The Only Squarespace vs WooCommerce SEO Guide You Will Ever Need

Written by: Milan Savov
Dec / 13 / 2022

Comparing the most popular eCommerce platforms is one of our favorite things because we offer help to any business owner who needs to make a decision. We decided to focus on Squarespace vs WooCommerce comparison now because of the flexibility, freedom for customization, and ease of use.

Can we say these two compete for the eCommerce business owners’ attention? WooCommerce is already well-established among them, knowing the fact is a WordPress plugin. But Squarespace also deserves attention, especially regarding marketing features, especially eCommerce SEO capabilities.

But first, we want to give you a brief introduction to both solutions:

A few Words About WooCommerce

WooCommerce, as we already know, is a WordPress eCommerce plugin. You can’t use it as a standalone solution since a WordPress website must be integrated. But it’s still one of the market’s most convenient and user-friendly solutions. That’s why many choose it over any other eCommerce solution.

A few Words About Squarespace

Many of us remember the beginnings of Squarespace in the early 2000s. It was one of the first website builders to help creative people build websites from scratch. It was always accompanied by great templates and visuals, and you can create an online store without using plugins.

Some people prefer any other platform than WordPress+WooCommerce just because they don’t have time to integrate and manage so many plugins and extensions.

How do WooCommerce vs Squarespace Compare When it Comes to Templates?

Squarespace offers over 100 templates for different purposes, including personal portfolio, travel, media, and of course, eCommerce solutions. The visual editor is pretty intuitive, making the website-building task easy for everyone. Also, you can edit your images and enhance their quality to fit better with your website.

WordPress and WooCommerce require more advanced knowledge in web development, but they offer more customizing features for any template. Some people don’t like the fact they need to add many plugins to include advanced eCommerce features.

For those who don’t have a problem with it, we can say only the sky is the limit when it comes to the template and design customization.

We can say that WooCommerce wins this time in the design and template WooCommerce vs Squarespace battle.

What eCommerce Features do These Platforms Offer?

WooCommerce is an advanced eCommerce solution using the marketplace-looking approach. You can integrate it with marketplace services like Meta, Google Shopping, Square, etc. At the same time, Squarespace is focused on pretty basic yet functional eCommerce functionalities.

Both platforms are powerful and useful, even though Squarespace is quite limited regarding advanced features.

But can you really compare the Squarespace store vs WooCommerce store, keeping only eCommerce features in mind?

You can use both to sell unlimited products. While Squarespace provides a hosting plan, you need to find it alone with the WooCommerce website. At the same time, WooCommerce is great for those already familiar with WordPress, while Squarespace allows beginners to hang onto it easily.

Knowing all these things, you can easily choose your eCommerce Squarespace vs WooCommerce winner and grab the solution that fits your business better.

SEO-Friendliness Squarespace vs WooCommerce

No eCommerce business can survive the competition if they don’t put enough effort into search engine optimization. Regarding SEO elements, both WooCommerce and Squarespace are pretty convenient, offering many tools and plugins to optimize your website.

WooCommerce is doing it better, and we will explain why (even though you may suppose what’s the reason).

As we mentioned a few times, WooCommerce works in symbiosis with WordPress, which is known to have many SEO plugins. Yoast SEO and RankMath for SEO are the most popular, even though you can find many others like SEOPress for on-page optimization and All in One SEO Plugin to enhance your website’s overall search engine performance.

Squarespace, on the other hand, comes with built-in functionalities, even though they are not as advanced as WooCommerce’s ones. Still, you have access to the SquareSpace SEO tools panel you can find in the Marketing Tools section, and do your best to let Google and other search engines crawl and index your website. You can control redirects, featured images, social previews, and meta tags for better SEO.

As you suppose, WooCommerce wins this time because the SEO Squarespace vs WooCommerce battle is pretty unfair. It’s like when a beginner needs to face the champion in the first fight ever in their life.

Overall Website Security

When you choose between Squarespace vs WooCommerce for digital items and physical goods, you mustn’t forget about security aspects.

We can easily say that Squarespace will win this time because it comes with an integrated SSL certificate, which means both you and your visitors will stay protected.

WooCommerce is a little weaker in this because you still need to resolve the hosting and SSL issue alone. Some plugins block the eventual DDoS attacks and malware while keeping your website safe.

The solution?

If you decide to use WooCommerce for eCommerce, you will have to choose reliable plugins and a professional hosting service. That’s the only way to protect your website from any type of cyber attack.

Integration With Payment Methods

When we talk about eCommerce platforms, we also have to check on their payment integration. WooCommerce offers different payment methods and direct bank transfers, and some users may even offer to pay in cash when the product is delivered. You can integrate any of the 140 options available on WooCommerce, and it’s pretty easy to manage them all.

At the same time, Squarespace is more focused on leading payment methods like direct bank transfers, PayPal, Apple Pay, etc.

WooCommerce wins this time because of the extended payment methods offered.

The Pricing Plans for each Platform

Squarespace pricing vs Woocommerce is an interesting aspect to analyze.

Squarespace pricing plans start from $16 per month (if you pay annually, it’s $23 month-by-month), and you get a custom domain and SSL security feature with any of the chosen plans. Most users choose the Business plan, which costs $33 per month ($23 if you pay for one year). But, if you want to get most of the eCommerce functionalities, we recommend choosing between Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce plans. The first one will cost you $36 per month (or $27 when paid in advance for a whole year). The Advanced plan is $49 per month if you pay for one year, while the month-by-month price is $65.

What about WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is free to install, but it requires using WordPress business plans to work well. The general recommendation is to use WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org to ease the whole thing for you.

Sometimes you’ll have to buy a template or website theme and your domain too, which will add some expenses to your money planning.

So, WooCommerce itself is free, but things like plugins, themes, layouts, hosting, and domains are not. Keep this in mind when you choose your best fit between Squarespace vs WooCommerce solutions.

WooCommerce vs Squarespace Pros and Cons Summarized

To get a better image of what we are talking about, we will summarize the advantages and disadvantages this way:

WooCommerce Pros

  • You have complete control over the customization
  • You can choose your favorite plugins
  • Community support and online learning resources are available
  • Easy to use for active WordPress users
  • A wide choice of eCommerce features
  • Digital marketing tools available, including SEO

WooCommerce Cons

  • Unpredictable expenses
  • Requires technical knowledge
  • Not available online support
  • Some security risks

Squarespace Pros

  • Anyone can get started
  • You generate your favorite domain name
  • Many templates available
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Impressive loading speed

Squarespace Cons

  • You are limited to building sections
  • You need to upgrade the Squarespace version to change the template
  • Sometimes text editing process slows down the website

In general, both cover many significant features, so it’s up to you to choose the winner in this battle.

The Verdict

We don’t have a direct answer to the question “Squarespace vs WooCommerce: What to choose?” It all depends on your preferences, business goals, product types, and of course, your technical knowledge.

In general, if you are a small to medium business, Squarespace can be more convenient for you. For proficient medium to enterprise users, WordPress+WooCommerce can be the winning combination.

If you are unsure, check how we compared:

Maybe you will find more useful information and compare the features to easily decide which one is for you.

FAQs

Is WooCommerce better than Squarespace?

WooCommerce covers a large part of the eCommerce market and offers advanced customization. That’s why many big businesses prefer it. Squarespace is quite a good eCommerce solution, no matter the particular limits, with cheaper pricing plans.

Can I integrate WooCommerce and Squarespace websites?

These are completely different eCommerce platforms, so it’s not possible to integrate their features to get a more convenient online store. On the other hand, you can use some third-party integration to connect the separate stores, but we don’t recommend it because of the security risks.

Can I migrate from Squarespace to WooCommerce?

Migration is possible, but you can’t really do it alone. This is a job for professionals who know how to protect all the data and transfer it to your new service. It’s a possibility, but not a simple task, so if you consider doing it, you’ll have to contact professionals to do that for you.

About the Author

Picture of Milan Savov

Milan Savov

Co-Founder and Head of growth communicate directly with our clients until he is 100% sure that we understand their goals and needs.