Squarespace Themes: 6 Advantages for Creating Effective Small Business Websites

Small business owners demand many tools in a content management system in order to build a website that will bring in new customers and keep the ones you already have. And even when you find a platform you can work with, you also need customizable templates that help your business stand alone.

The many Squarespace themes, or templates, are incredibly business-friendly, and offer six major advantages for small business owners considering their web publishing options.

1. Squarespace Themes are Built for Business

Every Squarespace template is different, and each offers a unique combination of highly configurable options to support the creation of web pages, image galleries and portfolios, product pages, and more. Use drag-and-drop controls to build each page with intuitive tools. 

Each Squarespace theme supports every standard widget block.

2. Squarespace Integrates with Small Business Tools

You can either invest in a website that requires thousands of dollars in custom integrations, or you can go with Squarespace, which includes simple, out-of-the-box connections with small business tools such as Google Docs, Mailchimp, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, Disqus, Amazon, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, and more. 

Squarespace integrations include many plug-and-play connections with popular small-business services.

3. Squarespace Themes are Highly Customizable

No one likes a cookie cutter website. The stale look of stock photography and a theme that induces Internet deja vu will make it challenging to differentiate your small business.  Squarespace's templates can be customized infinitely using the unique drag-and-slide interface. Simply click on a section of your website in Squarespace's style mode and make a quick change using the tools provided and you'll be on your way.

The WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) design tools of Squarespace cut down the time and effort required to administer your website.

4. Squarespace Websites are Easy to Manage

If you haven't noticed by the first few screenshots, Squarespace's administrative tools are incredibly easy to understand, which makes maintenance and performing updates less confusing and more manageable. Many small business owners are able to all but eliminate tech support costs related to their websites by going with Squarespace. Just look at how intuitive this page's editing interface is:

Edits take just a few minutes so you can be in-and-out, and back to managing your business.

5. Squarespace Themes are SEO-Friendly

It's hard enough to plan and build a website. You don't want to have to worry about extra steps to make sure you show up in the search engines, too. Squarespace templates are all search engine optimization-friendly (SEO-friendly). You have full control over the important areas of your web pages, including meta titles, descriptions, and even image attributes.

You can configure each meta title in Squarespace for maximum SEO impact.

6. Squarespace Templates are Mobile-Friendly 

Everyone knows that mobile devices and tablets are where it's at in this day and age of the mobile web. Every Squarespace theme is built with an approach called responsive design, which means the design of your website responds to each device that loads it separately. Your website looks great on desktop browsers, tablets and smartphones without paying thousands of dollars for mobile-friendly website development.

Responsive design means your business looks amazing on any device.

I personally loved how easy Squarespace made running my consulting business when I was taking on new clients through Big Picture Web. Every Squarespace website comes with a free two-week no-credit card trial, so there's no risk. Start your small business website using one of the many Squarespace themes, and you'll be convinced by the end of the trial.

What are you looking for most in a small business website? What services have you tried that haven't quite fit the bill?

5 Squarespace Benefits for Small Businesses

Small business owners like you and I don't have the time to spend all day on running our websites. We want something that's easy-to-use, something that is powerful enough to facilitate our small business marketing plan, and it has to look great.

Luckily, Squarespace fits the bill in all of those areas and more. I recently surveyed other Squarespace users asking them about the benefits of the highly polished content management system.

A Wordle.net tag cloud on benefits of Squarespace as identified by a customer survey.

Here are five major benefits of Squarespace for small businesses as identified by real customers.

1. Beauty of the Websites You can Create with Squarespace

The first and most impressive benefit of building a Squarespace website is the uniqueness and beauty of what you can create on the platform. Start with over two dozen templates, then modify in infinite directions using drag-and-drop tools. Web designers are able to modify every bit of code behind the scenes.

"It's good looking and easy to use. I have the ability to build and manage my website with no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc."

2. It is the Most Robust Platform for the Money

You can do nearly anything with a Squarespace website, all for a reasonable monthly or annual price tag. Blogs, portfolios and ecommerce are all easily facilitated, and the depth of the platform is made clear by features such as responsive design built in to every template so you don't have to worry about a separate mobile website.

"I get compliments from others from my site, its flexible, and can do more than I am able to keep up with."

3. Customer Service is Terrific

Unlike all the free platforms out there, Squarespace is a paid-only web design platform. That means you get an award-winning 24/7 customer service team at your fingertips whenever you're feeling like you could use a little help. In my personal experience, it's uncommon to wait more than 15 minutes for a reply to any help ticket I've submitted.

"The customer service. HANDS DOWN. I always receive great service from the guys over there."

4. Simple to use Compared to Wordpress

With Squarespace, there's nothing to install and no updates to perform. All the templates are easily adjustable using the built-in WYSIWYG controls, and pages take minutes to build using Squarespace 6's new LayoutEngine page builder. Building a complete website is a snap, even compared to Wordpress.

"Ability to build and manage my website with no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc."

5. You Can Rely on it to Work

You just can't bring a Squarespace website down. The reliable shared hosting means nothing will every prevent your website from running (not even a hurricane). This type of hosting on a Wordpress website would cost between $50-100/month. 

"I love the fact that my site never goes down. I used to use WordPress and my web host took my site down constantly for alleged 'bad scripts.'"

As a small business owner, what do you look for in a website platform? What Squarespace benefits presented hear appeal to you, and what, if anything, do you feel the platform is lacking?