Website building - The Good, The Okay, and the Infuriating

I created an online portfolio and had been using it as my website until I decided I wanted something a bit more legit - mostly actual contact forms and a blog - so off I went to create a website.

I’ll start by saying I have a background in Digital Marketing and using CMS systems, so I was pretty confident, which is why I was surprised I struggled with one of the three sites I used.

Website builder first impressions

I’ve built a few WordPress sites and wasn’t enamored so I knew I wanted to try something different. The portfolio I made was with Carbonmade, I then tried Wix to make the proper site and after some (many) struggles I thankfully settled on Squarespace.

Here’s my experience with them all, mostly because the blog homepage looked really sad without any posts. But hey, this might be some use to someone, right?

Carbonmade - ‘The Okay’

So again, this is an online portfolio not a proper website. It has a limited number of templates and blocks, but I found it really easy to make the portfolio and then add contact details in to appropriate it into a website. There aren’t loads of fancy fonts but again, it’s not a professional website so that was okay. Using my brand colours throughout, I made something I was happy with in very little time.

Pros and Cons:

+ I liked the ease, I found adding and deleting blocks very intuitive. It was easy to remove and add sections in the pages and I made the site within a day. Not just one webpage but a Homepage (which featured my work), Service and About page.

+ It was easy to make it kind of look like a website by using basic text blocks at the bottom of each page with a CTA, email address and social links.

- The site didn’t look as professional as the others, but that’s because it’s just a portfolio site, not a complete website. For a portfolio site though, I think it’s great and easy to use.

It was super simple and served the purpose until I wanted to make it easier for prospective clients to contact me (there and then on the page with a form, rather than copying and pasting my email address into their email client) and I wanted to start a blog. Time for a new adventure with Wix!

Wix - ‘The Infuriating’

Sadly, this is where things started to go downhill. I was in two minds between Wix and Squarespace but initially chose Wix because I liked their website and templates more. I fear I was led astray.

Pros and Cons:

+ I liked that you could preview the templates before committing and editing. I also liked that you could set your fonts and colours and they’ll be applied across the template intuitively which can save a lot of time - but you can also do this on Squarespace.

+ I think Wix had the most templates to choose from, like loads of different contact form styles that you could then fully customise with colours, fonts and field borders etc. It had more than Squarespace but as I say later, they were much more difficult to put into the page which was more important to me than complete customisation.

++ Pretty much the only thing better on Wix than on Squarespace is adding a custom font. I’ve been using Glacial Indifference in Canva and naturally wanted to use it on my site, and it was a super simple upload of the font into Wix and it was then immediately available in the font list. If only it was this easy on Squarespace, but more on that later!

- When you click to add a new section or ‘Strip’, it pops out a menu with loads of categories and presets you can add, but if you click on one it just appears floating on your page, it doesn’t add it in its own Strip. Maybe some people like the freedom of that, but on Carbonmade and Squarespace, the new elements you add appear as a block on the page which means they’re the right size and can be moved easily. On Wix, I found I needed to add a Strip and then manually make it bigger and then add element I wanted and then resize the Strip around it again. (I may well have been doing it wrong, but if there’s a better way it wasn’t intuitive at all and I found it a big faff.)

- It made adding, moving and deleting sections hard work. (I finally found out you can do this by pressing the 4 arrows all pointing towards the middle in the toolbar at the top.)

- When I finally created a decent looking contact form, I tried to set the replies to go to my business email address (a different one I signed up for Wix with, because I don’t want admin in my business inbox) and it was going to be a faff so I left it to come back to later. Whereas all I had to do was type my email address in on Squarespace - simples.

- Spacing was a nightmare. I had to turn the Ruler tool on and measure everything like the gaps between Strips, where the text boxes were positioned, the four boxes I had for my services. I took ages and was a complete, you guessed it, faff. So much faff with this site honestly. Why wouldn’t they build spacing in for you??

- - It also ran i n c r e d i b l y slow. Painfully so. The site takes ages to load the first time and every single change I made took a long time to happen. I’m used to computers doing tasks immediately and once I have to wait a second or three for the action to happen I start to get irrationally angry.

So, after 2 days I had a homepage I liked but wasn’t prepared to do more battle with the other pages and decided I needed to change.

After asking a wonderful Female Freelance collective whether there was a better site to use, I thankfully ended up on Squarespace!

0.01 seconds from tearing my hair out

Squarespace - ‘The Good’

I found this super intuitive and easy to use, so much so that I’ve made a website I’m really proud of in just 1 day. It’s not just a single page either, the site has 3 webpages (Home, About, Services) and a Blog. It has multiple contact forms that were so easy to set up to go to my business inbox and even some Calendly buttons for good measure. I did all of this in less time than it took me to make a homepage in Wix, and I’m way more pleased with the final result.

Pros and Cons:

+ Like Carbonmade, when you add a section on Squarespace it adds it as a block on the page, not just a random floating element.

+ Like Wix, you create a Global site style with your colours and fonts which makes it super easy to brand the site.

+ Editing is split out into Content and Design which was a surprise at first, but makes it really easy to edit everything.

+ Spacing is done for you. I have a section with 4 columns and on Wix I was having to move each box individually (I couldn’t even group them together!) and spent ages making sure they were lined up. But on Squarespace it does it for you. Because why wouldn’t it!?

+ The whole site just looks better, in my opinion. I’m much more pleased with what I made in a shorter time on Squarespace than I am with what I laboured over in Wix.

-- If you want to add a custom font onto Squarespace you’d better strap yourself in for the ride. I know basic HTML and CSS and after getting a handy guide up I’d managed to make the headings change to Glacial Indifference but the paragraphs weren’t playing ball. I couldn’t work out where I’d gone wrong so I deleted all the code and files I’d uploaded and very handily called my software developer partner in to do it for me.

However, not everyone has access to someone who can code, and I don’t think it would be possible for someone with no coding knowledge whatsoever to set up a custom font themselves. My partner managed it, but the font never appeared in the font lists like it did on Wix which seemed odd. Then when I tried to set a similar looking font (Poppins) as my website font, just in case someone’s computer couldn’t load the custom font, it changed ALL of the font on the site to Poppins. I couldn’t be bothered with messing with the fonts anymore so I deleted all the code (my partner didn’t mind) and have just gone with Poppins because it’s so similar to Glacial Indifference.

- I’m not sure if it’s user error, but after I’d edited a section once and then went back to edit it, the pop up menu with all the controls in it would just flash up and disappear. I changed browsers and the issue followed me, so I’m not sure if it’s something I was doing. I had to save the page and go out of the page editor and back in to be able to edit that section, which was pretty annoying. Somehow still less annoying than Wix though!?

Font and pop up palavers aside, I found Squarespace so much easier to use than Wix. Thankfully I’d already acquired my domain name so I can just transfer it over, whereas if I’d bought it via Wix or Squarespace I’d be locked into using them.

I could’ve literally jumped for joy

The verdict

I’m so glad I didn’t persevere with Wix any longer than I did. I was putting in a lot of effort but not getting much back. I liked Squarespace much better than anything else, including WordPress and the CMS I’ve used before. If you have a half decent eye for design and stick to your brand colours and fonts you should be able to make a professional looking website in Squarespace that you’ll be proud of. Maybe I’ll add being a Squarespace web designer to my repertoire in the future…

Does my experience resonate with anyone? What are your most and least favourite website builders?

~

I’m Jade and I write down to earth copy and content for charities and social justice groups, and vegan or sustainable businesses.

Ready to maximise your impact? Drop me an email and let’s chat.