Squarespace vs Bandzoogle: Which One is Better for Musicians?
So today we will have a look at Squarespace vs Bandzoogle. I know you might be really confused right now about which platform should you use for your music website.
Most people new to building websites using web builders often get stuck choosing between the two. The decision of choosing either of the two depends entirely on the person. Both of them have their pros and cons, and the person should proceed with the one according to their requirements.
The importance of considering the features increases even more when it comes to building a music website.
If you want to win the competition against thousands of music websites available online, you should consider a good website-building platform that is going to make you stand out. That’s why we’re here to help you pick the right one for your music website.
So in this article, we will have a detailed comparison between both Squarespace and Bandzoogle. We will also give you some tips to choose the one that fits your needs. Let’s get right into that.
Squarespace vs Bandzoogle: A Detailed Overview
Before we get into the features and other related understanding, let us have a basic knowledge of both platforms.
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace was founded in 2003 by a small team of University Students studying at the University of Maryland. Initially, the idea behind creating this website builder was to provide customers with hosting.
They also reviewed some of the hosting providers through blogs and shared their reviews about different hosting platforms available in the market.
However, the owners decided to convert it into a website builder that could enable the users to build a quality website with simple drag-and-drop features.
The company then started generating significant revenue and made a substantial recurring customer base as soon as it shifted to the subscription model.
Squarespace brought constant updates to the platform by making significant changes. This helped the company in generating recurring customers and the company grew significantly in terms of revenue.
Now if we take a look at Squarespace, we can easily tell that it’s an all-in-one platform for anyone who wants to build a website or an online brand for their business.
It’s a very user-friendly platform that allows you to easily build a website in a short period of time without having to know how to code. With Squarespace’s drag-and-drop features and its simple website editor, you can design and create your website quickly.
The great thing about Squarespace is that it also has a lot of free good looking templates that you can start with to easily build your site. These templates can save you a lot of time and allow you to create a clean professional website.
In addition to that, Squarespace has a lot of more powerful features that you can benefit from when creating a music website. You can easily integrate with many third-party tools and also do your own customizations with code injections and CSS custom coding.
If you want to try Squarespace free for 14 days without using your credit card, you can start your free trial today to see if you like the platform.
By the way, you can use my affiliate code MEHDI10 for 10% off if you really like Squarespace and want to use it.
What is Bandzoogle?
The company was founded by Chris Vinson in 1999 and had been serving customers by providing accessible web programming services since then. The company's idea came in 1999 when the owner of the brand created a music band website, which helped the band generate quality revenue.
From 1999 to 2003, Chris Vinson provided web development and designing services to most customers. He soon realized he had to be involved in maintaining the websites all the time, and almost all of the clients could not keep their websites on their own.
Due to this, he decided to create a control panel that could help clients maintain the websites. This control panel then turned out to be a million-dollar company named Bandzoogle.
Bandzoogle has performed well in the industry by bringing quality updates to its CMS. It operates on a subscription model and offers a hosting facility to customers.
The website builder offers more than 100 features for musicians, including music players, a list of gigs, music listings, etc. Another significant aspect of the company is the regular-priced membership.
Bandzoogle has not increased a single dollar to the current membership price and has no plans of increasing that in the near future.
So in summary, both platforms Squarespace and Banzoogle offer a lot of powerful features for building a music website. The choice between these two depends on the type of features you need and also on your budget.
Squarespace is a website builder that focuses on creating websites for small businesses including musicians, while Bandzoogle is a platform created specifically for building band websites.
If you want an easy and simple platform that will allow you to create a professional music website, then Squarespace might be an excellent option for you, especially if you’re not a tech person.
Because it has all the features that you will need and it also allows you to do more customizations. But if you’re looking for a website builder with the lowest price and the minimum music features you need, Bandzoogle can also be a good option to start with.
Squarespace vs Bandzoogle: Key Features For Musicians
Considering the features of the website builders is one of the major aspects to consider before finalizing the decision.
You can check out the Youtube video below that compares both platforms in terms of music features, e-commerce functionality, blogging, and scaling abilities.
A comparison between Bandzoogle and Squarespace to help you choose the right platform for your music business.
By the way if you want to try Squarespace, they have a 2 weeks free trial. Click the link below to start your trial.
Or you can try Bandzoogle if you don’t want to use Squarepace.
So as you can see, the video compares most of the important points for you. You can also take a look below at the major features of both website builders:
Squarespace Music Features
Squarespace is the best for the features available for building musical websites. It offers musicians a wide range of customization options to add quality features to their websites.
Take a look at the significant features that Squarespace offers for musicians:
Audio Blocks: The audio block is one of the best features Squarespace offers. By using this, you will be able to add content and audio files within the same block. This allows the users to read the content about the music they are viewing and download from the same place.
Unfolding Apps: This block allows you to add social media sharing options that can help carry out promotional activities.
Email Lists: You can choose a customized email template according to your needs. After selecting the templates, you can add your customized written email and send it to your email subscription list.
Quality SEO Features: Squarespace offers quality SEO features, including sitemap creation, internal linking opportunities, web analytics, site structure, etc.
Blogging: Squarespace is good for blogging if you want to have a blog on your music site. The platform has a lot of blogging features that you can use to create a professional blog that ranks on search engines and gets you more visitors.
E-commerce Functionality: Squarespace offers quality e-commerce functionality that allows users to add music for sale. Whether you want to sell your music or merch items, the platform will give you all the features you need.
Mobile Friendly: Squarespace automatically makes your website responsive on all types of devices including mobile devices. So all your website pages will work on all screen sizes without any problems.
Customer support: Another great advantage of the platform is that they have a very good customer support team that can always answer your questions. So no matter what problem you have, you can just reach out to their support and everything will be fine.
Event collection: This feature allows you to inform your fans about upcoming concerts, festivals, classes, and other special events.
Premium Templates and Plugins: In Squarespace, there are a lot of premium templates and plugins that you can use on your website to make your life easier. As a result, your website will have unique features and your design will stand out from the crowd.
These are just some of the few important features that Squarespace offers, but if you use the platform and try it free for 14 days, you will realize that it has a lot more features.
Bandzoogle Music Features
The website builder offers a wide range of facilities for website builders. However, most of the functions are restricted to musicians only. This can be a downside for the website when you want to scale your music business on the internet.
Let’s take a look at the important features that Bandzoogle offers.
Crowd Funding: One of the best features Bandzoogle offers is crowdfunding. Using this feature, musicians can create offers and ask for funding from sponsors and viewers through various promotions.
Selling Options: Bandzoogle has multiple selling options available for musicians. They can easily list songs, albums, concert tickets, music show seats, etc. The only downside to the feature is that it is only compatible with digital products related to music only.
Promotional Features: Bandzoogle offers a variety of promotional activity options available within the website builder. This includes social sharing options, SEO, content management, email marketing, etc.
Payment Options: Bandzoogle has a wide range of payment options available within the platform. You can utilize these payment options to link and receive payments from your customers.
Ticket sales: With Bandzoogle, you can create a calendar to easily manage virtual and live events. In addition to that, you also get built-in ticket sales for the events.
Social Media integration: The platform makes it very simple for you to connect to any social media platform or any streaming service. As a result, this feature makes it easier for you to share content with all your audience and fans.
The Calendar feature: Bandzoogle has built-in calendar features that make it easier for you to add your music events to your website with just a few clicks. This will allow your fans to always stay updated with your latest events.
Squarespace vs Bandzoogle: Design
The design of the website plays an essential role in its success. If the user interface does not excite the users, you will have fewer business opportunities and visitors might not take action on your website.
Considering this, both website builders pay special attention to the website's design. They offer multiple designed templates and added functionalities in terms of website design customizations.
Take a look at the design features both web builders offer.
Squarespace
Squarespace has hundreds of free customizable templates that you can start with. People can use these templates and designs according to their needs and how they want their site to look.
The platform has a lot of music templates that you can use. In addition to that, you can easily customize them as you want. The templates provide customization options that are mostly easy to handle and offer a variety of colors, designs, images, layouts, etc.
Also with the new Squarespace’s fluid engine, you get more customization and drag-drop features to allow you to customize your music website the way you want.
Bandzoogle
Since Bandzoogle is a platform specially dedicated to musicians, it offers various options in terms of themes.
The menu customization option is also easy to handle. You can create an excellently drafted footer and main menus according to your preferred color and design needs.
So with Bandzoogle, you can also edit the available themes using its simple editor. The platform lets you select from a list of niche music themes to customize them as you want with any styles you like.
In addition to that, you can also use some CSS coding for more customization when styling your music website.
Which One is Easier to Use?
When it comes to ease of use, both platforms have a user-friendly interface that makes it easier for you to build your music website. You can easily learn and understand both platforms without having to spend a lot of time.
Squarespace comes with a simple web editor that allows you to edit your website and customize it as you want. With easy drag-and-drop features, Squarespace allows you to design and build your site in a short period of time.
The platform targets people that are non-techies and those who don’t know how to code. As you can see in the picture below, the Squarespace editor is very simple and straightforward.
Squarespace editor navigation.
From this editor, you can access most of the features that Squarespace will offer for your music website. You can access all your website pages, design your site user interface, edit your settings, track your website analytics, and much more.
On the other hand, Bandzoogle also offers a very simple web builder for non-techies to allow them to easily create their music website. Once you create your account on Bandzoogle, the system gives you control and guides you through every step in the design process.
As a result, this will allow you to easily start your music website and save a lot of time trying to figure out the next step.
Bandzoogle comes with many different types of music themes that you can start with to make the design process easier and quicker. You just need to pick the right theme and put all your content and music on it.
So I think both platforms are easy to use and very user-friendly. You just need to know the basics and you will be good to go. There are a lot of Youtube tutorials teaching the essentials of both platforms. Make sure you check them out if you’re new to website building.
Squarespace vs Bandzoogle: Pricing
Pricing is one of the significant aspects to consider before proceeding with any website builder. Since both website builders also offer hosting options and charges on a membership basis, you will have to decide regarding the features both provide within a specific price range.
Squarespace Pricing
Squarespace offers four different packages starting from 16$ per month and going up to 49$ per month depending on which pricing plan you choose. It would be best if you chose the package considering the features they provide.
Squarespace offers a wide range of features to improve the credibility and performance of any website. You should analyze your requirement and decide accordingly to gain the best value.
You can check out the Squarespace pricing page to see the features available on each plan so that you can go with the right plan for you.
You can also customize packages according to your own needs by contacting customer support. This can help achieve the best value in terms of money and features.
Bandzoogle Pricing
Bandzoogle offers three different packages that can be helpful for different types of customers who require different features.
So as you can see in the picture above, Bandzoogle is a little bit cheaper than Squarespace in terms of pricing. Plans start from 8.29$ up to 16.63$ depending on which plan you need. If you can’t afford to pay for Squarespace, I think Bandzoogle will be a good option for you.
However, I think Bandzoogle still needs some work on its security features. In addition to that, you will find it a little hard to scale your website in the future.
Which One is Good for SEO?
Squarespace is an all-in-one website-building platform that gives you all the SEO features and tools that you will need. All the code that Squarespace uses in templates is very optimized for SEO to make your website easier to be crawled in search engines.
Squarespace also automatically generates an XML sitemap for you so that you can easily submit it to the Google search console.
According to my experience in Squarespace SEO, you can easily make your website appear in the top Google search results if you follow all the SEO best practices.
The platforms give you all the tools you need, you just need to take the right actions that are good for SEO when adding content to your website. If you’re not that good with SEO, you can check out my article to help you boost SEO on your Squarespace website.
Adding SEO titles and descriptions in Squarespace.
In addition to that, you can also use this Squarespace SEO checklist to help you rank your website on search engines. I followed this checklist when starting my Squarespace blog. As a result, now I can easily rank at the top of google thanks to good SEO.
On the other hand, Bandzoogle also comes with useful SEO settings that you can easily edit on your own. You can add your meta titles, descriptions, and keywords. You just have to go to the “pages” sections and then fill in all the required fields.
So in my opinion, I think both website builders have good SEO, but Squarespace is a little bit more SEO-friendly because it has more SEO features and tools that help you rank your content.
Which One Should You Choose? Bandzoogle or Squarespace?
Considering the features, designs, pricing, and brand history, you might be able to make your decision up till now.
However, if you are still unsure, you should proceed with Squarespace. Most of the features that Squarespace offers are of premium quality and not restricted to a single industry only. This will be best in terms of scaling and marketing for your music business.
On the other hand, the features Bandzoogle offers are highly related to music only. Moreover, their marketing option is not that much compatible. Considering the feature and their relation to music only, you will find your website difficult to scale in the future.
You will also find your products or services challenging to market since most of the available marketing options do not allow you to do specialized marketing.
I recommend that you start the Squarespace 2 weeks free trial to see if you really like it. If you don’t, you can use Bandzoogle.
Conclusion
Website builders can be beneficial in building your website if you don’t want to pay a huge amount to full-stack developers to develop everything from scratch. They also help you in keeping your website maintained and you won’t have to rely on others for each change done to your website.
However, you should always make decisions according to your need and proceed with the one that can be helpful for your business not only now but also in the future. So think about it long-term and try to go with the platform that will give you the best results in the future.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Squarespace offer a free domain name?
Yes, of course, Squarespace gives you a free domain name for the first year of using the platform. After the first year, you will have to pay 20$ per year for your website’s domain name.
If you also need a discount on your Squarespace membership, there are many monthly discount codes that Squarespace can give you. By the way, you can also get a 10% off discount if you use my affiliate code MEHDI10 from the link at the top of this page.
Does Bandzoogle offer a free domain name?
All Bandzoogle plans come with a free domain name that you can directly get inside the platform. In addition to that, you can also connect any external domain name that you bought outside the platform.
Does Squarespace limit the amount of music that you sell?
Squarespace doesn’t put any limit on the amount of music that you can sell on the platform. You just need to have all the rights to sell the music and not steal anybody else’s product. If you follow the legal rules, you can sell whatever you want on Squarespace.
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