Squarespace for Small Business: Is it a Good Choice?

If you're considering Squarespace for your small business, you might have already discovered that there are a lot of options out there. Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Shopify, a bespoke website… and then there's the question of whether you should build it yourself or get someone else to do it.

It can all feel like a lot of decisions before you've even thought about what you actually need your website to do.

So, is Squarespace a good choice for a small business website?

In my opinion, for many small businesses, it is. It offers a good balance between professional design, useful features and ease of use, without requiring you to get involved in all the technical maintenance that can come with running a website.

That doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone, though. The best place to start is with what you actually need from your website.

What does a small business website need?

If you're looking at Squarespace for small business, it's worth thinking about what you actually need from your site before you start building it. Most small businesses don't need an enormous website with dozens of pages and every possible feature switched on.

You probably need somewhere to explain what you do, introduce yourself, show people your services and give potential customers a way to get in touch, book with you or buy from you. You might also want to collect email subscribers or use your website to help people find you through Google.

Beyond that, what you need will depend on your business. You might want a blog, online bookings, an online shop, a course or members-only content, but you don't necessarily need all of those things when you first launch your website.

And that's one of the reasons I like Squarespace for small businesses. You can start with what you actually need and add to it as your business grows.

You don't need a complicated website

There's a tendency to think that a professional website needs to be big, clever and packed with features. It doesn't.

A good small business website should make it easy for the right people to understand what you do, work out whether you're the right person for them and know what to do next. That might mean booking a call, making a purchase, sending an enquiry or signing up to your email list.

More pages and more features don't automatically make a website better. In fact, a website that's straightforward to navigate and easy for you to keep up to date can be far more useful than one that's full of things you don't really need.

If you're building your own site, it's also worth being aware of some of the common Squarespace mistakes that can make a website harder to use or maintain.

That's something I think is particularly important for small business owners. Your website is there to support your business, not become another thing you have to spend hours maintaining. I've also shared five simple ways to simplify your Squarespace website if you want some practical ideas for making your site clearer and easier to use.

So, why Squarespace?

One of the main reasons I think Squarespace works so well for small businesses is that it gives business owners a good degree of control without expecting them to become web developers.

Once your website is set up, you can make your own changes to things such as text, images, pages and blog posts. Your services might change, you might launch something new or you may simply want to update your About page, and you don't necessarily need to pay someone every time you want to make a small change.

That ability to manage your own website is important. A website shouldn't be something you're scared to touch.

There's also the fact that Squarespace takes a lot of the technical side off your hands. Your hosting is part of the platform, and you don't need to install the software yourself or manage a collection of plugins and updates. Things such as security and software maintenance are handled behind the scenes too.

Other platforms can obviously do this as well, but Squarespace's managed approach is one of the things that makes it appealing if you don't want your website to become a technical project.

You can start small

You also don't have to build everything at once. This is particularly useful when you're creating a Squarespace website for a small business, because you can start with the essentials rather than trying to build everything you might eventually need.

A straightforward service-based business might start with a Home page, About page, Services page and Contact page. You might then add an FAQ, testimonials, a blog or other pages when there's a genuine reason to do so.

I think that's a much better approach than trying to build the biggest website possible from day one. Your business will change, and your website can change with it.

There's room to add more when you need it

Starting small doesn't mean you're stuck with a basic website either.

A Squarespace website can grow with your small business, too. You can add a blog, connect Acuity Scheduling for online bookings, sell products through an online shop, create courses or members-only content, and connect email marketing.

The important thing is that you don't have to use all of these features just because they're available.

If you don't need a shop, you don't need a shop. If blogging isn't part of your marketing strategy, you don't have to have a blog simply because other businesses do. And if you're not ready for a course or membership, there's no reason to build one.

Start with what your business needs and add things when there's a reason to.

What about SEO?

Squarespace gives you the tools you need to take care of the basic SEO foundations of your website, including things such as page titles, descriptions and URLs, while technical elements such as SSL are handled by the platform.

It's worth being clear about what that does and doesn't mean, though. Choosing Squarespace doesn't automatically make your website rank on Google.

You still need useful content, sensible page structure, relevant search terms and pages that genuinely answer the questions your potential customers are searching for. The platform gives you the tools, but you still need to use them properly.

I've written more about this in Can I Do SEO on My Own Website?

How does Squarespace compare with other website platforms?

Squarespace isn't the only option when you're choosing a website platform for your small business, and there are good reasons why people choose other platforms.

WordPress, for example, offers an enormous amount of flexibility and can be extended in all sorts of ways. That can be a real advantage if you have more complex requirements, although depending on how your website is set up, there can also be more technical maintenance involved.

Wix is another flexible website builder with plenty of design options and features, while Shopify is particularly focused on ecommerce and can make sense if selling online is at the heart of your business.

Then there are bespoke websites, which can be built around very specific requirements but will generally involve more development work and a greater investment.

So I wouldn't say that Squarespace is simply the best website platform. It depends on what you're trying to achieve.

For many people looking at Squarespace for their small business, that balance of simplicity and flexibility is the main attraction.

When might Squarespace not be the right choice?

There will always be businesses for whom another platform makes more sense.

If you need highly specialised functionality, extensive custom development or a particularly complex ecommerce setup, Squarespace may not give you the flexibility you need. In those circumstances, WordPress, Shopify or a bespoke solution could be worth considering instead.

That's why I think it's better to start with your requirements rather than deciding on a platform first and trying to make your business fit around it.

Can you build a Squarespace website yourself?

Yes, absolutely. Squarespace is designed to be accessible to people who aren't web developers, and plenty of small business owners build and manage their own websites. That's one reason Squarespace can work particularly well for small business owners who want to remain in control of their website.

The question isn't really whether you can build one yourself. It's whether you want to spend the time working out what your website needs, how everything should be structured and how to make it look professional and work well.

There's quite a bit more to a website than choosing a template and adding some text. You need to think about your page structure, navigation, content, calls to action, mobile layout and the basic SEO foundations too.

If you enjoy doing that sort of thing, then building your own Squarespace website can be a perfectly good option.

If you'd rather someone else dealt with it, that's where a professional designer can save you a lot of time and head-scratching.

So, is Squarespace a good choice for your small business?

For many small businesses using Squarespace, I think it offers a really good middle ground. You get a professional website without having to deal with hosting, software updates and lots of technical maintenance, and you can start with the essentials rather than trying to build everything your business might ever need.

Perhaps most importantly, you can keep things simple.

Your website doesn't need to be complicated to be professional, and it doesn't need every feature available to be effective. It just needs to do its job well and make it easy for the right people to find you, understand what you do and take the next step.

If that's the sort of website you're looking for, Squarespace is certainly worth considering.

If you're looking for a Squarespace website for your small business, and you'd rather have someone take care of the design and setup for you, you can find out more about my Squarespace Website In A Day service.