If you’re a small business seeking to build a great website, it can be helpful to remember these truisms: First, creating and managing a site should not take so much time that it keeps you from focusing on your company. Second, being a scrappy startup or one-person operation does not mean your site has to look like it.
Two small businesses in Denver, saturday social and artist Joel Swanson, chose the DIY website creation platform Squarespace for its speed, customizable templates and ease. Their visually striking sites are more than online storefronts. Having a web presence is the best way for people to get to know businesses, especially small ones.
We asked Swanson and the founders of saturday social to tell us how they used the platform to turn online prospects into real-life patrons.
saturday social
Social media runs around the clock
The business: Founded in 2016, saturday social brings a boutique approach to social media marketing. Co-founders Alicia Drown, 27, and Liana Orenstein, 35, do it all: craft charming copy, design vibrant logos and promote local events and clients in the natural foods and homegoods spaces.
The name saturday social (yes, it is lower case) reflects the fact that social media is a 24/7 entity, Orenstein said.
“I’m not saying we like to work on Saturdays,” she added, “but we're always on, and we make sure our clients are always online.”
The site: As is often the case with startups, progress was not exactly chronological for saturday social. The founders had their first client meeting before they had a company name, let alone a website. So time was of the essence. And because neither founder is a web developer, the two needed a low-maintenance option.
Drown and Orenstein chose Squarespace’s “Hayden” template for its clean look and prominent display of photos and client logos. Links, copy and call-to-action buttons have room to breathe.
“We created that entire website in a day,” said Drown. “The site really helps legitimize us as a business.”
The results: It’s rare that saturday social talks to a potential client who hasn’t visited their site. Lately, clients have hired the pair to create Squarespace sites on their behalf because they’re impressed with the saturday social site.
“Our site is the first step someone takes in getting to know us,” said Orenstein. “We’ve walked into meetings and networking events where people say, ‘Oh, we recognize you from your website!’ ”
Advice to other businesses: Keep it simple, make it personal, don't bury the important information and triple check your spelling. “We aim to make sure visitors can get a clear understanding of our work and who we are,” said the pair. “If and when they want to connect with us, they can easily do that right through our Hire Us page.”
Joel Swanson
Breaking language apart, rebuilding it as art
The art: Joel Swanson’s art explores the intersection of language and technology. One of his sculptures is a flashing, neon white quotation mark. In a commissioned piece for a Denver hotel, Swanson repeatedly cut out the word, “There,” along a backlit wall panel. He is also a digital art professor at University of Colorado Boulder, which includes teaching web design.
Swanson needed an online portfolio to reach both academic and artistic audiences. Drawn to the themes and typography options that fit his minimalist aesthetic, he chose Squarespace to house his portfolio.
The site: As a front-end developer, Swanson has always coded his own sites. But three years ago, he realized he was spending too much time managing his site, ensuring that it was standards-compliant and had the latest responsive technology and framework.
“I got burnt out on all that backend stuff,” said Swanson. Aiming to spend more time on his art, and less on his site, he took the opportunity to sign up for Squarespace.
The “Avenue” template allowed Swanson to customize as he saw fit. He changed the padding or margins on a particular CSS rule, for instance, to give his photos space and minimize distraction.
Seeing almost infinite customizability in the typography and layout of each theme also played into Swanson’s aesthetic.
“It’s really easy for anyone who doesn’t understand anything about the web, but there’s customizability for people who do,” he said.
Swanson’s website’s traffic has grown steadily over the years. Via his contact form, people reach out to him for commissions, inquiries and shows.
The irony is that, as a web design teacher, Swanson urges his students to code their portfolios from scratch. He laughed about the fact that he broke his own rule by using Squarespace.
“If someone has a really great product, you can understand how it works and it saves you time — use it,” he said.
Advice to other businesses: Only include your strongest work. “When building a portfolio, we often think that more is better,” said Swanson. “But showing a few solid projects is better than a dozen hit-or-miss projects.”
Want to try a Squarespace template? Visit Squarespace and use the code BUILTINCO for 10 percent off your first purchase.
