Why I Chose Squarespace Instead of Wordpress to Run My Business Blog
(An honest review from a non-designer)
Gather ‘round the (digital) fire, because I have a few grievances/stories/thoughts to share about the age-old debate of using Wordpress or Squarespace to run a monetized business blog.
*Rocks back and forth*
Here’s the thing: I’m a big believer in figuring things out for yourself. That’s why, when I set myself off on a “I want to run a monetized blog for my business” rampage, I began to read every bit of free content that I could find. Not long after, I noticed a pretty common debate: whether Wordpress or Squarespace were better for running a business blog.
Now, I’d already run a pretty successful blog via Squarespace for 3 years. But because I went on the “I want to run a monetized blog for my business” rampage, I began to get shiny ball, grass is always greener syndrome. All of the Wordpress bloggers and designers were making Wordpress look so good. Even though I didn’t have any complaints about my existing Squarespace blog, I suddenly wanted, nay, needed, more.
So, I signed up for Wordpress via Bluehost, and I sunk hours (that turned into days) into transitioning my existing Squarespace blog over to Wordpress. And I have many, many thoughts.
An Honest Review and Comparison of Wordpress vs. Squarespace From a Non-Designer
Affiliate links included
Why I gave Wordpress a try after being a loyal Squarespace blogger
To be completely honest, I’d spent about a year considering making the leap to a fully monetized blog. I was already making money by blogging about helpful and educational marketing and sales topics to help my fellow creative entrepreneurs, and using those blogs to plug my own email templates and freebies.
It didn’t dawn on me that there were *other* ways to make money while blogging until I did more research into Wordpress vs. Squarespace. Because of my initial findings, I determined that Wordpress had to be the best option for passive affiliate income, ads and custom coding. (I was wrong)
Why I disliked Wordpress so very, very much as a business blogger
Jut so you know, I had to step away from my computer and take a few calming breaths before plunking myself back down at my desk. Wordpress and I… we’re Michael and Toby.
(I am Michael, always.)
And with that sneak peek into my mindset, let me discuss my experience [attempt] with setting up my business blog on Wordpress via Bluehost 👇
1. Wordpress Set Up
To be fair, I signed up for Wordpress via Bluehost’s 3.99/mo plan. At first glance, it seemed like things would be easy - all I needed to do was choose a free site template, change it up a bit, and get to blogging, right?
Wrong.
I wanted to use Wordpress *only* for the blog portion of my website. I planned on integrating my Wordpress blog with my beautiful, beautiful Squarespace site. That sounded easy enough on the surface, but the truth is that whether you plan on setting up an entirely new website or simply just a blog page, you’re going to need to do practically the same amount of customization and coding.
Now, to a brand or web designer, that isn’t a tricky feat. But for someone like myself who isn’t fluent in code-speak, staring at the Wordpress homepage felt like trying to read Mandarin (side note: Gave it a shot to try to connect with my half Chinese roots back when I was like 10. Didn’t go well).
Once I figured out that I needed to first choose a “theme,” I clicked on Appearance > Themes and chose one of Wordpress’s suggested themes (Twenty Twenty Two). GREAT! I was ready, right?
WRONG AGAIN.
I tinkered around within the theme and realized that it didn’t have sidebars - and (spoiler alert for what’s coming later on) sidebars are kind of the entire reason why I signed up for Wordpress to begin with. Sidebars are the bread and butter of running a monetized blog, because you can stick all of your fancy information about your products, affiliate links and email freebies in your sidebar so that they show up in every piece of content you ever write.
So, I went and installed sidebar plugins. Those didn’t show up in my Widgets page. Then I got in touch with tech support. They told me that I had chosen the wrong theme (apparently Twenty Twenty Two, made by Wordpress with the statement that it does include sidebars, does not actually include sidebars), and got swapped to Twenty Twenty ONE instead.
Great! Everything was fixed! Right?
Wrong again.
When I meandered over to my new Twenty Twenty One theme, I found that all of my custom font and color settings had been reset, and I was back to square one. I also had no sidebars.
And thus the cycle continued… for days.
2. Wordpress Customization
On the surface, Wordpress appears to be highly customizable because of its widgets. I believe that sentiment is still true for experienced designers - but for those of us who aren’t fluent in Wordpress speak? Not so much.
Unlike Squarespace, Wordpress’s appearance editor wasn’t a simple matter of dragging, dropping and creating blocks wherever I wanted in order to achieve the look and layout I preferred. Even with special editing plugins like Elementor, I wasn’t able to truly customize things without learning how to code. And as we have already learned based on my experience with Wordpress tech support… I will likely never learn how to code.
3. Wordpress Ads
So I already went on and on about sidebars being the reason why I wanted to leave Squarespace and join Wordpress, right? Well, I also wanted to join Wordpress for easy Google Adsense integration.
Because all of the bloggers told me to, obviously.
Long story short, my attempt to add Google Adsense to my Wordpress blog went the same way as my Wordpress theme battle. Tech support and I both battled through hours of troubleshooting and trying to figure out why Google Adsense simply couldn’t and wouldn’t add itself to my website.
After reading several Google articles and also working with multiple Wordpress tech support agents to no avail, I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. Which was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me and Wordpress.
Why I love Squarespace so very, very much as a business blogger
When I tell you that my return to Squarespace was like falling into the arms of a sweet lover, I mean it. I was practically petting my screen. I mean… drag and drop blocks? Spacers? A NON-DESIGNER’S DREAM.
Now, because I wanted to leave Wordpress so badly without sacrificing my sidebar, advertising and monetizing options, I took some time to research ways to add sidebars and Google adsense to my Squarespace site. I am overjoyed to say that with just about 30-minutes of tinkering and less than $100, I was able to do just that!
How I added sidebars to my Squarespace blog
As you may or may not already know, Squarespace doesn’t normally offer sidebars. Like I mentioned before, sidebars are the BEST way to make sure to:
Give a quick “author intro” so that people put a face to the name
Share your products and affiliate links
Share your freebies and email opt-ins
Without cluttering up your blog and overall website layout. (If you want an example of a sidebar, just look over here →)
After taking some time to read through a few blogs, I found SQSP Themes’ Squarespace Sidebar Plug-In. I know that the word “plug-in” can sound scary for those of us who are merely proud of ourselves for dragging and dropping text and image blocks, HOWEVER SQSP made it so, so easy to add sidebars to my Squarespace blog. They even walked me through how to edit the simple code they generated in order to make sure my sidebar *only* showed up on my main and individual blog pages.
Am I a coder?! I mean… yes, yes I am.
The best part: SQSP’s Squarespace Sidebar Plug-In only cost me $59. MUCH, much cheaper than the cost of my $185 annual Bluehost (Wordpress) payment + the time (tears) spent attempting to move my entire Squarespace blog over to Wordpress!
How I added Google Adsense to my Squarespace blog
Really simple answer for you: I read this very helpful blog from Squarespace themselves. It was as simple as taking the code that Google gave me and sticking it into my code injection → header for my site!
Final thoughts: pros and cons of Wordpress vs. Squarespace
WORDPRESS
Pros
SUPER customizable if you know code and are an experienced designer
Endless sidebar + ad opportunities (once again, if you know what you’re doing)
You can use plug-ins like Yoast SEO to make sure your website and blogs are packed full of keywords
It’s an excellent lesson in patience
Cons
Incredibly difficult interface for non-designers
Many of the suggested plug-ins for widgets and customization don’t actually work, but you have to learn that through trial, error and more error
SQUARESPACE
Pros
It’s preeeetty and simple to edit and build upon
It’s affordable
Squarespace puts out excellent blogs and education for us non-designing users to help us with customization
Cons
It does need a bit more troubleshooting and work arounding when it comes to things like placing ads on your site or adding sidebars (but once that’s done, you’ll never have to do it again)
No (current) SEO plug-ins are available, which means that you do need to do a bit of organic keyword research through Google and Pinterest
Once you go Squarespace, you never want to go back
Tips for a monetized business blog
Before I let you go, I do want to remind you that running a monetized business blog isn’t as simple as merely adding a sidebar plug-in or Google Adsense to your site. In order to truly monetize your blog, you’ll want to include:
Freebies and email opt-ins that build your email list: Because those email list subscribers will turn into paying customers and clients down the line, I promise.
Need help building and maintaining a healthy email list? Download my free guides: Email Marketing Toolkit + First 5 Emails to Send to Your Email List!
Your own paid products, if you have any: Like downloadable guides you’ve created, templates you sell, presets, what have you. I promise that there’s something in that brain of yours that you can turn into a product that helps others!
Lots of SEO keywords: and image ALT text. And Pins. And a good SEO slug. (The list goes on and on - blog(s) to come.)
Ever have trouble knowing what to say to your clients?
Whether you need help pitching your services to your dream clients, overcoming booking and pricing objections or setting better boundaries, I’ve got an email template(s) for that.
