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Is Squarespace a good option for a website for me?

by The Great Escapist
22 replies
Hi guys I have no experience with html or how to build my own website. I run a blogger soccer blog and I know squarespace can transfer everything over from blogger. The monthly fee includes payment for your domain name and hosting. Do you guys think they are the best option for a website noob like me or do you know of any better alternatives? I'm not going to rush into anything so I'm open to any suggestions.
#good #option #squarespace #website
  • Profile picture of the author DancingHamster
    Wordpress continues to be one of the best options if you want to start blogging. It may be more difficult to use at first, but it is very powerful and has the widest support.
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    • Profile picture of the author The Great Escapist
      Originally Posted by DancingHamster View Post

      Wordpress continues to be one of the best options if you want to start blogging. It may be more difficult to use at first, but it is very powerful and has the widest support.
      Well I don't want to start blogging, I want a soccer website. I currently have a soccer blog. I heard wordpress is worth investing in if you have multiple websites, but like I said I just want one good slick website.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnnyPlan
        Originally Posted by The Great Escapist View Post

        Well I don't want to start blogging, I want a soccer website. I currently have a soccer blog. I heard wordpress is worth investing in if you have multiple websites, but like I said I just want one good slick website.
        You should take advantage of SquareSpace free trial option to see if the site is right for you. Spend a few days of your free trial playing around with the site design interface, adding modules and features to see if you feel comfortable working with it. If you like what you see and the results that you get, then stick with the site. It will be worthwhile for your purposes, if they are taking care of all the little details of hosting and domain and especially if the interface is easy and intuitive, another good thing for a beginning site owner.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
    Do you guys think they are the best option for a website noob like me or do you know of any better alternatives?
    No.

    Start with WordPress on your own domain and hosting. WP is so easy to use and there are tons of free tutorials for every aspect all over the net.

    Most good hosts offer one-click WP install. You can play around and try things out. If you don't like it you can delete and start with a fresh install.

    It's the way to go.

    Brent
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    • Profile picture of the author The Great Escapist
      Originally Posted by Brent Stangel View Post

      No.

      Start with WordPress on your own domain and hosting. WP is so easy to use and there are tons of free tutorials for every aspect all over the net.

      Most good hosts offer one-click WP install. You can play around and try things out. If you don't like it you can delete and start with a fresh install.

      It's the way to go.

      Brent
      But isn't it a lot more expensive as I will need to go to separate places for domain name registration and hosting?
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      • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
        Originally Posted by The Great Escapist View Post

        But isn't it a lot more expensive as I will need to go to separate places for domain name registration and hosting?
        $5 - $8 per month. You will get varying opinions but you can get them both at the same place. I have all my domains and hosting together and I love it. I used to have separate HG and GD accounts and it sucked.

        Your own domain and hosting are essential.
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
        Banned
        Originally Posted by The Great Escapist View Post

        But isn't it a lot more expensive as I will need to go to separate places for domain name registration and hosting?
        How much is the monthly fee for whatever you're planning on doing?
        Domain registration, $10 annually.
        Hostgator: $15 month or less depending on the plan you pick

        I would not buy a monthly plan for my blog. Get a domain, put it on a host. Done.

        EDIT: I just checked out Squarespace. So they can move a blogger blog that costs nothing to a service just like blogger that costs something and oh ... couldn't find the price anywhere without going through their Get Started sequence and then Choose a Cheesy Template screen ... still no pricing. Don't waste your money
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  • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
    Well I don't want to start blogging, I want a soccer website.
    WordPress is the way to go. Period. The type of "site" doesn't matter. You can get a theme for whatever you want.
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    • Profile picture of the author The Great Escapist
      Originally Posted by Brent Stangel View Post

      WordPress is the way to go. Period. The type of "site" doesn't matter. You can get a theme for whatever you want.
      Interesting, I'm just a bit worried that with all the different plug ins and stuff that I will be spending too much time building the site, as the whole point of this is to save myself time so I can focus on what I am good at ie content and marketing
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      • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
        Originally Posted by The Great Escapist View Post

        Interesting, I'm just a bit worried that with all the different plug ins and stuff that I will be spending too much time building the site, as the whole point of this is to save myself time so I can focus on what I am good at ie content and marketing
        No need to get carried away. I have four or five plugins on most of my sites. Really, it's so easy.
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        • Profile picture of the author The Great Escapist
          Originally Posted by Brent Stangel View Post

          No need to get carried away. I have four or five plugins on most of my sites. Really, it's so easy.
          OK cool thank you for the advice, I appreciate it a lot.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            As a non-user of WordPress, myself, (for all these reasons, among others), I'm always interested in alternatives, and have long since been a great admirer of Squarespace sites. I think they're great. And I'm pretty impressed with how favorably they always seem to compare - across quite a range of criteria - with so many other alternatives, in all those "comparative reviews" in independent internet magazines, and so on.

            I think they're a really good and viable option for almost anyone apart from me (who would probably find them too difficult and complicated, because I'm a bit technophobic and incompetent with this kind of stuff, but that's not a drawback that would apply to many people ).
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            • Profile picture of the author The Great Escapist
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              As a non-user of WordPress, myself, (for all these reasons, among others), I'm always interested in alternatives, and have long since been a great admirer of Squarespace sites. I think they're great. And I'm pretty impressed with how favorably they always seem to compare - across quite a range of criteria - with so many other alternatives, in all those "comparative reviews" in independent internet magazines, and so on.

              I think they're a really good and viable option for almost anyone apart from me (who would probably find them too difficult and complicated, because I'm a bit technophobic and incompetent with this kind of stuff, but that's not a drawback that would apply to many people ).
              What do you use?
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              • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
                Banned
                Originally Posted by The Great Escapist View Post

                What do you use?
                A mixture: TypePad; Weebly Pro (underrated, I think); HTML-sites which I've had made for me and one of my VA's fiddles with because I'm frightened of touching them myself ; Wix (I hardly use those, now); SimpleSite.

                If I were just a little more "techie" and less incompetent, Squarespace would be very high on my list of things to consider. I've actually been quite tempted, even knowing that I'd probably find a way to screw up. (I hear they're nice, good, ethical people to do business with, also?).
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                • Profile picture of the author rampage
                  Sorry to hijack the thread, but have been looking at Weebly and Squarespace as real alternatives to what I've been using for quite a while now - ie. Wordpress. I have found Wordpress to be too high maintenance in terms of time and attention with the number of updates that is the norm rather than exception. And then there is always the security side of things to take care of... sure there are plugins that can take care of that but even those plugins needed to be updated just to stay "safe" and well, some don't ever have updates!

                  Would appreciate users of both Squarespace and Weebly to share their experience and results in terms of user-friendliness, limitations, SEO, design, suitability for affiliate marketing, etc.

                  Many thanks in advance
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                  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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                    Originally Posted by rampage View Post

                    Would appreciate users of both Squarespace and Weebly to share their experience and results in terms of user-friendliness, limitations, SEO, design, suitability for affiliate marketing, etc.
                    I can't add very much to what I said above.

                    I've been using Weebly (but not Squarespace) for over 5 years. I find it far superior to WordPress in terms of user-friendliness - there's just no comparison at all. I find it far more suitable for affiliate marketing, mostly for that reason.

                    A site's SEO doesn't depend on the CMS from which it's made (if you see people claiming that "Google loves WordPress" it's ok to throw rotten fruit at them, and I'll even provide the fruit, if you want).

                    On the subject of "limitations", of course, WordPress is the winner by a mile. Weebly is hugely limited, in most aspects, by comparison with the almost infinite flexibility of WordPress, but we all have to decide for ourselves whether all those limitations are actually relevant to our businesses. In my case, they're not: I'm an affiliate marketer, myself, and all the income in that kind of business comes from building relationships with subscribers who trust you and rely on the strength of your recommendations: "how your website was made" really isn't very important at all, by comparison, as long as it looks clean and simple and respectable, and isn't "salesy".

                    These things are always subjective. Using Weebly allows me to avoid what I see as the disadvantages of WordPress.
                    .
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    I like word press. Yeah, it is easy to set up. Most web hosting companies give it to you. Most of the time, there is a big red button that you click and it will automatically set up your instance of word press. Problem is that word press is a resource pig. For example, if I start to get a lot of traffic to a web site using word press... I get a nasty note from the web hosting company. Yeah, they kick me out for excessive resource use. Typically, these companies have hundreds of web sites on each server. They cannot afford to have one web site slow down their server. Basically, using word press is fine if you have no traffic or near zero. MYSQL, the database on which word press is built is open source. Yeah, it is free, but it is also a resource pig.

    Do your self a favor and create your web site the right way. Other wise you will be sorry. Most web hosting companies tell you about available bandwidth and space. However very few tell you percent resource use. Well, if it goes over 10% you are gone!

    Best strategy is to create HTML sites using dream weaver or composer. Those can with stand heavy traffic and not get you kicked out when your user base grows. Get ready to pay big bucks when you have a lot of users. That is one thing that most people forget to tell you about.
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  • Profile picture of the author pamon
    squarespace is a visual creator and only good for one site at a time. use WP
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    Freelance Writer & Blogger For Hire. US based. Awesome Rates. Check out http://about.me/davidamodt for samples & more.

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  • Profile picture of the author JohnZ
    Nowadays, anyone can build a website without having programming or web design skills. WordPress had made everything easier. You can use this blogging platform to set up your own website or blog, post content, and sell products online.

    WordPress is perfect for newbies because it's so easy to use. It also comes with tons of widgets and plugins for increased functionality. Make sure you try it out!
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  • Profile picture of the author rampage
    Squarespace plans start from $8 per month, on an annual pay plan. Here is their full pricing details : Pricing
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    • Profile picture of the author whitneyteam
      I have been reading up on Square Space and thought it looked good until I read the fine print about Auto Responders. Right now it is only set up to work with Mail Chip. So if you have Aweber or Get Response you are going to run into problems. While I don't have those yet, I do plan to get them in the very near future, so I think I will have to pass on Square Space.

      I currently have a free WordPress theme on Host Gator, so I think I will just opt to by a premium WordPress theme --- like Elegant Themes. Got to think about the long term picture.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by whitneyteam View Post

        I have been reading up on Square Space and thought it looked good until I read the fine print about Auto Responders. Right now it is only set up to work with Mail Chip.
        I didn't know that. That's a huge drawback!!

        Don't they have someone who can fix up your Aweber (or whatever) opt-in on a SquareSpace page for a few dollars? They really ought to offer that service, you'd think?! "Mailchimp only" must cost them quite a lot of non-techie customers?
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