If you’re looking to have a website for your business or organization, and you don’t know where to start, there are two popular options for companies that do not need or want a fully custom-built website: Squarespace and WordPress. In this blog we will compare the two and list the pros and cons of each so you can have an idea of what would be best for your company’s needs.
Content Management Systems
In the ancient days of the internet, all websites needed to be custom coded to operate. This was an expensive endeavor, and it meant that anyone with a website needed to be trained in how to use, update, and maintain it or otherwise have an IT professional on the payroll. In the past 15 years or more, content management systems (CMS) have emerged as the preferred method for people who aren’t coders but want to create their own content using a user-friendly interface.
Any CMS should be easy to use. Regular people without a lot of computer training or coding experience should be able to log on, create and publish their content, add media to their website, and make any changes they need to keep their website functioning the way they want it to. WordPress and Squarespace are both CMS’s, but they are built for somewhat different purposes.
WordPress vs. Squarespace
Let’s talk about Squarespace first because it’s the simplest CMS. Squarespace is a good solution for a company, organization, or person who wants a very small website that they will not have to maintain much, just update the content periodically. The ideal Squarespace user is someone who wants a modern, professional-looking website without a lot of bells and whistles.
A Squarespace site is less expensive to build than a WordPress site and easier to edit, but it’s not suited well for ecommerce websites, is not very customizable, there aren’t many design choices, and it’s not ideal for users who plan to do intensive marketing campaigns.
WordPress, on the other hand, is very customizable. WordPress offers an enormous number of themes and plugins to make your site look and run exactly the way you want it to. A WordPress website will have more flexibility over time because you can alter your site relatively easily by changing the themes and plugins.
It’s a very powerful platform for ecommerce, and it’s more marketable too. Forty percent of all websites are powered by WordPress, in fact. This is an incredibly popular platform.
WordPress is fairly easy to use if you have some experience with online interfaces, but there is some learning involved. You might not feel comfortable with it until you’ve had some time to play around with it. You will also have to install updates and make backups to keep your site running smoothly – or pay a professional to do this for you. You will be responsible for your website’s hosting and security as well.
Overall, WordPress is clearly the superior platform in terms of customization, flexibility, and design options. If your website will involve ecommerce, you should choose WordPress over Squarespace every time. However, if your website needs are simple, and you don’t intend to change it much over the next few years, Squarespace is a solid, economical choice.
If you have further questions about either of these platforms, please give Corporate Conversions a call. We would be happy to talk over the pros and cons of both and give you our web design recommendations. We build both WordPress and Squarespace sites regularly for our clients, and we’d be happy to do the same for you.
