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squarespacecommerceAPP-077

The Squarespace Small Business Owner

#squarespace#website#small-business#portfolio#ecommerce#non-technical
Aha Moment

“What was the moment this product clicked?” —

Identity

A photographer, therapist, consultant, restaurant owner, or small retailer who built their own website on Squarespace because it was the best option they could manage independently. They are not a developer. They do not want to be. They want a website that looks professional, is easy to update, and doesn't require a support ticket to change the menu. They've succeeded at this mostly. There are two things on their site that have been wrong for three months because fixing them would require understanding something they don't want to learn.

Intention

What are they trying to do? —

Outcome

What do they produce? —

Goals
  • Have a website that reflects their professionalism and doesn't embarrass them
  • Update content — new work, new pricing, new hours — without breaking the layout
  • Get found in search results for what they do and where they do it
Frustrations
  • The style editor that's powerful but requires visual intuition to navigate confidently
  • CSS customizations they found on a forum that worked but they can't explain and won't touch
  • SEO that's hard to know if it's working — or why it isn't
  • The feeling that the design they chose when they started no longer represents them
  • but switching templates feels like starting over
Worldview
  • The website is their digital storefront — it should look like they care
  • Paying a developer for small changes is a tax on having a business
  • A website that's never updated is a website that's slowly lying about the business
Scenario

They're a photographer. They have a new body of work they want to add. They're in the Squarespace editor. Adding images to the gallery — that's easy. They want to restructure the gallery into two sections: personal work and commercial. They've been in the editor for 40 minutes. They've tried three approaches. The layout looks right on desktop and wrong on mobile. They've previewed it on their phone six times. They're about to Google "Squarespace gallery two sections mobile." They will find an answer. It will require CSS. They will do it with mild dread.

Context

Built their website themselves; hasn't changed the template since. Updates content 3–10 times per year. Uses Squarespace's basic plan or Business. May have Squarespace Commerce for product sales. Manages their own domain through Squarespace or transferred from a registrar. Has connected Google Analytics — or meant to. Checks mobile preview regularly. Has paid for a Squarespace expert to do one thing once. Considered moving to Wix or Webflow twice and didn't.

Impact
  • A redesign wizard that applies a new visual direction to existing content
  • removes the "starting over" barrier to refreshing an outdated site
  • Mobile layout controls that match the intent of the desktop layout rather than
  • requiring separate mobile CSS fixes reduce the phone-preview anxiety loop
  • SEO diagnostics written for non-technical owners ("your page title is missing",
  • "these images don't have alt text") replace the abstract SEO health score with actionable items
  • Content scheduling that lets them batch updates removes the interruption
  • of updating the website one page at a time across multiple sessions
Composability Notes

Pairs with `mailchimp-primary-user` for the small business website-plus-email-marketing ownership stack. Contrast with `webflow-primary-user` to map the non-technical owner vs. design-trained builder tool philosophy. Use with `wix-primary-user` for the non-technical website builder comparison set.