After many, many years with a self built and administered Wordpress based website, I’ve taken the step of moving to a hosted version courtesy of the most excellent Squarespace. For years I’ve been recommending Squarespace to others on the basis of the end product website created but until now I’ve not tried from the user end. Maintaining and updating the security of my site has always been time consuming and recently a couple of major issues requiring restoration from backup have provided the final nudge to jump ship. I signed up for the two week trial, ignored the comprehensive instruction manual and waded straight in. I used the excellent help information whenever I hit anything that didn’t seem intuitive. Rather than a complete change of look, I set about recreating the look and feel of my previous website to allow the smoothest possible transition. Many viewers have not noticed that they are looking at the new site here at mikeprince.org. At every point the Squarespace CMS allowed me to create a similar but cleaner look. As with my previous site, the Squarespace product is fully responsive which means it automatically adjusts to suit the size of screen/device that is being used to access it.
The initial 14 day trial is a real attraction; often you only discover the flaws when you get a significant way into a design. I’ve tried many WP Themes that looked great but held their impasses back until way down the path. The trial, while of course finite in time, is fully functional. I’d recommend not signing up until you know you have the time to devote over the following 14 days. There is an element of risk in that your work is lost if you decide not to proceed but there are risks with any major site development. During the two weeks, I completely built my site from scratch (which says much about how good the process it) and was able to evaluate both the creation and also the revision of pages and galleries.
I cannot speak highly enough of the entire Squarespace process. Every step was well thought out and precise. In addition to using their CMS (Content Management System) I also moved an existing domain over and that process was also accomplished without hiccup and in quick time. They quoted 4 days and it took four days. During this time it showed clearing as pending in my control panel. I also added an SSL Certificate which also appeared seamlessly and quickly. While not a programmer (I’ll leave that to my talented offspring), my feeling is that the entire Squarespace operation has been constructed by a exceptionally talented programmers and ones who take joy in coding so that things work beautifully.
As with any CMS there are some low hurdles to navigate while you learn their terminology and idiosyncrasies. The speed with which the entire thing takes off however is quite astounding.
Squarespace do not offer Email hosting and offer a route to sign up for Google G-Suite email accounts. I felt the Google offering was expensive and decided to leave my email with my original (low cost) hosting company while moving the web hosting to SquareSpace. This worked flawlessly and needed no intervention to achieve. I’m not sure if this is always the case and worth checking with current host if you’re thinking of going that way.
I’d been running the site quietly in the background for a month while I tidied up most of the loose ends and had all my redirects pointing at the original www.mikeprincelandscapes.co.uk site. When ready I changed the redirects so all domains pointed to the new .org site. (I own the domains mikeprincelandscapes.co.uk and mikeprincelandscapes.com so that even incorrect guesses will generally reach the desired end point.)
My original plan was to enact a ‘soft launch’ gradually phase the new site in. However a very kind recommendation from a fellow landscape photographer this week has served to speed that process up. It also very quickly focussed my mind on those aspects which ended tidying and I’d like to specifically thank Kevan Brewer of newforestimages.com for taking the time and trouble to look through the site and spot a number of errors.
As I reflect on the process a number of aspects occur:
The monthly/ annual fee is well worth it to me for the ease, speed and security it brings. A bonus is an improved look and feel to the site.
The decision to keep my email seems to be a good one.
I’m yet to discover how the move has affected Google rankings. This has in truth never been a strong point and whatever the downside, making the move sooner rather than late must always be the way to go.
I was very sorry not to be able to carry over the numbers of ‘reads’ for my blog posts from the old site. Many of these were well into the thousands and to see them all return to zero was a tad disheartening. The replacement is a ‘like’ button which to me doesn’t give the same information in such a quick and easy way. I’m sure I can find the information though the excellent Squarespace Analytics App (look for this as it is a completely separate App) but not instantly.
I also couldn’t transfer the entire blog over and only managed to keep the text in all posts but images in only some. That’s a job I’m currently working through to recreate all the older posts.
Simple conclusions - is it worth the cost? Yes without hesitation. Would I choose Squarespace again? Yes without hesitation. Will I continue to recommend Squarespace? Yes, without hesitation.
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