Choosing Between Wix and Squarespace: A Small Business Owner's Guide to Selecting a Website Platform.
With so many website platforms available, it can be daunting for small business owners to decide which to use. Two popular options that often come up in this discussion are Wix and Squarespace. Both offer user-friendly interfaces and powerful features, but they cater to different needs and preferences. Let's delve into the pros, cons, benefits, and costs of each to help you make an informed decision.
Wix
Pros:
Ease of Use: Wix boasts an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that makes building a website fairly simple, even for those with no coding experience.
Design Flexibility: With Wix, you have access to a vast library of templates catering to various industries. Additionally, the platform allows for extensive customization, giving you the freedom to create a website that reflects your brand identity.
App Marketplace: Wix offers a wide range of apps that can enhance your website's functionality, from e-commerce tools to marketing integrations.
Robust ecommerce opportunities - if you are willing to spend more money: Wix offers some great ecommerce tools, such as multi-currency, drop-shipping and product reviews, but for these functions, you’ll need to pay more.
Cons:
Template Limitations: While Wix's templates are visually appealing and customizable, some users may find them somewhat rigid compared to Squarespace's designs.
Unintuitive UX: There’s no way to explain why some things in the Wix editor work the way they do. For example, if you have an image in a container box, you click once to select the container box, and then again to select the image, or sometimes twice. It takes a while to learn these little foibles and some things will stump you for hours, days or even forever!
Limited SEO Control: While Wix has improved its SEO capabilities over the years, some users may find it lacking compared to other platforms like Squarespace.
Templates are not fully responsive: Although you’ll be able to edit the mobile version of your site, be aware that most Wix templates are not fully responsive. This means that your site will not adapt as the screen size gets smaller. So if someone is viewing your site on a tablet for example, it may look a bit broken or elements may be missing.
Limited number of forms: You’ll be merrily creating pages and then bam, Wix will pop up a little window telling you that you’ve reached your form limit and you need to upgrade to add additional forms to your website. You get 4 forms on the Lite plan and 10 on the Core plan. P.S. A newsletter sign up field is a form, so if you want this on every page of your site, you’ll soon run out on the lower plans.
Weird things are limited, even on the ecommerce plan: If you want to sell on your Wix website, you’ll need the Core plan at a minimum. But within this, simple things like ‘Back in Stock’ notifications are limited to 10 per month.
Can be buggy depending on which browser you are using: Wix isn’t perfect on every browser yet. I had a client who couldn’t work out how to edit her SEO settings for each page. I kept explaining, sending her screenshots and talking her through the journey. She just couldn’t see what I could see. When I finally went to her studio and sat at her computer to show her, none of the settings were there! She was using Safari as her browser, and Wix just didn’t work properly on it. She had been tearing her hair out for months.
Benefits and Costs:
Wix offers a range of pricing plans to suit different needs, from basic personal sites to robust e-commerce platforms. Pricing starts at a reasonable rate of around £7.50 per month*, with higher-tier plans offering additional features such as e-commerce functionality and advanced analytics, which go up to £119 per month.
Overall, Wix provides value for money, especially for small businesses looking to establish a professional online presence without breaking the bank. Having said that, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t needed to upgrade from the Lite to at least the Core plan to attain all the functionality they need for their website. I advise clients to assume they’ll need the Business Plan and budget for that to avoid overspending or disappointment.
Squarespace
Pros:
Stunning, fully responsive Templates: Squarespace is renowned for its sleek and modern templates, which are fully responsive and perfect for showcasing visual content such as products, photography or design portfolios.
Built-in Features: Squarespace offers an array of built-in features, including integrated analytics, blogging tools, events listings and robust e-commerce functionality, making it a comprehensive solution for small businesses.
Good analytics: The built-in analytics tool for Squarespace is actually really good. It’s not going to show you everything you can see in Google Analytics but all the key info is there and it’s well laid out. It’s also slightly more accurate than Google Analytics in my experience.
SEO Optimization: Squarespace provides extensive SEO options, allowing users to optimize their websites for search engines effectively.
The Drag and Drop Grid: Once you get used to it, I really think the drag and drop grid is the best CMS design ever. The simple grid keeps every element lined up and looking perfect. You can create beautiful shapes for your content to live in and it’s easy to add effects to text or images and see how they’ll look before publishing any changes.
Cons:
Learning Curve: While Squarespace's interface is user-friendly, some users may find it takes a few goes to get used to the grid system. Once you are used to it though, editing your site is super-speedy.
Limited Third-Party Integrations: While Squarespace offers many built-in features, it may lack some of the third-party integrations available on platforms like WordPress or Wix
Limited ecommerce features: This actually applies to Wix too. If you are selling a small number of products, both Wix and Squarespace are fine. If you have a larger quantity and want to offer sophisticated discounts, bundles or really go to town on your customer communications via the platform, you should be looking at an e-commerce focussed platform such as Shopify.
Benefits and Costs:
Squarespace's pricing structure is similar to Wix's, with different plans catering to various needs and budgets. While Squarespace may be slightly pricier than Wix, its robust features, stunning templates, and superior SEO capabilities make it a worthwhile investment for small businesses aiming to stand out online.
Making the Decision
When deciding between Wix and Squarespace, it ultimately boils down to your specific requirements, preferences, and budget. If you prioritise affordability, Wix may be the choice for you. On the other hand, if you value sleek design, comprehensive features, and superior SEO capabilities, Squarespace might be the better option.
Regardless of which platform you choose, both Wix and Squarespace offer powerful tools to help small business owners create stunning websites that effectively showcase their brand and attract customers. My advice is to take the time to explore each platform's features, experiment with their templates, and consider your long-term goals before making your decision. With the right website builder at your disposal, you'll be well on your way to establishing a strong online presence for your small business.
My personal opinion
As you can see from my website, I’m a Squarespace website builder, so my preference is Squarespace :) I’ve worked on many, many Wix websites in the past and I actually don’t accept Wix projects any more. They take longer to edit, the templates aren’t as easy to customize, the sites aren’t mobile responsive and the SEO is limited. I also find it much easier to train clients in editing Squarespace sites versus WIx.
I find that clients are happier editing Squarespace websites once they are used to the grid platorm and it’s much harder to break them! With the addition of new Squarespace features that have been released recently, such as Courses, On-demand content hosting and Squarespace AI, Squarespace sets clients up well for the future.
If you are still unsure and have questions about which platform to choose, we can jump on a no-obligation call and I can give you my thoughts and honest opinion based on your business and specific requirements.
Contact me on rhea@salthouse.digital
*Pricing correct at time of writing - March 24