Any experiences with squarespace?

onlyroz

I want to set up a website to promote my books. I want to include all the usual stuff, e.g. a blog, bio, book excerpts, contact pages, links to Amazon where the books can be purchased etc etc. I've been recommended squarespace, which seems to cost $8 a month and includes a number of templates that the site can be built around.

Does anybody have any experiences with them? Is it worth the money? Can you choose a good domain name? Is it easy to use? I have some web development experience (I know a bit about Javascript and CSS) but I've never attempted to build a whole site before.

kdogg_05

Afraid I don't know much about squarespace, however I have built professional websites from scratch using wordpress with no prior knowledge of web development. Everything you want to learn is online, and generally it provides more flexibility than most web site builders you use.

It does take a little getting used to, but if you have the time to invest, you won't regret it. I've gone from a small 6 page site a couple of years ago, to a site encompassing hundreds of pages, all using wordpress.

onlyroz

Hi, thanks, I was reading yesterday about the differences between Wordpress and Squarespace. The conclusion seemed to be that Wordpress was more powerful, but had a steeper learning curve. For beginners Squarespace seems to be a one-stop-shop for providing the domain name, hosting, and wysiwyg tools for designing the page.

onlyroz

Well I've decided on Weebly, largely because it's free and seems easy to use. I now have a website up and running

evanschow

You can also have a look at Wix.

wba31

As a complete web design amateur i used Squarespace to build a website in August, and found it incredibly easy. A professional looking website with custom background images, maps, etc etc was created in about 2 hours tops.

It's really easy to edit info as things update, and you can build in pages for a store etc if necessary.

See if you can get a promo-code for discount at checkout (Answer me this podcast have one "ANSWER"), and your domain is free if you pay for a year upfront (normally around $20US). The domains are great, .com, .org, .net etc etc all available, these have to be paid for from year 2 onwards.

You can do it for free elsewhere, people spoke to me about it, but the support available through the site, the templates to build on, and that it helps you with each step meant i didnt mind paying for the service...