If you’re reading this it means you’re on my new website so I hope you find it, a) easy to navigate b) responsive and c) that it looks good.
So, before I get into this I wanted to let you know that at the time of writing I’m not, in anyway, sponsored, affiliated or connected with SquareSpace. The reason/s I’ve made the move and feel compelled to let you know are purely personal because I figure if you’re really pleased with a product or service, then you should let others know.
With that said, here’s a little bit of history…
History
For a number of years, in fact pretty much ever since I started out, my main website had been WordPress based; I’ve jumped around with hosts, but the site design and build has been with WordPress. This worked great at the start because I had a web guy who looked after all the necessary technical, behind the scenes stuff like initially designing the site, launching the site and then maintaining it.
As time went on there would be changes that I wanted made to the site to make it either look better by tweaking the design or to make it a better experience for the viewer navigating around. These changes however could take a number of weeks or even months to be implemented because my web guy had gotten busy, and hey he’s a friend so I certainly don’t begrudge that at all; in fact it’s been, and continues to be a thrill seeing how he’s grown and continues to grow. That aside though, getting my site updated was becoming problematic.
The Solution (or so I thought)
The answer was for me to take total control of my site.
Now I’m no web guy, I love technology, but web design and everything that comes with it just isn’t my thing, however, I discovered Divi, a website building platform that integrates into WordPress and is literally drag and drop. You want a picture there? No problem. You want an email contact form there? Sure thing. With a little bit of familiarisation it literally was that easy and in no time I’d designed and built a completely new website; it wasn’t LIVE just yet but I’d built it ready and waiting for that moment.
Once my web guy turned off the old site and made the new one LIVE and I was left to look after things, it was great…for a little while.
As time went on, WordPress (as is the way) introduced updates so I’d install them. All seemed to go fine but then one of the many plugins I had installed to deal with stuff like cookies, backing up, my web store and so on, would introduce an update. I’d update them (well those that said they were 100% Compatible According to the Author) and the next thing I knew, my site would go down. Not being the web guy I’d then have to reach out to the host provider (SiteGround) who would then investigate and sort it out.
This down time would frequently happen though and more often than not, at the most inconvenient times such as when I’d launched a new product / tutorial into my web store.
I had web savvy friends look into what could be happening and why my site was running slow (turns out the speed issue is common amongst websites built with Divi).
Long story short it became a headache. I lost trust in my website. I was forever concerned that it could go offline at any moment, and the monthly cost was forever increasing because the server apparently needed more resources (CPU, RAM). This is bad enough, but worse was that it began to demotivate me writing content to share on my site.
Enough was Enough
Something needed to be done. But what? The thought of having to sort this out started to give me restless nights. My website is the home of my business, I need it to work and it isn’t, but what the heck do I do? I’ve got a domain name that was purchased from one provider and hosted by another. I’ve got email linked to that domain but goes through Google (Gmail). The thought of messing with this and losing the lot was worrying to say the least, but that said, something had to be done and fast!
SquareSpace to the Rescue
Now I’d known of SquareSpace for years; in fact my portfolio had been hosted for quite some time on a very basic page I’d built with it. They just seemed to be going from strength to strength and lots of other creatives around the world (some very high profile) were using them for their own websites. If I was cynical I could have thought that was only because SquareSpace were sponsoring them, but I decided to look into the platform more than I had previously.
Straight away I could see that things had grown since I’d put my portfolio page together a few years beforehand. What was meant to be just a look around, ended up with me clicking here, clicking there, dragging this and that, and in just a couple of hours I had put together a new site with multiple pages, and what’s more it looked and worked exactly how I wanted.
But what about all the technicals?
Building the site was the fun part but now I had to sort out all the technicals like connecting my domain name (www.glyndewis.com).
It turns out I needn’t have worried because this was relatively easy. I say, relatively because I did have to have a few LIVE Chats with my former web host (SiteGround) as they gave me instructions on what to do but when you dive into the control panel of a website and start changing MX, A and CName records, it can be quite a tense time hoping you don’t mess up.
SiteGround were AMAZING though. Incredibly helpful. Incredibly knowledgeable and very encouraging that all would be fine. I did lose emails for 48 hours and that caused me to lose sleep but it got sorted and all thanks to SiteGround.
The Customer Service at SquareSpace has also been outstanding. I just can’t fault it. The couple of times I got in touch with them whilst moving everything over, they’ve gone above and beyond to help out. To be honest, everything I needed to know was right there in their help section but this was a big deal for me, and I guess I just needed a bit of reassurance from them.
So now what?
Well, I simply could not be happier!
I have a website that I am proud to promote. I have a website that does exactly what it is supposed to do. I have a website that works!
No more updating plugins. No more worrying about downtime; if anything involving the technicals needs doing, SquareSpace do it their end, it’s what they do, meaning your website is safe AND you can trust it.
If I want to change something I can. The interface is so crazy easy to use. It just does what it’s supposed to do and does it extremely well, and there’s always new things and improvements being added in.
My motivation for writing content has well and truly returned and if I could shout a recommendation from the rooftops I would; SquareSpace for the win!
What about my Webstore?
Well this has also changed and I love it! I now have a completely new web store / teaching platform (not with SquareSpace).
I was never 100% happy with my previous store. There were products / tutorials that folks purchased, downloaded and that was it. Sometimes download links would be delayed. Sometimes folks would log in and their previous purchases weren’t there, meaning I’d then have to send a direct download over. Of course this wasn’t a problem but it shouldn’t have been happening. It wasn’t the best experience for the user.
Now though this has changed BIG time!
Folks can enrol in a course I have created and they can stream OR download the content from a beautiful looking interface. When you log back in, you carry on from where you last left off. I’ve added knowledge checks in after each section to check learning and there’s even a certificate of completion issued.
It’s just perfect. It’s exactly what I would want as a student. I love it, and the feedback I’ve been getting tells me that others are loving it too.
One last thing…
I’m guessing by now you can tell that I’m really happy with the changes, and my motivation for writing content is well and truly back.
It will be no surprise to you that I highly recommend SquareSpace for all your website needs, but if you already have a web site and just need a great, reliable host, then look no further than SiteGround; both of which I have no connection with other than being a VERY happy customer.
If you’ve not had chance to dive around this new website of mine and the new teaching platform, I’d love it if you took a moment to and let me know what you think.
Best to you and yours,
Glyn