Building your own website is a hassle, especially if you aren’t a trained web designer. Fortunately, many platforms make this simple to do if you have a little extra patience. This spring after settling into our new home in California, I moved my website from Wordpress + Pro Photo to Squarespace, and I’m so glad that I did! I had been reluctant to make the change because I had a pretty good SEO ranking and I was worried about affecting that. But when the move changed everything, I decided it was the perfect time to transition.

Don’t get me wrong. Wordpress and Pro Photo are fantastic. Wordpress has all the tools that you could ever need and more. But, that also can be their downfall. Wordpress sites take a lot of work to maintain, they aren’t intuitive, the updates are constantly putting your site at risk for failure, and they can be expensive. As a small business owner more interested in going outside and taking photographs than maintaining the security of my website, Squarespace was the answer to my prayers.

Here are the top 5 reasons that I made the switch from Wordpress to Squarespace:

1. Squarespace is simple. Squarespace has a library of templates designed to be the starting blocks of your personal website design. The template builder and customizer is simple to use and navigate and there is always someone who can answer your questions with the live chat feature. Which brings me to…..

2. Squarespace has an incredible support team. With my Wordpress site, if I had a question, the best I could do was consult Google and hope someone else has blogged an answer. Squarespace has a live chat feature on weekdays and email support on weekends and overnight. They are kind, helpful, and prompt in their replies.

3. Squarespace handles security. A few years ago, my Wordpress site was hacked. I have no idea how it happened, but somehow I ended up spending an additional $300 a year to security my site against further attacks. With Squarespace, they manage the security portion of their sites as part of your subscription plan and offer complimentary SSL certificates to ensure your visitors that your site is secure.

4. Squarespace handles the hosting. With Wordpress, you have to “self-host” your website, meaning that you pay a hosting provider to set up your site on their space. In my non-techy mind, I imagine it’s like renting the lot that you’re building your house on. Hosts are notoriously unhelpful and unreliable. Squarespace hosts your website, so there are no additional fees or hassles to add complications to your website.

5. Squarespace is pretty. Because the formatting is part of the overall template, your site looks clean and consistent across its pages. You no longer have to search for plug-ins to make your site look the way you’d like, instead, it’s all built-in. It’s less cluttered, more organized, and easier to use.

I’m still learning some of the ins and outs of Squarespace and my SEO is still recovering from both of my big moves, but I’m thrilled with my pretty new home.