Personally, these are my two favorite building platforms. To be fair, I am biased, because I run my sites on them. This website is built on WordPress, while my maker store, The Shop 13 (theshop13.com), is on Squarespace.
I do have experience using Wix, Shopify, and a couple others, though I don’t have any active sites with them.
For me, there is a dividing line between the two platforms: WordPress is the best option for any business relying on SEO through a broad spectrum of content to drive traffic.
What I mean is… WordPress is great for getting content to rank organically.
However, SEO isn’t the only factor in consideration.
Squarespace is, as it says, an “all-in-one” solution. It is very capable of ranking well in searches, but I would not classify it as a “content first” platform. It is better suited for e-commerce, portfolio sites, and personal branding.
Here’s a helpful image to gauge your needs:
You can use either platform for whatever your needs are, but I think it helps to have some scales to balance, especially if you are a small business comparing platforms or DIY’ing your site.
Why Squarespace?
- It is fairly easy to use, in my opinion. Now, I’m not totally new to the game, so my perception may not be your experience.
- The integrations are easy. I set up my Google Workspace, connected to a print on demand apparel shop, and tied payment processing to Stripe with ease. There aren’t an infinite number of options, but it was great for my purposes.
- The e-commerce capability is pretty much plug and play. Payment processing is the only possible complication, and I had a Stripe account ready to go. This made setup simple.
- Squarespace is definitely a design- and image-forward platform. It wants your site to look pretty. Depending on your needs, this can be good or bad. I am wary of the benefits of nice images, since big pictures can drag down page speed and get in the way of writing the text needed for SEO.
- Speaking of SEO, you can do just fine with the local stuff. I just don’t recommend Squarespace as a content creator platform. Not saying it can’t be used that way, but there are better tools out there.
- If you grow, it is likely you will butt up against the design limitations of the platform. There are only so many templates available, so you might turn to another platform in the future. I’m not sure what a migration situation would look like, but changing platforms is always frustrating. To be fair, if your needs are big enough to switch platforms, you are probably in the financial position to make the move.
Why WordPress?
- Simply put, it’s the standard against all others are measured. It’s not just a platform; it’s a whole ecosystem. There are countless developers creating themes and tools for WordPress. You won’t lack for design options or add-ons.
- The platform was built first and foremost for blogs and other content-driven websites. This makes WordPress a natural fit for SEO. The reason I use it for OnYourOwn Marketing is because the site is a portfolio of content designed to rank on Google. With a broad SEO play like that, I want to make sure my content has the best opportunity possible to rank.
- So. Many. Themes. You can purchase a new look for your site for little money. There are plenty of free themes as well, so you can experiment with the look of your site before upgrading to a paid option.
- WordPress is the past, present, and future. You don’t need to worry about compatibility or legacy problems. Well, I guess those are possible problems, but they aren’t as likely. The ecosystem is just so well-supported, along with the core platform.
- The only limit is your creativity… and either web development skills or money to hire someone to build for you.
TL;DR version: Squarespace for simple sites, image-based portfolios, or basic ecommerce. WordPress for bigger sites, content-driven sites, or complex designs.
Even shorter: Squarespace pretty, monostructural. WordPress robust, polystructural.
You can’t go wrong with either platform, in my opinion. I’m sure others will disagree, but there’s no reason to get into a long-winded argument over the myriad of other options out there. I’m just delivering what I know. Both work well for me, and I spent plenty of time figuring out what to use. You’re here to shortcut the journey and not waste days researching all the other options!
I tend to measure against a complexity scale.
The more functions I expect to need or want in the future, the more likely I will go with WordPress.
For example, when I started OnYourOwn Marketing, there wasn’t an online store component. The original setup focused on the blog/content needs. But I knew there would be things I wanted to sell, plus the possibility of an attached membership site. While neither is fully realized as of this writing, they are part of the plan. With so many different structures maybe needed, I opted for WordPress. If I was only going to build a membership site, perhaps Ghost.org would be my platform of choice, but I wasn’t certain. I know WordPress can be used for all those purposes, should I choose so in the future. I went with this insurance against the ideas I may or may not use.
On the other hand, my e-commerce site for The Shop 13 was always going to be straightforward. I needed a place for people to buy my stuff. Simple enough. And that’s the plan for that website for at least another 3-5 years. Maybe for the rest of time. I don’t want to deal with updates or plug-in compatibility. Squarespace, as it bills itself, was the all-in-one website solution for me.
There are plenty of small technical things about each platform you can research, but the technical “stuff” is just that: stuff.
Both are capable platforms.
The main decision to be made is what your needs are. Don’t choose a platform because it seems cool or has lots of functions. Choose the platform with a great fit for what you’re doing!
Charley
I help small business owners, freelancers, and marketing DIY'ers get an edge up against the 800-pound gorillas in their markets. Like your business, this site is a DIY project showing you how to do what I've done in other businesses, including a law firm and a major coaching group for law firm owners.
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