support plan. This means that if you accidentally delete a page or website content, you won’t have to re-write it from scratch. If your website is being held hostage by a rogue developer or former employee, we offer website hostage rescue packages to quickly back up your content, rebuild your website and get you out of this situation! We’ve performed website hostage rescues in 3 days in the past, so if you’re in this situation and need help, contact us!

▪ Complex websites are expensive to develop

If you are looking for something a little different to the templated designs on offer, Squarespace may not be for you. It lacks the ability to duplicate features, there is a limited app store (3) so special features require coding, and it can prove slow in bulk uploading data and store products to your site. If you are considering developing more advanced features in future, a Squarespace site may limit your options or increase your costs. While Squarespace is a good choice for budget-conscious users with simple website needs, it can quickly become more expensive than WordPress for more advanced projects, so Squarespace is not recommended if you are looking to add additional features and functionalities in the future. WordPress, on the other hand, offers a platform whereby the end product is only limited to your imagination. It is also easier to manage should you require larger updates to your site, and if you want a website which grows and evolves with your business. 

▪ There is limited design customisation

Because Squarespace is a templated, “what you see is what you get” site, you are limited in design capabilities. When designing your website, you may not get exactly what you want as your specific vision or ideas may not be available in your preferred template. Customising the design beyond the options available in a template requires more clunky and complex code than similar designs require in WordPress, so a highly customised design ends up being more expensive to build in Squarespace than in WordPress. Overall, you may not have the look and feel of your website to reflect your brand, and this can leave your website looking less polished than you wanted. In contrast to this, WordPress allows you to design your website in any way you like, so if you don’t want to compromise on your design, it may be a better option for you. 

▪ Your SEO customisation is limited

When it comes to basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tasks such as URLs, page descriptions and titles, Squarespace is easy to use (4). However, when it comes to customising your SEO at a higher level to drive more organic traffic to your website, Squarespace can fall short. 

▪ You don’t own the platform

Squarespace is a closed source website building tool, which means that you can only host your site on its servers, and they maintain control over the platform and core software (9). This means you give up responsibility to take care of your website (which makes it cheaper), however, this comes at a cost of site freedom. Squarespace can make changes to your website or functionalities without your control. As an example, Squarespace 5 allowed you to make backups of your website, however Squarespace 7 does not.

On the other hand, WordPress is an open source platform, meaning that you can install WordPress on any server, and you can make any modifications you would like (9). If the company that runs WordPress shuts down or makes changes, you are not required to use those changes and your site can continue to function. This gives you more control and ownership over your site going forward.

It is easy to learn as “what you see is what you get”; so, if you are time poor and struggle to keep up with the demands of business, however you see the value in having a professional website to prove credibility and authority, then this may be an excellent choice for you. Ongoing monthly costs are low, ranging from $25 to $52 per month (5) which makes it a great fit for solopreneurs, people running a side-business which is not yet making a full-time income, or community groups which don’t have ongoing funding. 

However, for a complex site, or a site with multiple pages and menus which will require edits and changes, this platform may not suit your needs. If you are focussed on boosting your SEO and organic reach, without solely relying on social media to do so, then you may be interested in hearing about what WordPress has to offer. For business customers who have a more significant business paying a full-time salary, and especially for businesses employing staff, we generally recommend WordPress since the availability of backups improves your security, and it gives you more flexibility going forward, so your website can grow with your business over time.

Here is an overview of the advantages of using WordPress: 

▪ WordPress provides security features and offline backups which keep your site protected

There are a number of plugins available for your WordPress site which scan and secure your site for malware, failed log in attempts and file monitoring (7). There is the ability to complete daily back-ups of your site, which can then be saved to a remote location such as a hard drive, or your cloud-based services such as Google Drive and Dropbox. In a circumstance where you accidentally delete something, your website gets hacked, or an employee goes rogue, you can restore your website instantly from backup. On the other hand, Squarespace does not have the capability of backups, so if something goes wrong, or a web page gets deleted, you must rebuild it from scratch. 

▪ WordPress provides a flexible option for you if you like to regularly update or change your site to reflect the evolution of your brand and its products and services

WordPress gives you the ability to create a site which is truly unique and authentic to you, beyond the capabilities of a traditional drag and drop website platform (6). You can add a forum, membership areas, and any plug in option or add-on that you wish. You are not limited in your choice of design or features, as WordPress has the largest plugin library of any website builder in the world (6). 

▪ It is cheaper to build advanced features

It is often thought that WordPress is more expensive than Squarespace. However, that’s only the case because of Squarespace being usable for DIY websites - for professionally developed websites, to achieve the same result, it can be cheaper to build the site in WordPress, particularly for sites containing more advanced features or a fully customisable design. These are easier to build in WordPress since WordPress is designed to be more usable for professional developers, and makes it easier to fully customise your website design and build more advanced plugins on the platform. Squarespace is designed primarily for non-professionals, so it’s easier to use for DIY projects, but ends up limiting professionals in what they can change on the website, thus increasing costs of developing complex features and custom designs. 

▪ You have more control over your SEO than a “drag and drop” website (6)

WordPress allows you to gain more value from your keywords, and has the option to add plugins which favour well with helping your website appear on Google and other search engines. Some of these available plugins and features also give you the ability to view insights for your keyword performance, enabling you to improve your SEO (6). In contrast, Squarespace doesn’t offer the same SEO capabilities as a WordPress website, so driving organic traffic to your website would be at a disadvantage.

WordPress has a vast array of benefits and features when it comes to your website design and performance, but here’s some things which may prove unfavourable to you:

▪ You need professional assistance to build your website

Without experience in website development or building, there is a lot of room for error if you choose to build your own website using WordPress. The platform offers more advanced features and full customisation of design (6), but because of that, it can be easy to make a mistake, and there are some aspects that non-professionals often forget, such as mobile design. If building your own website is important to you, Squarespace would be a better option. WordPress is not recommended for DIY websites unless you’re willing to invest a minimum of many weeks in learning basic web development yourself!

▪ Ongoing security maintenance is required for a WordPress site

Updates to software are required to keep your website secure, and this maintenance can be priced at $100 per month + GST. You can do these updates yourself, in which case you only pay for website hosting, which is priced similarly to Squarespace, but this requires you to do manual updates to your site every month and is not recommended if you’re likely to forget or run out of time to maintain your site. On the other hand, Squarespace has in-built security systems which are included in your monthly subscription costs, so no ongoing maintenance is required. 

▪ Ongoing costs are higher due to the need for maintenance

A WordPress website is slightly more expensive to run once it’s built compared to a Squarespace site due to the need for professional maintenance. For example, we charge $100+GST per months for WordPress maintenance, compared to Squarespace’s fees of around $35-50/month. This difference may be significant to someone running a side business or community group which has no ongoing funding, but is less important to a business with employees.

Whilst a WordPress website can be difficult to set up on your own, at GippsTech, we design your site so that key features are easy to edit yourself, and are not limited by your tech experience. This means that ongoing edits can be just as easy as with Squarespace, with the added benefit that if you mess something up, we can restore your site from backup. For example, GippsTech designed the website for Central Clinic in Warragul so that updates to their staff profiles are as easy to edit as filling in a simple online form.

But what about other website building platforms?

At GippsTech we place a high value on the overall quality, professionalism and ease of use of our websites.

Whilst other building platforms such as Wix or Weebly may be cheaper if compared to Squarespace or WordPress, they generally look less professional and lack the capabilities and functionality you need to evolve and grow your website. For this reason, we look solely at Squarespace and WordPress, and help you make the best decision for your website based on your wants, needs and budget. 

Think about what is important to you!

Before deciding on the best website platform for your business, think about the pros and cons of using both Squarespace and WordPress. Your choice should reflect the unique needs and capabilities required for your website, and our team at GippsTech are happy to assist you in making this decision. 

Here is a snapshot of the Pros and Cons of each website platform: 

If you run a small side business or community organisation and you do not have the funding for high ongoing costs, or you want to build and design your website yourself, Squarespace will prove an excellent choice.

Squarespace is also a great choice if you are a larger business with a marketing team who can easily update and edit the website for you, as it is simplistic to use. However, understand that Squarespace may only offer a temporary website solution for your business, if you are planning on expanding and evolving your products and services. Also note that with Squarespace, you won’t have the ability to have full control over design, since you will only have a choice of what is available in the prebuilt template.

On the other hand, if you are an established business, we would recommend using WordPress for your website as it is adaptable, allows backups and significant edits, and features and functionalities can be built and customised. For most small to medium sized enterprises, $100 per month ongoing costs is quite reasonable for a more professional website, and this can prove to be a fair price to pay given the quality SEO capabilities and features on offer. While WordPress is not advised for those businesses who want to build their own site, once it is set up and established, it is easy to use and make small changes yourself, and we can provide training and technical support to your admin team in making future changes. 

Just remember, whichever option is right for you and your business, understand that a professional website will add credibility and authority when talking to both your customers and potential customers. First impressions count; and your potential clients will spend time “window shopping” online to find the business that suits their needs, and appears professional and experienced. Your website should reflect who you are in business and how you can best solve the problems of your clients in order to build trust and rapport and convert your potential leads to long term clients! 

We hope that this guide has helped you to make your decision about which type of website is right for your business. 

At GippsTech, we have experience designing and developing websites which reflect you and your business. We can provide detailed quotes within 48 hours of your initial consultation, and we can also provide assistance in gaining funding for your website. More information on government grants and funding, and how we can help you apply can be found here. 

Whatever you choose, we want to help and support you to speak to your audience in a professional and impactful way. If you’re looking to get a new website designed for your business, to help you better serve your customers and keep offering services in the current environment with most work moving to digital; book a free website development consultation with us to discuss your business website needs!

References:

1. Start Blogging Online, “Squarespace review 2020: Pros and Cons you must consider!, Updated January 23, 2020, https://startbloggingonline.com/squarespace-reviews/ 

2. Robert Brandl, “Squarespace review – Plenty of style, but is it worthwhile?”, Website Tool tester, Published December 19, 2019, https://www.websitetooltester.com/en/reviews/squarespace- review/ 

3. Lucy Carney, “Squarespace review 2020 – 10 questions you need to ask!”, Website Builder Expert, Updated January 23, 2020, https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/website- builders/squarespace/squarespace-review/ 

4. Si Quan Ong, “Sqaurespace SEO vs. Wordpress: 3.6 million domains studied”, Ahrefs Blog, October 31, 2019, https://ahrefs.com/blog/squarespace-seo/ 

5. https://www.squarespace.com/pricing 

6. Tom Watts, “WordPress review 2020: Is WordPress right for you?”, Website Builder Expert, Updated January 2, 2020, https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/wordpress/org-review/ 

7. WP Beginner, “The ultimate WordPress security guide – Step by step 2020”, Updated January 2, 2020, https://www.wpbeginner.com/wordpress-security/ 

8. https://wordpress.com/pricing/ 

9. Gen Herres, “WordPress vs. Squarespace: Is open or closed source better for you?”, Anphira, last updated April 12, 2018,   https://www.anphira.com/business-tools/wordpress-squarespace-open-closed-source/