8 Reasons Why Nonprofit Websites Should Be Built in Squarespace
Nonprofits use websites as their primary means to present themselves to the world, and increasingly, to receive donations. This means a site must look great and be easy to use. An aging website with ancient graphics and outdated content just won’t do any longer.
But websites cost money, both to build and to maintain, and few nonprofits find they have money in surplus.
This is where Squarespace comes in. First, compared to other options, it is relatively inexpensive to have your website built in Squarespace. And second, the Squarespace platform is fairly easy to use. This means you can update the site yourself after it is built, saving you more money. But it is not all about money. Read on.
Here at Sustainable Digital, we develop sites in multiple platforms, including Squarespace and WordPress. But we love Squarespace the most. For 95% of the projects we do, it proves to be the optimal website builder. This is so for nonprofits and it also holds true for professionals and other small businesses.
We recommend that most nonprofits build their websites in Squarespace
Here then are the 8 primary reasons we recommend Squarespace to our clients.
Build great-looking websites
First and foremost, you want a professional website with a design that is both eye-catching and unique. Fortunately, Squarespace ticks all the boxes here. The design tools provided on the platform make it easy to incorporate large, striking photos, engaging colors, creative fonts, and page layouts that present information in a manner that is easy to browse and understand.
You get all these features on your website because Squarespace has made it easy for designers to use and customize these features.
In addition, your designs are shown equally well on desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones.
A less-expensive website option
Because Squarespace websites are faster to build, you can hire a designer to build a new site at lower cost than if the site were built on another platform. A website that is fast to build will cost you less.
Make your own updates
Up to a few years ago, any nonprofit or business with a website was wedded to their webmaster. This meant writing checks for website maintenance, often on a monthly basis.
Squarespace’s design interface is uncomplicated and intuitive. So while you’ll still want to hire a designer to build your site, you’ll be saving money when you no longer need to pay your webmaster for updates. Why pay when you can do it yourself?
Here at Sustainable Digital, we’ve built hundreds of Squarespace websites and the vast majority of their owners now maintain them themselves. We are always available to help out and a handful of clients routinely ask us to handle updates, but most just do it themselves. Plus, there are no plug-in updates or security patches to install. Squarespace handles all these things for you.
All-in-one website management
Squarespace provides software to build and maintain a website. It also hosts your website on its own servers. You can even register your domain name directly with Squarespace.
Plus, your site will be already optimized for mobile devices.
Making one payment a year, while eliminating the fear of site crashes and security holes, makes your life a whole live easier.
Easily receive donations
Since Squarespace is all-inclusive, you can receive charitable donations directly on your site. This means fewer click-offs for potential donors, increasing the likelihood that donations to your organization are completed.
Or if you wish to enhance your donation forms, you can embed a system such as DonorBox (www.donorbox.org) directly into a page on your website. This again means that your would-be donors never need to leave your website.
Beyond this, you can embed forms from your donor management system, such as DonorPerfect or Little Green Light. Again, this keeps your users on your site, while enabling donation information to flow directly into your database.
Multiple services under one roof
Squarespace has a built-in bulk email system which is much less expensive and easier to use than Constant Contact or MailChimp. Plus, it is fully integrated with your website, making it easy to install newsletter signup forms or to include content from your site in your newsletters. Indeed, you can also send a blog post to your entire mailing list with a few clicks of the mouse.
Squarespace also provides integrated ecommerce so that you can sell anything from event tickets to merchandise directly from your website without the need for outside services.
A scheduling system is also available for doctors and therapists, and one of our clients even uses it to schedule book drop-offs to be sold during fundraisers.
Beyond the things directly built into Squarespace, just about any external service can be embedded into a page on your website.
Effective Search Engine Optimization
Squarespace makes SEO easy. With its built-in features, improving your site’s SEO is a straightforward task. These features include customizable headers, easily accessible meta titles and descriptions, URL mapping, a site map, and much more.
Unfortunately, there is no system yet available that handles all your SEO automatically and without additional cost. But Squarespace provides an excellent starting point. It facilitates the work of SEO experts (such as Sustainable Digital) as we build out your SEO.
New features, always
Squarespace is always testing and soliciting feedback from its users. They do this so they can make improvements. Some such changes are big and some are small, but rarely does a week go by without something new launched.
It’s great to have a system that grows as our website needs grow.
So there you have it. As you can see, we highly recommend Squarespace. But we of course use other platforms, when justified. WordPress, for example, can be a good option when you need specific features that are sometimes more readily available in there. It is just that under normal circumstances, the power of WordPress is overkill for the vast majority of nonprofits. The additional cost and complexity just can’t be justified.
So if you have not already checked out Squarespace, do so. Or better yet, contact us and we’d be happy to answer questions or offer advice.
