Not All Bloggers Can Design

This post was originally posted on BlogPressive.com for Impressive Blogging - http://www.blogpressive.com/not-all-bloggers-can-design/

I've been in the blogging industry for about two years now and I haven't always been able to design. I've used themes, ready-made CSS and have sometimes had help but I've never written about a great tool out there which hosts and creates a platform to use for your own website or blog that helps you include a discussion board all under one roof! The service I'm talking about is Squarespace. Squarespace is a CMS in itself that hosts itself and it's easy on the wallet. All you do is pay a monthly fee of $8 if you want to use a '.squarespace.com' domain or $14 and up if you want to use your own domain name such as 'davesjournal.com'. All plans include hosting, full access to help guides and customer support as well as GB's of storage and bandwidth per month. Squarespace was created in 2008 by Anthony Casalena and since then many haven't looked back.

Why Should I "Squarespace" my Website?

You should look into Squarespace for your site if you're not confident using CSS or coding your own website. Squarespace does all the work for you in its WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) interface. Alternatively, after creating the basis of your website, you can add additional CSS within the 'Custom CSS' panel of the admin interface as well as adding additional pages, blogs or forums.

Is Squarespace easy to Setup?

Anyone could setup their website with Squarespace. Plenty of help guides are ready to be read as well as other 'Squarespacers' on the developer forums waiting to answer questions, help you with CSS code or anything that may be troubling you along with one to one customer support with tickets being answered every 5 minutes. Although Squarespace doesn't have a dedicated phone line for support, they don't need it with support 24 hours per day 7 days per week on Twitter and Facebook.

Alternatives?

There are a few alternatives but if you want to get down and dirty with code, Squarespace is your best bet. WordPress and Thesis is another great basis as Thesis a little like Squarespace but doesn't happen as you do it so it takes a bit of experimentation!

References?

If you're still wondering on what Squarespace can do, check out their website, TekSocial (which this blog post will be posted on) and if you're not great with code, try Simon Lunt for inspiration.

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Disclaimer: I wasn't paid by Squarespace to write this blog post.