7 Reasons why I love Squarespace 7.1
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Squarespace is the best website builder for service-based business owners in 2023 — here’s why
I’ve already seen a TON of changes with Squarespace since I designed my first site back in 2018.
I’ve ready many old blog posts that talk about the difficulties of editing layouts and customizing the look of your website on Squarespace (and yes, this was true!)
But beginning in 2022, with the roll-out of Squarespace 7.1 Fluid Engine, you can kiss those issues goodbye. Squarespace has been working hard to develop the best website builder for small businesses and service providers — and they’re succeeding.
First things first: What is Squarespace 7.1 Fluid Engine?
You may have heard people say that Squarespace isn’t as customizable as Showit. Well, thanks to the newest Squarespace updates, that's no longer the case!
Squarespace 7.1 was rolled out with a brand new editor, dubbed Fluid Engine, beginning in 2022. It uses a drag-and-drop, grid based design system. Which means that you can move all of your website content around with ease for completely custom layouts and designs.
Think Canva — but for website design.
The old Squarespace editor (now dubbed “Classic Editor”), was a lot less intuitive, and impossible to truly customize with a designer look unless you knew how to code. You couldn’t just move a photo or text block wherever you wanted, and you couldn’t change your mobile design at all.
Now, you have complete flexibility, and you can tweak and edit your mobile site independently of your desktop layout!
You can also intuitively resize photos and sections, move multiple blocks at the same time, layer photos and text on top of one another, bleed photos off the edge of the page, duplicate blocks, and even save sections to re-use the same layouts on multiple pages.
Squarespace Fluid Engine is truly a game-changer — making the aesthetic capabilities of Squarespace websites just as excellent as Showit’s similar drag-and-drop editor.
The possibilities for beautiful, custom sites are endless, and there are so many beautiful (and affordable!) designer-made Squarespace templates available.
But website aesthetics are just the tip of the iceberg, and only one part of creating an amazing website.
Squarespace has always focused on being an all-inclusive website platform. As such, Squarespace has long since mastered a bunch of other capabilities that make it a dream for busy business owners that don’t want to have to spend a ton of time on admin and marketing work.
✨ to see how Squarepace compares to Showit in 2023, check out this post ✨
Why Squarespace is great — in a nutshell
Squarespace’s many built-in features encourage you to grow your small business, and makes each new stage of growth easy to execute.
If you have goals and plans to eventually work with a bunch of clients, create a course, sell any products, or expand your marketing efforts with blogging or email marketing, Squarespace makes it easy to do.
Here’s an example —
Let’s say you’re a therapist or coach building your new website on Showit. It looks beautiful and outlines your services clearly. But you quickly realize that it would save you — and your clients — a whole bunch of time and headaches if they could schedule with you directly online. Well, you’ll have to find, set up, and embed a scheduling app on your site.
Fast forward a couple years later and you want to host an online group program or self-paced workshop. You’ll have to set up, learn, and launch a course through Teachable or another platform and sync it with your website sales pages.
Now you’re learning three different platforms, managing three different systems, and paying three different subscription fees. Yikes!
If you had built your site on Squarespace, you could manage all of these in one place — for a fraction of the cost and time.
Squarespace is truly an all-in-one website platform.
Squarespace isn’t just a website builder. Need to purchase your website domain? How about setting up your professional business email address? And create marketing email campaigns? Or host a course? Or sell products?
You can do it all (and more!) in Squarespace.
This is arguably THE reason why I love Squarespace so much. The behind-the-scenes work of a small business owner wearing all the hats and doing all the things is exhausting. I’m a firm believer in using tools and systems that are easy & intuitive — to save you time, make your life easier, and simplify your day-to-day business needs.
And Squarespace is built to do exactly that.
Here are some specific tools Squarespace offers that can help you transform the way you run your business:
01. Edit & update your website with ease
As we’ve already discussed above, Squarespace’s editing tools make it easier than ever to make changes and edits to your site design, layout, and structure. No need to email your website designer every time you want to change a photo or update your copywriting.
And with the ability to customize your mobile website, you can make sure that your site looks beautiful on any device (super important, as over 60% of web traffic now occurs on our phones!)
02. Online scheduling
Clients can schedule appointments, classes, and meetings with you directly through your website.
If you’re a service-based business owner, you need to use an online scheduling app! It makes your life (and your client’s!) SO much easier. Thankfully, Squarespace already has you covered there. They’ve partnered with online scheduling software Acquity — so you can create, manage, and embed your scheduler all in one place. Say goodbye to third-party scheduling apps!
03. Email marketing
You can handle all of your email marketing directly through Squarespace.
From creating opt-in forms that automatically match your branding, to managing your email list and designing + sending emails — all of it can be done within Squarepace. But even if you’re using a third-party email platform like Flodesk (my favorite), embedding your email forms on your Squaresapce site is a breeze.
04. Course hosting
Hosting an online course, group program, or educational resource? You can now host a course on Squarespace!
Whether offering a free resource or a private paid course, you can build it out and host it all directly on your Squarespace website. No need to spend hours learning how to set up a course on Teachable or Kajabi (not to mention the additional subscription fees!)
As far as I can tell, Squarespace is the only website builder that lets you build and host a course.
05. Built-in analytics
Squarespace has built-in analytics, so you don’t have to spend any time learning how to navigate Google Analytics.
Even as a web designer, I hardly ever log in to my Google Analytics account, because I can get robust, easy-to-understand info about my site traffic from my Squarespace account.
Showit offers no built-in analytics — meaning that you’re forced to set up & rely on your Google Analytics dashboard to get any kind of stats for your site. Google Analytics is incredibly powerful, and you should sign up for it! But it can also be confusing and difficult to navigate — making it less ideal as your sole source for analytics data.
06. Improve your site SEO (search engine optimization)
Squarespace automatically syncs with Google Search Console. This means that you can view your top keywords and monitor your site’s health on Google simply by logging into your Squarespace account.
Other platforms like Showit and Wordpress offer no such integration — so you’ll need to log in to your Google Search Console dashboard every time you want to take a look at your SEO rankings and keywords.
And thanks to a brand new free Squarespace SEO plugin called SEOSpace, it’s easier than ever to optimize your site with their easy-to-understand SEO checklist & keyword tools.
07. Manage your domain + business email
You can purchase your domain and your professional business email directly within Squarespace.
Again, I love simplicity. No need to purchase a domain through GoDaddy and then Google “how to connect a domain???” You can purchase your domain when you set up your Squarespace account, and it’s automatically connected. No tech knowledge or updating DNS records required.
You can also purchase your professional business email (i.e. hello@yourbizdomain.com) at the same time that you set up your Squarespace subscription, thanks to their partnership with Gmail.
Maybe all of these things may seem small. But they can make a huge difference in promoting business growth in a way that feels supportive — not a struggle.
💸 Intuitive selling and scheduling tools help reduce friction and barriers to sales. An easier selling process for your ideal clients = more money in your pocket.
⏰ All-in-one analytics tools and integrated programs mean that you don’t have to bounce between apps or learn new systems. Time saved on admin work and tech stuff = more time working on the aspects of your business that you actually love.
💃 Integrated email marketing tools and an easy-to-use blogging platform = less time spent on the Instagram-content—creation-hamster-wheel.
Who shouldn’t use Squarespace?
Product-based businesses with large inventories
For e-commerce businesses, Shopify is still the queen of website builders. If you have 100+ products (or plan on growing to that size in the future) Shopify will be the right choice for you.
Shopify’s subscription fees are steep, and designing a beautiful custom site can be challenging due to the difficulties of Shopify’s less-than-user-friendly editing tools. But (for now at least) Shopify’s robust inventory management system, international selling capabilities, and selling tools + plugins still make it the e-commerce website platform of choice.
However, Squarespace is becoming more and more competitive in the e-commerce space! If you’re a small operation with only a few products and plan to stay that way, Squarespace could still work well to meet your needs.
The e-commerce Squarespace subscription is significantly more affordable than Shopify, the processing fees and payment gateway options are competitive, and Squarespace integrates with the payment processor Square — a great tool if you need a POS to sell products at a physical location as well as online.
In some cases, a hybrid site can merge the ease-of-use and aesthetic capabilities of Squarespace with the product management tools of Shopify — like this site I designed for Enuf Period! I built out all of the core pages in Squarespace, to give plenty of flexibility with custom design features, while desiging product collection pages and product pages in Shopify.
Dedicated bloggers
If your entire online business is a blog, you may be better off using Wordpress or Showit (with Showit’s top tier subscription option). Because Wordpress was built specifically for blogging, the platform offers more functions and capabilities for publishing, formatting, and monetizing blog content. So if you’re a food blogger, stylist, or content creator, check out those platforms!
If you’re a service based business owner who wants to add a blog to your site, Squarespace will work just fine! ( And I always recommend adding a blog to your site — no matter your industry. It’s great for SEO and supports your marketing efforts! ) However, keep in mind that Squarespace does have aesthetic and navigation limitations to their blog designs.
To achieve customized layouts and special features (like my blog sidebar to the left, or my customized footer for blog posts, for example) you’ll need to either have an understanding of CSS coding, purchase plugins, or work with a designer.
My own site is, of course, built on Squarespace — as are nearly all of my client sites. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And having built 15+ sites and counting, I can confidently say that Squarespace is a great platform for businesses big and small — and I would argue it’s the perfect platform for any service based business owner looking for a site that’s beautiful, easy to use, and designed to grow with you as your business grows.
Psst — speaking of all-in-one website solutions… hi, have we met? I’m Alana.
And just like Squarespace isn’t just a pretty website builder — I’m not just a website designer.
I’m a full-service creative director who can create everything you need for your brand’s digital home. Branding, website design, and website copywriting — I do it all.
Need some help designing your Squarespace website?
I would be delighted to lend a hand — and all of my expertise. 😇 Here’s how I can do just that:
Full-service website design, where I do every single thing for you. Consider everything on your to-do list checked off. Website design, brand messaging, even your branding. Done, done, and done.
DIY Squarespace website templates, designed to help you get your (beautiful, strategic, unique, easy-to-use) website launched ASAP with minimal effort and minimal investment.
Done-for-you copywriting services, where I make sure your website is selling for you, attracting customers you can’t wait to work with, and getting found on Google. You need this if your site already looks great, but you’re not reaching your sales goals.
& if you’re looking for more conversations about the stresses, trials, and tribulations of being a small business owner ( and all the tools, tricks, and tips I’ve learned to make it easier along the way ) —
I send out a newsletter every other week. Because sending one once a week felt too overwhelming. Relatable? Then you’re going to like it. Subscribe here.
