Why I Always Suggest Squarespace Over Wix for Your Website
Coke or Pepsi? Which would you go for?
Both are billion dollar companies selling delicious fizzy drinks but chances are you only pull one down from the shelf when you’re at the supermarket, right?
Should I build my site on Squarespace or Wix?
It’s a similar story with the Wix vs Squarespace debate. Both of these ‘drag and drop’ website builders have millions of users but you’ll find people on either side singing their praises.
And here’s something you might not know about me: I actually started my website design services on Wix. But after a lot of pulling my hair out or banging my head on my desk, I swiftly made the move to Squarespace and haven’t looked back.
Can you guess which platform is the one I rave about yet? 😂
Today, I’m firmly in the Squarespace camp. Whether it’s designing sites for clients or recommending a place to DIY your own site as a new entrepreneur, Squarespace and it’s “quality over quantity” approach have won me over 10x. There’s a few reasons why clients often come to me looking to transfer away from Wix.
Here’s my run down of why I always recommend Squarespace over Wix for your website build:
Design
Responsive
Let’s start off with the functionality. When a website it responsive, it changes the look of the site to match the size of the browser or desktop being used. This is why a website often looks different on a mobile phone compared to a laptop. Having a responsive website is brilliant for both SEO and the experience of your audience on your site. In 2018, 52% of all website traffic was through mobile phones. Yup, over half is coming from our smartphones.
Wix templates are not fully responsive. This means that you have to edit them for mobile phones and tablets otherwise elements may overlap and important text/buttons may be hidden. The process is fiddly to say the least. On the other hand, Squarespace is responsive from the get go meaning your mobile site .
I will add, that if you want to edit something on the mobile version of your Squarespace site, you’ll need to use CSS or custom code. This could be seen as a limitation of the platform
Templates
Both website platforms use templates as a starting point. I may be blinded by my love for the platform, but I think Squarespace offers a more beautiful starting point for taking your business online. Here’s a taste of what the two have to offer…
Drag and Drop
Both platforms are drag-and-drop website builders. This basically means you can select an element on your page and then move it with a click of your mouse to where you want it positioned on your page. On Wix you can literally drop what you want anywhere on your page. Sounds good, right? But Squarespace limits how precisely you can ‘drop’ your element - all because it means a cleaner, fresher looking web page perfect for drawing in and converting clients.
Ease of Use
Wix targets itself at new businesses and hobbyists. It tends to market itself as a ‘get online quick’ type of platform, often piling on the pressure to join, like last week. Because it’s built itself around this benefit, Wix genuinely is easy to get started with. But that doesn’t mean Squarespace isn’t.
Both platforms take a bit of getting used to, I’ll give you that. But it’s the same with any new fancy app or system in business. Once it’s up and running, Squarespace is a clear winner for me. It’s quick, slick and actually feels like it wants you to succeed!
Story time:
A couple of weeks ago a lovely past client got in touch with some changes they needed adding to their Wix website. Of course, I’m always happy to help old clients so I poured a mug of peppermint tea, pulled up my chair and got stuck in to the Wix editor.
I lasted about 3 minutes before I was pulling out my hair out in despair.
You see, in my experience, Wix is slow to edit. I’ve tried accessing Wix on multiple devices over the years and not one has got along all friendly with the editor. It’s clunky which means something that takes a couple of minutes to edit on Squarespace seems to take 10x that on Wix.
When I’ve wrapped up a project with a client who has made the move from Wix to Squarespace, I like to walk them through their new site and how to use it. The first thing they ALWAYS comment on? How easy Squarespace makes everything.
Blogging
Blogging is one of the most useful tools in your business. It can draw in new clients and customers through SEO whilst also nurturing your current audience with useful and insightful information. In fact, some people have built such successful blogs that their whole business is their blog - cool, huh?
Wix has recently launched a new blog application. Considering the promotion they have put into their new system, it’s still miles behind Squarespace in ease of use and flexibility.
The biggest blogging platform out there is WordPress. But recent years has seen new bloggers appear who host their blogs on Squarespace. With Squarespace you can access all the blogging features you need such as categories, scheduling and comments.
Beyond this, the blog can be edited pretty much exactly as a web page would be. So I include all the amazing features in this blog as I would another page, things like products, a search bar or even just a simple button.
If blogging is important for your business (and I think it definitely should be), then Squarespace is going to win over Wix every day of the week.
Support
Contacting Support
Squarespace offer an excellent support system. They provide useful walkthroughs, troubleshooting blogs as well as email and web chat support. No phone support but I can’t fault the web chat and email support I’ve had over the years. A truly, truly amazing team!
Moving away
It might not be what you’re thinking about right now - you’re just starting out, after all. But one day you might want to move away from the platform. If you want to move away from Wix, users often find it a little difficult. Blogs in particular aren’t easily downloadable from Wix to upload to another site such as WordPress or Squarespace (or uploadable for that matter).
Do you have any questions about these platforms? Let me know in the comments below, I’d be happy to help you out!
Oh and which is your favourite: Coke or Pepsi?