Welcome to SquareSpace!
¡Bienvenido! Willkommen! Välkommen! In other words... Welcome!
Front page for Blogger site
For a while now, I've been using Blogger to host my blog/website. It's free, easy to use, and good for what I was doing. But I didn't have an actual website (that is, my blog was just that, a blog). And after thinking about it for a while, I decided it's now time to have a place to call home on the Internet. Not just a newspaper, if you will.
Now I needed to figure out what I wanted. I wanted: (WARNING: This section gets technical)
- Simple to use (since I don't know how to code above a basic level)
- The ability to host a Podcast (something I want to do in the future)
- eCommerce Capabilities (e.g: the ability to sell stuff via the website directly)
While there are sites you can get a domain name (e.g: Domain.com, HostGator, and GoDaddy), and software you can use to design the site (e.g: Wix, WordPress, and Dreamweaver), I found that method to have... a bit of a learning curve.
I'm not saying that this system wouldn't have worked, which it definitely would have, it's just not for me. After doing some more digging, I found that photographer I know of, Jared Polin (aka, FroKnowsPhoto) uses SquareSpace to host his website and likes it. Considering that they have a 14-day Free Trial, I decided to try it out (also, having a 10% discount of my first order didn't hurt either).
And after using it for only a few days, I have to say I'm really impressed with it. The first thing I like is that... it's simple. Plain and simple (see what I did there). So far, I haven't needed to type a single line of code to format anything. It's that simple. The next thing is that it's really easy to host a Podcast. Just upload the files in an audio block, and it's seen as a podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. It's that simple! Another thing I love is that eCommerce is made easy with Stripe. All I have to do to add a new digital product (e.g: a digital album) is: Upload the files, set the name, set the price, add some pictures, and done. IT'S THAT SIMPLE!
And the last thing is the ability to import my previous posts from Blogger. I just went into the settings, typed in the URL for the blog, and it imports the blog posts. This to me is huge. I don't have to link everything to the old blog if someone wants to see the old posts. So if I do decided to decommission the old blog, I can do so without worrying about losing all the posts.
Before I say anything more... I have to say a couple things. First, SquareSpace isn't paying me one cent to do this review. I wanted to write this for myself. Second, I understand if I took the time to learn coding, I would be able to make a site just like this with more customizability. But I don't exactly have the time. Maybe in the future I might be able to design a custom site with CSS and HTML5. But until then, I'm perfectly content with SquareSpace.
After getting that out of the way, I think you can tell already that I'm falling in love with this platform. Do I plan on switching permanently over to SquareSpace? At this point... Absolutely!
And now that I have this type of site, expect more frequent updates to the blog posts. Until next time, this is George from Tem.Teen Studios saying ¡Adios! Freilos! Hej då! In other words... bye!
UPDATE 9-8-2014: I want to give a BIG thanks to TheMusicBed for hooking me up with SquareSpace for free for 6 months. Go check out their music. They make awesome stuff. :-D
(Note: The previous blog will still be viewable, just not updated anymore. I may choose to delete the blog in the future, but for now it stays online.)
