This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Suzanne Scacca
If you’re looking for a way to streamline your web design business, then keep reading as I’m about to suggest some ways you can use Squarespace to do so.
When you’re considering which platform to build a website with, what are you looking for exactly? You most likely want a website builder that’s intuitive, loads quickly, and provides you with all the tools necessary to design responsive and modern-looking websites.
Have you considered looking for one that’ll also help you manage your web design business?
Sure, there’s software for project and business management that you can use for this purpose. But why split your time between even more tools if you can get related tasks and processes done within a single platform?
Running a Web Design Business with Squarespace
When it comes to managing your business, speed, consistency, and quality are crucial. Let’s take a look at some ways your Squarespace account can help.
Jump to content in this section:
1. Build Your Portfolio Website with Squarespace
Before you ever build a client’s website with Squarespace, build your own with it. This is a great way to get hands-on experience with the website builder while also demonstrating to prospective clients that you understand Squarespace inside and out.
Plus, if your own website is hosted with Squarespace, it’ll motivate you to stay on top of what’s going on with the website builder. As it changes and as new features are added, you’ll stay ahead of the curve and be able to help your clients get the most out of their Squarespace websites as a result.
It won’t take long to get your portfolio website up and running with Squarespace. For starters, there are dozens of portfolio templates to choose from. Even if they’re not made specifically for web designers, they’re easy enough to customize.
Plus, Squarespace has a built-in Portfolio page maker. If you use a template that doesn’t have a page for Work or Portfolio, this tool will help you add one within seconds.
There are other tools that are going to help you build a great professional website with Squarespace. We’ll touch on the ones that relate to business management in the next points.
2. Empower Prospects to Book Their Own Appointments
It’s common to do a consultation call with someone interested in web design services. This way, you get a good sense for what they need, their expectations with regards to price and outcomes, as well as how easy or difficult they’ll be to work with.
The only problem is that trying to coordinate schedules in order to pick a meeting date and time can be time-consuming and stressful. By inviting interested prospects to schedule their own consultation calls via your website, you won’t have to shoulder that responsibility any longer.
Acuity Scheduling is one of the more useful Squarespace integrations. Because it’s owned by Squarespace, you don’t need to worry about generating and embedding the appointment scheduler from another tool. You set up your scheduling system right inside the website builder.
Squarespace’s Scheduling tool syncs with your calendar (or you can set custom availability, if you prefer), so that prospects only book consultations when you’re available.
You can do other things with this scheduler as well. For instance, if you want to collect a deposit from prospects to ensure that they’re serious about working together, the scheduler integrates with payment processors so you can collect fees ahead of time.
3. Sell Your Services and Products Directly from Your Site
When it comes time to bill clients for your services, there are a number of methods you could use to do it. It’s not something that I see done often, but I think that a web designer’s website could be a great resource to collect payments from.
Squarespace would make this easy for you, too — especially if you sell more than just web design services. For instance, you could use the Squarespace Commerce tool to charge for:
- The deposit you collect for web design jobs
- Web design services rendered
- Monthly website maintenance plans
- Consultation or coaching appointments
- On-demand videos, courses, or webinars
- Digital products like ebooks, stock imagery or videos, and so on
Whether you strictly work as a web designer or you’re looking to diversify your earnings, Squarespace makes it easy to sell these things via your website. This would be especially useful if you’re tired of tracking down clients over unpaid invoices. This method would allow you to get paid before releasing a website or other goods to your clients and customers.
4. Create Reusable Website Templates
Even though every website you design will end up looking different from everything else you’ve created, the essential foundation and structure of each will probably be the same. Instead of recreating the wheel whenever you start a new job, use Squarespace to create starter templates.
After you sign up for a Squarespace account, you’ll be able to start as many websites as you like. You can also use the dashboard to develop reusable website templates.
These templates can be as detailed as you like them to be. For instance, you can create basic wireframes with little to no content in them. On the other hand, if you build websites for a specific niche, you might create more detailed pages and add niche-specific features.
Either way, you won’t have to deal with the basic setup of websites going forward. Instead, duplicate your template site when you’re ready to get started. Then spend the majority of your time adding and customizing content.
5. Use Squarespace to Stage Sites
Once you’ve decided to use Squarespace to build a client’s website, you have to make a couple of choices. First, how you will design their site:
Options A: Use a variety of design tools to hash out the site architecture, wireframes, and mockups.
Or…
Option B: Use Squarespace from the get-go.
If you go with the latter option, you then have to consider whose account you’ll use:
Option 1: Ask your client to sign up for an account and then have them give you full administrative access so you can build their website on it.
Or…
Option 2: Build the website on your account and then give them administrative access or transfer full ownership to them when it’s done.
The ideal option is to use Squarespace from the get-go and to build the website on your own account. This ensures that you’ll be able to build your clients’ websites in private.
When you’re ready to show them the progress you’ve made, give them view-only access to check it out. You can also password-protect pages if you have a page or two instead of the full website ready to share with them.
This way, your work won’t be interrupted by client commentary and questions as they peek in on what you’re doing. You also won’t have to worry about someone going rogue and making changes to what you’ve done while you’re still mid-project.
You control when clients see their website and, as a bonus, they’ll see it within the platform they’ll use to manage their website going forward. This will get them acquainted with Squarespace before they ever have to use it.
Conclusion
I am a firm believer in finding tools that help you get as much done as possible with the least amount of effort. Not only does this mean having less software to manage, but it also means having less software to pay for.
While Squarespace isn’t going to provide you with everything you need to run a successful web design business, it can help streamline certain parts of it. That amount of time and energy saved — not to mention the level of professionalism this setup will convey to prospects and clients alike — will be invaluable to you going forward.
This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Suzanne Scacca
Suzanne Scacca | Sciencx (2022-10-04T19:31:21+00:00) How to Manage Your Web Design Business with Squarespace. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2022/10/04/how-to-manage-your-web-design-business-with-squarespace/
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