Why I use Squarespace and why you might want to think about it too

Darwin's Bulldog uses Squarespace for its content management. I love it. After years of using Wordpress for various sites I've been involved with, I wanted to make my own blog as low maintenance as possible. The words "this is a critical security update for WordPress" came to fill me with dread. Would my plugins still work after the update? Would something in the design break? With Squarespace, all of that stuff has been handed over to them. I'm paying for that privilege, but my time is worth a lot to me. I hope to be able to concentrate on content, rather than messing with the backend server stuff. However, I also like playing with design, and wanted to be able to create my own design for the site; a hosted WordPress install (e.g. at wordpress.com) didn't therefore feel like a good option.

Here are some other reasons why I like using Squarespace:

• Easy creation. I estimate that this site took about a third of the time to create that it would have done in WordPress. I chose a simple template as a starting point, then got to work in Fireworks for the graphics and a text editor for playing with the CSS to make it look the way I wanted. There was no editing of PHP files, no FTP-ing templates up to servers, no editing configuration files or setting up mySQL databases, and no hunting for plugins.
• Drag and Drop everything. If you want to change the order of sections in the sidebar, you drag and drop them. If I want to change the order of items in the post details above or below a post - the date, comments, "share article" links etc. - I drag and drop those too.
• Complete control over styling via CSS.
• A library of built-in social widgets for Twitter, Flickr and Delicious integration
• Beautiful image galleries with Lightbox support
• Full native support for Markdown syntax when writing posts. Markdown is a wonderful compromise between imprecise WYSIWYG web authoring and unpicking tags in HTML authoring.
• A built-in stats package with graphing and details on referrers, search queries and so on.

Here's Squarespace's own introduction to their system, which does a good job of showing the basics:

I'm also currently involved in designing a new school website for Winshill Village Primary School, and am using Squarespace for that too. The new site will have its home at http://www.winshillvillage.org.uk.

I think Squarespace might be a really good option for a school site:

• Squarespace is equally at home handling 'static' pages and blogs full of journal entries.
• You can create as many blogs ('journals') as you like within your school site - for example, have one for 'school news' and them one for each class. No need for a separate install of WordPress for blogging in addition to a main school site.
• Easy page creation and structuring of sections within the site
• Wonderful image galleries with Lightbox support
• Built-in document libraries e.g. for school newsletters, OFSTED Reports
• Built-in support for links pages, with easy creation of folders for categorising those links.
• Support for multiple authors with easy control of the editing privileges of each.

As a bonus, the Squarespace iPad app is great:

You can try Squarespace for free for 14 days, without giving any credit card details, so if you like the sound of it, go and have a play.

(In terms of likely costs, the "Advanced package" comes in at $20 US per month (about £12.50). This includes the hosting for the site, content management system, unlimited storage and an unlimited number of editors. Just to be clear, I am just a customer of Squarespace, and am in no way sponsored to post this! I just happen to really like their system).