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Photography Website Templates from Squarespace
My Guide to one of the best photography website hosting options!
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I've tried 3 different services for photography website templates and here I want to let you know what I think of Squarespace.
A bit like Wix, Squarespace provide website templates and hosting solutions that are ideal for creative people. Whether you're a photographer, interior designer, author or illustrator, you'll find their websites visually stunning and very easy to create.
But why might some people choose Squarespace over Wix, or SBI! (the other template and hosting service I've tried, and use for Photography Art Cafe)? Wix is the simplest of the 3, whilst SBI! is the most beneficial for business. So what are the key advantages Squarespace has to offer...?
Overview of Squarespace Website Templates and Hosting
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Basically, I think Squarespace provide a superb service that's a nice 'middle way' between the 2 others I have tried. It combines some of the best features of both SBI! and Wix in a single package.
Squarespace beats SBI! - and probably most other website template providers - on the visual front. Their templates are gorgeous, and fully customizable. They strike the perfect balance between creative and professional, making them ideal as photography website templates.
Meanwhile Squarespace gets the better of Wix in terms of integrated analytics and business features. The reports on website visitors that you have access too in your Squarespace account, in addition to the range of optional (paid for) business features, make them very suitable for income generating sites.
General Pro's and Con's
So the photography website templates from Squarespace have some great advantages over other options. But no solution is perfect! Here's what I have found to be the major pro's and con's of their photography website hosting service:
| Pro's: |
| Over 60 beautiful templates created by brand name designers. |
| Intuitive - click, 'drag and drop' - building process. |
| Very secure hosting. Squarespace use their own systems for their website. |
| Ability to import your blogs in their entirety from other platforms, e.g. WordPress. |
| Very detailed analytics integrated into your account. |
| Post articles and content from your iPhone or iPad. |
| Full range of features eliminates need to find third party resources for things like picture galleries, blogs or traffic stats. |
| Video guides are provided for building your site and using your account. |
| 24/7 email support with 15 minute response time. Wow! |
| Decent forums to get tips and support from other Squarespace users, plus a thorough written support centre. |
| Con's: |
| Whilst you can import your other blogs to Squarespace, you cannot then export them fully to another platform if you decide to move on. |
| Squarespace is not free. That is because they're much better than free photography website templates - but if you just want a simple blog, for instance, then use a free service. |
| The video tutorials explaining how to use Squarespace are a little rushed. |
It can be slow to customize pages. Each element can be assigned several features - like 'header' and 'link' - and you have to find which feature needs changing for that change to be made visible. |
| There are limited systems for large e-commerce sites if that’s what you intend to build. |
| The 'business' package option is rather expensive. |
My Thoughts on Building a Site with Squarespace
Building my site with Squarespace was fun! This was mainly because I love the designs and they work brilliantly as photography website templates. They are striking enough to leave an impression on visitors, but simple and professional enough to make for an easy user experience.
If you want to see these photography website templates for yourself before paying anything, you can simply do a free trial and decide whether Squarespace is for you.
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Every photography website hosting provider has its own way of making the site building process as easy as possible. But even without having to know any code, it can often take a bit of time to get used to all the systems and tools.
So the first thing I really appreciated with Squarespace was the introductory video. This guides you through the site designing process and explains how their system of building a site in ‘blocks’ works. I don't think you'd have any trouble using Squarespace if you've never built a site before.
There are other video guides too, explaining specific things in greater detail. They are excellent, if a little bit rushed. I had to keep pausing and rewinding to make sure I'd caught things. They're a bit Youtube'esque', you know - some guy in his room making a helpful video, but very casually!
Where Squarespace beats so many other services that provide photography website templates is the range of features they offer in a single account. For some people, building a website is a tedious process of scouring the web for all of the different bits and pieces that make up the final package.
But photography website hosting from Squarespace makes this completely unnecessary. Everything from picture galleries, to blogs, to sitemaps, to visitor analytics, is integrated into one powerful account.
My one gripe about building a site with Squaresapce is that customizing the template designs can become rather slow. Different sections of a page, like an article title, can be designated several different characteristcs, like 'header' or 'link'. You have to make sure you have selected to change the right characteristic, 'header' or 'link', before any changes become visible.
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My Thoughts on Using a Squarespace Site
Some providers of photography website templates reduce their costs by using less than reliable hosting solutions. Not Squarespace. You can relax in the knowledge that your site will always be live online. Their systems are extremely secure, but, naturally, this does influence the price of their service.
The more elements of a website that can be grouped together the better. Often, if you start with the cheapest hosting deal you can find, you’ll end chasing around the web to find everything else you need and end up paying more!
I love the fact that Squarespace groups together so many features, and the analytics are especially impressive. Plus, it's no hassle incorporating stylish picture galleries into your site. So Squarespace may not seem cheap, but once you realize how much you would have to pay to third parties for extra bits if you were using a cheaper hosting solution, you'll realize it’s actually a bargain!
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Got an existing blog that you'd like to switch over to Squarespace? That's been made very easy to do - articles, pictures and all! Once you've transferred the content it can become part of your customized Squarespace design. But - and for some this might be a big but - it's not possible to export all content so seamlessly from your Squarespace site to a new platform.
Are you a fan of social media? Squarespace has a cool feature that allows you to nicely display your social media activity collectively on your site. This looks very professional and is a handy tool if you’re trying to promote your work around the web.
If you run into difficulty, the support provided by Squarespace is excellent. They offer email support with a 15 minute response time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! It doesn't actually get any better than that! There are also, of course, the video tutorials, in addition to decent user forums and extensive written resources.
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If you intend to use photography website templates from Squarespace to develop a sizeable e-commerce store, your options are limited. But if you intend to use it to promote your work, find customers, sell prints and even develop a community/fan base, there are some good optional features.
You can use things like form builders to make a site more interactive and even create a membership area to your website. These options are great, but only come with the 'Business' package which, in my opinion, is perhaps slightly on the pricey side.
Pricing
| Standard | $12/month |
| Advanced | $20/month |
| Business | $36/month |
Summary
Overall, I think Squarespace provide a photography website hosting service that is streets ahead of most of their competitors. I think they strike a nice balance between style and substance, making it easy to create a cool looking site that could also be a serious online business.
The prices aren't world-beating! But if you decided to use various third parties along with a cheaper hosting service to create the same package that Squarespace provide, you might pay just as much for something much less convenient.
| Here are my overall scores: |
| Template Designs | 9/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 |
| Analytics | 9/10 |
| Business Features | 7/10 |
| Support | 9/10 |
| Price | 6/10 |
| TOTAL | 4.8/6 |
Have Your Say and Share Your Photos
Share your stories and experiences using photography website templates! Do you have a Squarespace site? Tell us about it and what it's like to run.
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Where Next? |
Return from Photography Website Templates from Squarespace to How to Sell Photos Online
Return from Photography Website Templates from Squarespace to Photography Art Cafe
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