Want to Migrate Your Squarespace Website to WordPress?
Squarespace and WordPress are both reputable CMSs (Content Management Systems) but many businesses are shifting their websites from Squarespace to WordPress. The main reason is that they want to gain more control over the website’s functionality as they scale.
Squarespace was primarily geared towards visual artists and has been dubbed as one of the best website builders for designers, photographers or website owners that have minimal website or coding experience. Their templates are elegant and minimalistic with the focus on sleek image presentation with minimal text.
Squarespace has the ability for you to manage your own eCommerce site and has a suite of tools to do so. However, depending on the needs of your business, Squarespace has limitations when it comes to design customisation, shipping, payment gateways and some custom functionality options. Unfortunately, in some circumstances Squarespace isn’t customisable enough and lacks certain functionality depending on the use case.
On the flipside, if you were to consider moving your Squarespace site over to WordPress, WordPress provides almost unlimited features and plugins that cater to all types of businesses, when functionality is not available out of the box they can customised to meet that requirement. WordPress isn’t as DIY as Squarespace, but that can be overcome with a developer that knows what they are doing.
A migration from Squarespace to WordPress could be a good option for your business, in the event that you have outgrown your current website.
Why You Should Migrate your Squarespace site to WordPress.
When people talk about WordPress, it is well known as an open-source platform that allows users to use the software, install it on their own server, and customise it however they see fit. Users with no coding experience, can install new themes and plugins and build a feature rich website. In addition, if you can code or have access to a developer, then you can pretty much customise anything you want at a reasonable price, there is a massive ecosystem of third party plugins some fre and some paid which can be installed on the website to extend the functionality.
WordPress powers more than 30% of websites globally, depending on what you want to do there is a bit of a learning curve, however, with the right team behind you they can produce the right documentation and training to get you on your way.
- Using WordPress’ WooCommerce as your E-commerce Solution
Squarespace for all its benefits has limited eCommerce functionality when it comes to payment gateways and shipping options in particular. On Squarespace you can only choose from PayPal, Apple Pay and Stripe, whereas WordPress has a lot more options, facilitated by third party plugin developers who have created integrations with other financial institutions including Square, NAB, Aferpay amongst others. The other downside is that Squarespace charges 3% transaction fee on each sale you make unless you pay for a plan upgrade.
WordPress offers a multitude of eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce that allows you to customise your product page, payment and shipping preferences, and manage your inventory. On top of that, you can also install other plugins for more advanced features.
- Ability to Move Your Site and have full control of your data
As Squarespace is a hosted platform, it is not possible to export or migrate your website between hosting providers. With WordPress you can download the entire website, database and files, meaning you have full control of your data. With WordPress, you can easily migrate the entire website between hosting providers in the event you aren’t happy with them, or want to upgrade to improve speeds and uptime.
- Customisation and Scalability
With Squarespace, you can customise your website from the built in editor by adding custom CSS. However, it doesn’t give you full control over its functionality since it lacks the third-party plugins that WordPress has. WordPress has a myriad of plugins that can enhance your website’s functionality and aesthetics. For instance, if you engage a developer, custom plugins can be developed or existing plugins modified to meet your requirements.
- Search Engine Rankings and Tracking
WordPress websites are well known to produce very good search engine rankings and many website owners justify the transition from Squarespace to WordPress just for the potential to improve their rankings. WordPress has many SEO and Google Analytics plugins that enable you to track engagement, conversion rate and traffic insights. Incorporating data analytics to your business will help you improve your ROI significantly.
What Does Moving From Squarespace to WordPress Involve?
Moving your website away from Squarespace to WordPress unfortunately won’t happen at the push of a button, engaging a development team that are experienced using both platforms will ensure that the transition is a success. we can help you migrate your website to WordPress to save you the hassle. We have the ability to make some changes to the front end of the website, along with functionality enhancements prior to go-live.
Moving to a different CMS can be daunting, especially when you’re not familiar with the new platform, however partnering with the right provider can make the entire process much easier. Our team can provide you with documentation and training on how to manage the website yourself.
CircleBC are WordPress Experts, and can help you with the transition from Squarespace to WordPress and provide ongoing support and maintenance along the way. Whether you want to simply migrate your content and layout in its existing form over to WordPress, or do an entire redesign, we’ve got you covered. We can also help you with setting up the following:
- Website Hosting
- Email Hosting and Migration
- Custom Data Migration
- Custom E-commerce Functionality and third-party integrations
CircleBC have helped businesses throughout Australia, including Sydney,
Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin with WordPress Website Development and Support.
So if you are located in New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), Victoria (VIC), Western Australia (WA), South Australia (SA), Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Tasmania (TAS), Northern Territory (NT), give the team at CircleBC a call, the initial consultation is complimentary and obligation free 1300 978 073.