Blog

A Look Back at 2016

Before we ring in the new year, we wanted to take a moment and reflect on what has been an incredible year for Squarespace, and most importantly, for our customers. We’re proud of how we’ve evolved this past year, and look forward to keeping up the pace in 2017. Here’s a quick look back.

Exciting new features

Squarespace Domains marked the launch of our domains product, letting our customers register domains directly through Squarespace without having to set up a full website. Our domains product features transparent, all inclusive pricing. There are no additional charges for WHOIS privacy or SSL certificates. Domain transfers are coming soon!

PayPal and Apple Pay let our merchants provide their shoppers with additional ways to pay and an even faster checkout experience.

SSL for Custom Domains was enabled for all custom domains on our platform this year. SSL certificates for custom domains means your visitors’ connections to your site are secure. Sites enabled with SSL will also begin to see preferential treatment by Google in 2017 versus non-secure sites.

26 new templates including designs for small businesses, professional services, food & drink, magazine-style layouts, and simple & interactive portfolios.

Our new Customers panel helps Squarespace merchants understand more about their customer base. View past orders, sort and tag customers, and add notes to help you keep track of your interactions on desktop and within the iOS and Android Commerce app.

Commerce Analytics lets merchants understand how your business is doing by tracking revenue, orders, units sold, and more. Learn which traffic sources are generating the most sales, and delve into your purchase funnel to see how you can optimize conversion.

Apple News arrived with the launch of iOS 10 and has been adopted by millions as a way to stay on top of current events. All Squarespace customers can easily publish content to Apple News right from their blog.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support on all Squarespace blogs means faster loading for your posts on mobile devices when visitors view your content.

Impactful campaigns and initiatives

Super Bowl 2016: Lee & Morris was our 3rd Super Bowl spot featuring a collaboration with two of today’s greatest comedians, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele of Comedy Central’s Key & Peele. As a platform that believes in helping people bring their passions to life, we helped the duo fulfill their dream of becoming professional sportscasters.

Squarespace Circle, our community for people who build sites for clients on Squarespace, went live. Get insider information and news tailored for Squarespace builders by becoming a member.

G Suite x Squarespace, our collaboration with Google, showcases how a beautiful website from Squarespace and professional email from Google can help set you apart online. The campaign featured three of our fantastic customers: Girlboss, Kombucha Dog, and LocoL.

Playing Lynch celebrated the release of the new David Lynch tribute album, The Music of David Lynch, featuring a collaboration between Hollywood legend John Malkovich and acclaimed director Sandro Miller.

The Squarespace Engineering Blog was launched, giving a behind-the-scenes look into the incredibly strong engineering culture that supports our sophisticated platform.

#GivingTuesday is a global day of generosity that champions goodwill over consumerism. This year, we donated $70,000 to Queens, New York-based C4Q (Coalition for Queens), a non-profit that increases economic opportunity for underserved communities through technology, and also highlighted five of their most successful alumni.

Award-winning customer support

This past year, we answered over 500,000 chats and 720,000 emails from our customers, all while maintaining a blended customer satisfaction rating of more than 90%.

For their incredible efforts, our outstanding Customer Support team won three Stevie Awards, the nation’s premier business awards program. We received a Silver Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year, a Bronze Stevie Award for Product Solutions - Customer Service Team of the Year, and a Silver International Stevie Award for Customer Service Team of the Year.

Our new NYC Headquarters

Lastly, we completed the move into our beautiful new NYC HQ, which won Interior Design Magazine’s 2016 Interior Design Best of Year Award for an extra large creative & tech company.

It’s been a landmark year for Squarespace, and we are exceptionally grateful for your ongoing support. We’re excited for what’s to come in 2017 and to continue to help bring our customers’ inspiring ideas to the world. Thank you for making 2016 so extraordinary.

Happy new year!