WordPress Website Versus Squarespace Website
A lot of customers in Australia come to us looking for an Australian website designer and hosting partner with the requirement of a content management system (CMS) so they can login to their web site and maintain the website's content, update news blog posts, add new events, and update their business, products and services information online from anywhere.
Llamablue helps micro, small and medium sized businesses with a variety of web design packages and each of these is ideally suited to a content management system like WordPress or Squarespace.
The two CMS website platforms we have most experience with are WordPress and Squarespace
How are WordPress and Squarespace Different?*
WordPress as a hosted App
With WordPress, we typically install a copy of the WordPress application onto our servers and host the WordPress site for the customer. Then we create a website design and implement it on the copy of WordPress. We also install WordPress Plug-ins to manage additional functions like security, editing, product management, ecommerce and more.
Often we will start with a WordPress Theme. This gives us and our customers a very good framework as to what display features they can have access to such as beautiful image transitions, image sliders, galleries, contact forms, page layouts and more.
Customising a WordPress theme is still one of the main challenges that a web design partner like Llamablue can assist with. A lot of traditional design technique starts with graphic design. A graphic designer will assist you with a business logo and branding. We have a number of partner graphic design companies here in Australia that can complete this for your business.
Looking for a Web Designer?
Llamablue can help you with your next website.
Squarespace is a cloud App
With Squarespace, we will create a new Squarespace account on our customer's behalf. This has fees associated with it but Llamablue takes care of that side of things so you get the best pricing option and additional services like email and domain name registration and hosting in our Llamablue Hosting Packages.
A website in Squarespace uses a Template as the starting point. However, there are some templates that we find more useful than others and it is often a restriction if a customer comes to us with a Squarespace template already in mind. It's better to select websites that you like as examples and then adapt the Squarespace template to that look and feel.
Customising Squarespace is something Llamablue does. We manage the cloud app's set up, configuration, all the initial navigation and content when we set up a site using Squarespace. Customers can also have access to the Squarespace website using a Permission to login to the site. Once the website in Squarespace is ready we map your domain name to the Squarespace address eg. yourname.com.au > your-name.squarespace.com.
Pros and Cons of WordPress and Squarespace
The following are the pros and cons that we think matter in your selection of whether to have a WordPress website versus a Squarespace website.
WordPress
PROS
- Feature rich with the inclusions of a huge Plug-in market and Themes.
- Runs a database so supports member login and member specific features.
- Mobile responsive options with most themes now.
- SEO plugins to improve Google SEO.
- Keeps track of changes.
CONS
- Security can be an issue
- Hungry application on servers and usually more expensive to set up and host
- Needs a lot of configuration and ongoing maintenance and monitoring of updates
Squarespace
PROS
- Simple and easy to use for editing.
- Good security.
- Quick to deploy and get a site live.
- Great for small to medium businesses (SMEs) that need a website that promotes their services.
- Mobile responsive.
CONS
- Integration of other apps is limited.
- Limited range of components compared to WordPress plug-ins.
- Smaller user community than WordPress and privately owned so pricing can be a factor.
Looking for a WordPress website or Squarespace website for your business?
Llamablue is a national web design and website hosting provider with experience in Squarespace website development and WordPress website development.
* The opinions expressed in this article are based on impressions Llamablue has experienced in the production of websites for customers on both platforms. As such, the information is published as a guide rather than a specific assessment of the capabilities of WordPress and Squarespace.
