• Squarespace websites are great to visit.

• The pages are clean and effortless, their user interface (the bit you work with behind the scenes) also looks great and is a pleasure to use. What’s more, the templates automatically include mobile responsiveness so there’s no need for plug-ins and Squarespace sites always look super professional over all devices.

• From an artist’s or a maker's perspective, it’s a major advantage that everything looks so good from the very beginning.

• Studies on website visitor reactions show that a massive 94% of all first impressions happen to be design-related, where visual appeal and ease of navigation is paramount to keeping your visitors on your website, so having a beautiful easy to use site should be extremely important to you. Even if you are a super talented artist or maker offering beautiful work, a cobbled-together, unattractive, out-dated website will put your willing audience off even before they’ve read about you and your work More importantly, they will never give you a second chance.

• One of the most time consuming and frustrating tasks of starting a new blog can be figuring out the back-end of your site. If you're new to blogging, this can be very intimidating and time-consuming, especially if you don't have any previous experience using HTML/CSS.

• But with Squarespace, setting up your site is easy and straightforward, even for those of you who don't consider yourselves computer savvy.

• The drag-and-drop features make editing content a breeze and the visual layout editor allows you to make changes effortlessly. Adding text, images, embeds, or social media is as simple as hitting a button and choosing an option.

• Your website, your portfolio, shop, blog and email newsletter campaigns are all in one place with Squarespace.

• You can easily add products to your shop, keeping up with orders and inventory as they come in (notifications get sent directly to your designated email so can respond to your customers quickly).

• You can instantly create an email newsletter campaign straight from your website to alert customers of new products, course details, special offers, seasonal exclusives, etc.

• Squarespace connects to other services that you may want to use for your business via the platform. For instance purchases are channelled through Stripe, a credit card clearing platform.

• Your accounting can be managed through Xero Accounting Software, if you choose, which makes it super easy to keep track of your finances.

• You can choose to have a business email address via GSuite.

• Again, meaning all your business stuff is in one place.

Other stuff that's useful to the creative who doesn't want to be bogged down by the techie bits:

• You’re probably more interested in getting on with your creative work than spending hours trying to work out what use host to use.

• Or scratching your head over SEO (how your website ranks on Google). Search engine optimisation is built in as long as, right from the start you name files, images,links and captions correctly.It's already mobile-friendly and you don't have to worry about how your website appears on mobile devices.

• Because it's all in one you don't have to remember loads of passwords and having to sign into different sites for domains, hosting and security certificates - these are all included in your monthly plan.

• The support is excellent, including email support, live chat, training videos, details articles and a community forum.

• On-site analytics like search queries, mobile usage, detailed activities, popular content, etc. is as much as most of my clients want to know about so you don’t even need to get bogged down with Google Analytics if you don’t want to.

• Squarespace's pricing structure is transparent, simple and predictable. You can view all Squarespace pricing plans on their website.

• Squarespace is a super, contemporary, user-friendly, beautifully straight forward. It’s super easy to develop and build on small beginnings without ever having to move platforms or purchase plug-ins.

• I find it really is the best website platform for the clients I work with.

• Oh, and working with Squarespace for some years means I was invited to be a 'Squarespace Circle Member' . One of the benefits of my membership means any website I create will automatically qualify for 20% off the first year of your plan. Got to be worth it, don’t you think?

• But don’t take my word for it, you can find out more about Squarespace by going to their website.