Small Business Series #1: Choosing a Website Platform
By Joe Kim, Founder of Frontside Consulting
Starting a business is tough. We’ve been in the game helping small businesses grow for over 5 years now and have some insights from a marketer’s perspective that can help you make decisions on how to get started. This is the first of a seven-post series we’re calling the “Small Business Series” that will help you stack the deck in your favor and simplify some of the decisions that you might need to make. We’re kicking this series off with one of the key marketing decisions all modern small business owners will have to make: which website platform to choose.
One of the first hurdles a budding small business owner needs to overcome is choosing the appropriate website platform to build their online presence. So which of the multiple website platform options is the best?
Here’s the TL;DR:
If you are doing eCommerce or have a lot of SKUs: Shopify.
If you are B2B, lead gen, or have very few SKUs: Squarepace.
(No, we’re not sponsored by either but we’d happily take some money to promote so please get in contact with us if you’re from either vendor!)
OK, you probably wanted more details so here we go:
Shopify
Shopify is the king of eCommerce if you’re not selling through Amazon and for good reason. When we onboard new clients, we’re always happy to hear that they’re using Shopify for the following reasons:
Robust Integrations with:
Google Ads
Google Shopping
META Ads Pixel
Google Analytics 4
Great SKU management
Lots of Plugins for Conversion Rate Optimization
Support for multiple payment methods
As our bread and butter business is primarily with Google Ads and Meta Platform Ads, it’s great to know that a simple app install and login can get 99% of the configuration done without having to drop a single line of code into a theme file. For this, we can forgive the fact that Shopify exports funky product IDs into Google Shopping and other product-feed-based platforms.
SEO work is also well templatized so your product titles and descriptions feed into product databases easily.
Squarespace
We put our money where our mouth is for this one as the Frontside Consulting website is built with Squarespace. We find that the aesthetics of the platform lend to beautifully communicating non-product information and creating lead forms is straightforward. It also has good integrations for our advertising platforms:
META Ads Pixel
Google Analytics 4
Mailchimp
There are also good native integrations for appointment scheduling and Mailchimp which is a great platform for maintaining contact with your leads. Compared to Shopify, the interface of Squarespace is more about site navigation and content rather than SKUs.
Runner-Up: WordPress and WooCommerce
WordPress is a pretty amazing tool. Here’s how I break down its strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths: Flexibility
Weaknesses: Flexibility
The number of integrations and apps in WordPress are mind-boggling so if you have an unusual use case, need something built custom, or need some high-powered tools in your website platform, it’s a great option to pursue. eCommerce sites using WordPress often use the WooCommerce plugin to handle and deliver product data so expect to set that up if you have a large SKU count.
Uncle Ben was right, with great power comes great responsibility. WordPress is great, but in some cases, it can be like trying to open a can of tuna with a chainsaw.
Website Checklist for Paid Media
So all of these platforms can certainly be use effectively for a small business, here’s a quick checklist of items we like to see our clients have buttoned up before engaging with us:
Google Analytics 4
Google Tag Manager
META Tag
Pinterest Tag
LinkedIn Tag
Microsoft Ads UET Tag
Stay tuned for the next post in the Small Business Series. We’ll walk you through getting these items configured for Squarespace and Shopify. And if your small business is ready for a partner to manage its digital advertising please contact us!
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