If you are starting your clinic and want to manage your website all by yourself, you are at the right place. Since you can start your practice with a simple website, you can use WordPress, Squarespace or Wix to start building your digital address.
You must have heard a lot about WordPress. It has made webpage creation easy for everyone since 2003. Just one year younger than WordPress is Squarespace- another website solution for beginners. Wix came a couple of years later and took the web creation space by storm by toting it as the easiest of the three to use.
But before you dive into the comparison of who is better, let’s just talk briefly about them all.
WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix are content management systems (CMS) for hosting and building your website.
Out of the three, each has something unique that makes it a better choice. For instance, Wix is user-friendly for beginners, Squarespace consists of the best library of designs and WordPress offers you the most creative control.
These three platforms compete to be the best website builders for small and new businesses. Let’s discuss the features of each so that you can understand which platform is suitable for launching your clinic’s website.
WordPress
WordPress is popular for its low-cost services that offer a wide range of functionality. It is highly customizable with built-in editing tools and the option of installing webpages.
WordPress is a simple framework where you can add designs, themes, and functionality plugins to your website. The platform has both paid and unpaid versions of functionality, plugins, themes, and designs available. You can choose depending on the purpose of your website.
It is important to note that there are two versions of WordPress. WordPress.com does offer a free version with a domain like name.wordpress.com. Most people opt for the paid subscription, which is similar to Squarespace and Wix. While WordPress.org is a free version that you will need to purchase your domain and hosting for. It is highly customizable, but also can be a bit more challenging to navigate.
If you are a beginner, you can apply the trial-and-error method and use the pre-installed themes, plugins, designs and functionality to create your website.
Plugins are features that enable you to add different function keys to your website. WordPress has many popular and easy-to-use pre-installed plugins for building websites. A few we recommend are:
- Yoast: free SEO tools
- Jetpack: tools offering security, backup, and more
- Wordfence: the free version is great for basic site security
- UpDraftPlus: a great website backup tool
- Akismet Anti-Spam: great for blocking spam in your blog or contact forms
- WPForms: an easy-to-use drag and drop form builder
- WooCommerce: sales services for digital and physical
- MembersPress: which enables adding members and subscriptions
- LearnDash: ideal for online lessons and learning
WordPress has tried over the last several years to become more user-friendly. There are many drag-and-drop themes and you have the option of using already-made templates as well. To learn more about our favorite drag-and-drop themes, check out this past article. If you are trying to add additional functionality, code experience might be necessary. This leads us to rate WordPress to be in the moderate range in terms of ease of use.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a website builder known for its user-friendly interface. It is as simple as opening a social media account! If you are a complete beginner looking for a good platform to build your clinic’s website, Squarespace can be a really good place to start.
Squarespace is easier to use while implementing designs and themes. It offers features like drag-and-drop customization, web-optimized image, and mobile-friendly templates. It has a library of 40+ design templates and pre-configured templates for photography and music websites, and blogs.
Squarespace provides the facility of editing even the HTML and CSS of your website. This site builder focuses specifically on the template and its designs and offers design flexibility that lets you edit and adjust the website to your choice. In terms of the countenance of the website, Squarespace offers richly designed modern templates to make your website look appealing.
Plugins like Mailchimp and Facebook Pixel (tools to analyze your website’s data) are available at Squarespace. Other functionality available at Squarespace is scheduling your website calendar and email reminder, customer management, for instance, tag, view, and filter of your audience list; tools to supervise event management, ticket services and much more.
Squarespace offers free domain registration for the first offer on your website. It charges for your domain after the first year. The cost depends on the URL and the plan you use. The site is ideal for start-up businesses and growing businesses.
Squarespace helps you to build and launch your website with an ease-of-use interface.
However, Squarespace does not offer any free plan. It does provide a 14-day trial period for you to play around with to see if it is a good match for what you need. After the trial ends, you need to choose a plan if you want to continue utilizing Squarespace for your website creation. The directory of plugins is limited in Squarespace and the SEO tool does not allow an extensive search facility.
Wix
Wix is perfect for an individual who is a novice or a layman in the technological and coding domain. If you want to launch an initial business website, you will find Wix to be the ideal site-building platform. It occupies the first place in terms of ease of use.
The service that makes Wix popular among its competitors is the availability of a completely free plan for the user. It makes the platform economical along with making it effectively user-friendly. While the services on the platform are free, it displays advertisements to businesses and eCommerce plans for users.
The paid plans include a custom domain and an ad-free platform with extended functionality. It is required to utilize the website analytic tool, SEO and for online selling of any product or services like membership plan or subscription sales.
The library of Wix has more than 500 designs and templates with features like plug-and-play, and drag-and-drop functionality as well a mobile-friendly user interface. The designs and templates are flexible and customizable with built-in design tools.
The functionality services offered by Wix match the needs of a newborn business. There are pre-installed tools Velo and EditorX, analytical tool, email marketing tool and sales functionality. Wix offers noticeable SEO services. Booking event tickets, music streaming or selling photography or art is some of the functionality available in Wix.
The platform is suitable for customers wanting to develop blogging and promotional website. It is appropriate for small businesses. The functionality and the features of the platform are rigid to make it efficiently technical friendly for amateurs.
However, the domain name offered by Wix is not unique. Your domain can be registered in other hosting platforms and get connected to your Wix website address. Wix is not ideal for users who know to code as it does not allow any complicated features in its platform.
Conclusion:
WordPress occupies the top place if you want your clinic’s website to be a rich, content-based one. Between WordPress and Squarespace, WordPress offers better web-traffic management for sellers.
Squarespace has a very limited library of template designs, while Wix has around 500 design templates and WordPress has unlimited templates in its library. WordPress focuses on the functionality of your website, and Squarespace emphasizes the outlook of your website. Once the Wix website is launched, the edits are irreversible. However, in Squarespace edits are available even after the website is published.
While the debate for a better platform continues, the best way to identify the platform that suits an individual is based on the objective of the business website and the individual’s knowledge regarding the information technology domain.