Many of our clients and potential clients have asked what the benefit is of SquareSpace or WordPress. Our lead developer, Jonah West, and our CEO, Ryan Oelke, offer us a comprehensive answer.
Here is a 3-minute clip (longer version is below!) of Ryan and Jonah discussing benefits:
It mostly comes down to, Jonah says, power and flexibility with WordPress. You can do almost anything with WordPress, and there are limitless options vs. with SquareSpace, you’re going to be limited to what you can do within the closed platform (SquareSpace doesn’t have plugins).
Top 9 Reasons
- WordPress powers 30% of the internet so it’s here to stay and is constantly being improved upon so you can rely on this to have a stable and powerful platform for years to come. The New York Observer, New York Post, TED, Thought Catalog, Williams, USA Today, CNN, Fortune.com, TIME.com, National Post, Spotify, TechCrunch, CBS Local, NBC, and more all use WordPress
- It is easier to find help with WordPress over SquareSpace (more developers and designers)
- WordPress is much more innovative as a platform, especially as you grow and evolve
- SquareSpace is deceptively not as easy to use as you think
- WordPress dominates SquareSpace in regards to SEO
- You have better ability to collect data with WordPress which helps drive marketing sales
- Portability. Ultimately, you take your site and content wherever it needs to go with WordPress.
- WooCommerce is much more robust than SquareSpace eCommerce
- WordPress is excellent for multilingual websites
WordPress provides the ability to grow and expand a website, while with SquareSpace, you must use the set/limited features SquareSpace has available. Here are some differences between the 2 platforms, and why we choose to use WordPress.
Dive into more detail on why WordPress is better than Squarespace
Here is the full 30 minute video with Ryan and Jonah discussing why WordPress vs Squarespace:
Top 9 Reasons: Expanded Version!
WordPress powers 30% of the internet so it’s here to stay and is constantly being improved upon so you can rely on this to have a stable and powerful platform for years to come.
Several huge websites use WordPress including CNN, TED, and the NY Post because they understand you have so much more bang for your buck– they would not use WordPress if it was not as stable and powerful as it is. 30% may even be a bit underestimated at this point, the number may be larger than that. One of the biggest reasons why they use it is because it is so easy to install, easy to use, and flexible in what you can do with it via plugins or themes. Additionally, you can always build upon your site as your business continues to grow.
It is easier to find help with WordPress over SquareSpace (more developers and designers). In order to be successful online, you are going to need help.
If you take your business seriously, WordPress is the way to go! Jonah, our developer who has been working in development for 10 years, found WordPress a long time ago and tried many other systems, but WordPress has an easier interface and a more active community than SquareSpace. There are so many developers using WordPress: if you are posting a job or needing to update something on your website, it is so easy to find help. With SquareSpace, people are not really testing the boundaries with technical ability and marketing with websites.
WordPress is much more innovative as a platform, especially as you grow and evolve.
You can customize to your business needs as you grow. SquareSpace is a closed platform, meaning they own it and you pay for it, so they are not going to be innovative because they want it to remain simple. SquareSpace does not open it up to developers to innovate. On the other hand, WordPress is open source, free, and everyone can develop and innovate new technology and solutions all the time which opens up branding, marketing and sales. SquareSpace is limited, so for them to upgrade their system is difficult because they have their closed system.
With WordPress you have many plugin developers, and you can rewrite code for customizations. What are plugins, you may ask? Essentially, you say, “I wish I could do this thing on my site.” With WordPress, you ask us or google around, and you can do it. With SquareSpace, they may not offer that feature because not enough people need it. With WordPress, you can do ANYTHING! From the business perspective, Ryan has used platforms in the past (10 years ago!), and the platforms that were closed were the most frustrating. You would sit there saying, “I wish I could do this thing!”. As soon as another platform solution came up that was more flexible, those past platforms died. Essentially, it is a big deal to think about the future.
WordPress powers some huge websites, so there is pressure on the company of WordPress to keep up with their huge base of businesses and its in their best interest to keep on improving it and keeping it open and customizable.
Pressure = innovation.
SquareSpace is deceptively not as easy to use as you think.
Having only a website alone doesn’t mean you are going to be successful. Your website needs to be effective at communication, engagement, conversion, and maintain engaged users to become paying customers. Everyone in business needs to constantly consider what is changing in the market, what are their needs, and how to adapt to it. We are experts, and we can hop into any platform, but the last time Ryan tried to jump into SquareSpace he was frustrated. If we are frustrated with the limitations, you will be frustrated with the limitations. It’s almost too easy to use- meaning you can’t do everything you want to do. You end up limited with tools and customization options you have. We want things to be easier and accessible for you! Get help, and use the better platform.
WordPress dominates SquareSpace in regards to SEO (aka Search Engine Optimization, or how you show up in Google).
We could get real geeky, but essentially this is about search results and how you perform in Google. Under the hood of your website, there are a few things that impact as to how you show up in search results. WordPress utilizes customization, so you have various plugins and tools so you can do so much more with SEO and there is a base level of SEO that is beneficial for ranking and position overall. If you are launching a new site on WordPress, you will have great SEO out of the box. If you need to do modifications or more granular fine tuned SEO for search engine phrases, you can do all that in WordPress. Want to target with keywords? Use WordPress.
You have better ability to collect data with WordPress which helps drive marketing sales.
What is data collection? You may not think about this, but everyone is dealing with data. Collecting emails for an opt-in? Is your business maturing? Who are your customers, what do they need, and what do they want? How can you utilize the data and target your current and potential customers with what they need? You must have data to know your customers, and you must have customer to lead to more sales.
WordPress simply has more options for gathering data from your customers and users, so you can customize and get exactly the type of data you want and need. There are a number of form building plugins, like Gravity Forms, which allows you to gather data in several ways like quizzes, questionnaires, and forms, and then you can do things like send it to other systems, auto responders, and adding people to email lists. There is that type of data collection, but then there is also analytics data that is available. Sure, you can use different things in SquareSpace like Google Analytics, but WordPress has more on the backend built in already. Data will tell you how customers and users are engaging with your website, which is huge. This is so important for solopreneuers and entrepreneurs. You need ways to gather this data to be informed for business decisions and have it be automatic.
Get a handle on the data!
Portability. Ultimately, you take your site and content wherever it needs to go with WordPress.
Ryan is always looking for the best possible solution and to be able to ride it out for the longest amount of time. Things do change overtime, that is just a fact no matter what you are doing with business or how you are using the Internet. We at Power Up have been using WordPress for a decade.
You have full control over your content and your website, which means you can move it and you can adapt it to other platforms, and SquareSpace doesn’t offer that same control. With Wordpress, everything is stored wherever your site is hosted and in the backend of your site. And, it is very easy to export whatever you want: products, blog posts, form data, page content. You have all of this stuff you can move around wherever you need to if you need to move it to another platform.
Want to grow your business, content and data overtime? Choose a system that can handle it: WordPress.
WooCommerce is much more robust than SquareSpace eCommerce.
SquareSpace offers basic eCommerce, but WordPress has the innovation and customizability that is lightyears beyond SquareSpace. The sky is the limit! We have done so much to customize our clients websites to craft a unique online presence for each audience.
With Woo Commerce, you can set up any kind of product, which ranges from online courses to purchasing an ebook to buying a CD, and there are different extensions to do different things like paywalls or recurring subscriptions. Reporting is included with WooCommerce, and you can also manage your inventory, tie into quickbooks, and set up ‘product’ options. While SquareSpace has basic product options, you will simply be limited in the way you want to show your products and the way you want to sell them. From a basic ecommerce store to a super complex storefront, you are limited and hitting roadblocks with SquareSpace. Everyone is selling something, and you need to be innovative in your approach! The flexibility with WordPress offers the ability to be strategic.
With WooCommerce, the possibilities are endless with how you create, show and sell products.
WordPress is excellent for multilingual websites.
This may not affect everyone, but it affects more and more business owners who work with clients all over the world. Many of our clients are working on a relational level, are reaching out heart to heart and helping clients discover inner peace, and those things beg to be spoken to in the native language. You will want to reach your clientele in their native tongue.
While it may seem simple to add the ability to toggle languages, the functionality can actually be quite complex. Google translate may offer you an option, and it is not always great and the meaning of what you are trying to say is not necessarily effectively communicated or elegant. You will have much more granular control with something like the plugin WPML for WordPress to manage different languages and translate everything. You can also connect with the associated 3rd party translation service with WPML — so it’s easy, you submit content to be translated through your WordPress website rather than find a freelancer.
Any questions? Reach out to us, and we are happy to discuss your vision for your website further to see how we can help.