After seven years of using the platform to manage SEO strategies, Web Design services, product developments, Branding documentation or eCommerce marketing strategies, I dared to leave WordPress, Ghost and Medium to turn SquareSpace as my principal CMS–What an epic NO!.
My misconception started after getting impressed by the SquarSpace indexation speed for landing pages. I must recognize that no matter the number of pages, elements, sub-elements, images, resources or web length, the SquareSpace platform has the best performance I have seen during 15 years of SEO in the United States and Europe. [over landing pages or corporative websites]
SquareSpace is excellent for Landing Pages, not as a core CMS.
I clearly remember the spring of 2014 when I interacted for the first time with SquareSpace to build the Posada Caracol Los Roques SEO strategy. During that fantastic experience working on that project, the platform was loved by the former Panda-Penguin algorithm, and in less than a month, the website was at the top of Google’s ranking.
In addition, until 2021, almost all clients’ business portfolios built in SquareSpace (Miami, Madrid, San Antonio, Texas, London, Barcelona, and the Caribbean Sea) had a better benchmark than others using WordPress.
Another reason for my misconception about using SquareSpace as a CMS (Content Management System) happened on December 2015 when I was invited to
SquareSpace’s former offices in New York City to attend one-to-one capacitation. After that, I become a specialist with a piece of tremendous knowledge of its platform.
And the last ingredient of my fantasy was composed by the illusion of time. Yes, it was true that SquareSpace saved me a lot of time developing this personal branding blog, optimizing content for Google and ranking my next business platform in the top-aimed markets. Still, I have never managed a full CMS on its platform.
Finally, the SquareSpace Circle club was another foundation of my incomprehension because I assumed that through their Web Development features, I could create a completely customized CMS for content marketing.
WordPress is WordPress. The best CMS
I had to spend more than three weeks trying to turn a platform not designed for a large number of texts to understand that WordPress was conceived as a CMS from its first version.
WordPress is the structural support of several websites worldwide. Because of its versatility and an endless combination of features, add-ons, plug-ins and other great options, I preferred to switch to SquareSpace based on time optimization.
However, even though WordPress demands a specialized development team, it is better to grow the team instead of looking for DYI solutions (SquareSpace) when creating a good blogging platform.
I want to save time. From now on, a proper CMS.
There is a moment in our professional careers when we finally understand that time is an essential resource to create and improve ourselves. Time is the biggest asset we must optimize to develop better products, incorporate new knowledge, create other projects, and turn it into more opportunities to expand horizons and resources.
After the story told above, to sum up, I had to waste almost a month to realize that it is better to work over a technology (solution) proven and benchmarked by the top references in the market instead of getting creative with more DIY solutions.