When you want to create a website for you or your business, you are faced with a myriad of options. A simple Google search reveals that you can just pay a designer, or build your own using one of the three big guys: WordPress, Squarespace or Wix. Assuming that you’d like to build it yourself or with the help of someone else, there are two main categories to start with as a web design beginner: content management systems or a website builder. WordPress is the most popular content management system, which one can use to create and manage all aspects of a website without much prior knowledge. Squarespace, and its competitor Wix, are both examples of website builders where you truly need to web experience to launch and are built on templates while the companies handle the rest. With a little bit of elbow grease and not too much know-how, a content management system like WordPress is going to be the better option for the life of your website for a variety of reasons.

Flexibility

While Squarespace may like to entice you by saying “no coding needed”, WordPress also can be completely operated well if you never touched a piece of code at all. WordPress uses plug-ins to be able to add any type of flexibility in design that your website may need, coded by and maintained by experienced web developers. You can search “e-commerce” or “photo gallery” and almost limitless options appear with instructions on how to incorporate them into your website, with some versions being free and some being paid versions. WordPress offers thousands of templates if design isn’t your strong suit, too, while Squarespace only offers a handful per type of business or personal site.

Lower cost to operate

Not only does Squarespace rope you into their hosting and domain pricing, along with a mandatory subscription, you may need to upgrade to a professional membership just to use a feature that may very well be essential to the design and purpose of your website. Instead, WordPress being open source, allows for plug-ins for free to be offered that can cover the simplest and most complex of functions for your site. Further, if you decide you would like to invest in a specific plug-in that would be especially helpful to you or your business, then you can do so of your own freewill without having to be locked into a subscription. Hosting plans and domain names purchased through other providers also tend to be cheaper for WordPress users than Squarespace users which can significantly lower the cost to operate over time.

Squarespace, more than anything, limits your abilities and finances when it comes to designing a website, especially when WordPress, too, can be easily and effectively used by web design beginners. If you need any help for an affordable cost when it comes to designing or hosting a WordPress website, reach out to the professionals at HostGo today to find out how we can assist your business.