LaunchTheDamnThing

FYI, just editing the Twitter social link didn't work for me at first either. I had to remove/delete the Twitter social link altogether, then add it as if it were a totally new platform with the new link using https://x.com/username rather than https://twitter.com/username. Should work that way! 😁

I just found this & am definitely intrigued! I've had some clients ask about something like this because they're afraid to "mess up" their new website when they start updating on their own. For one or two, I've had to tell them that I could make a copy to have as a backup, which work 'enough' but wouldn't be exact copy as it wouldn't pull over some customizations from tools like SquareKicker in the duplicate, etc. For others, I've copied the pages they were most concerned about and put the duplicates in a folder on their website, turned of search engine indexing for each of the copies, etc. Both of which aren't ideal solutions, but it did help give them peace of mind. 🙃

@hdledbetter Thank you for the compliment on my site! 😍 And you're quite welcome! It's a totally new tool unlike anything else out there so it's 100% fair to have questions about it. I'm a detail-oriented person too, and a problem solver by nature so I completely understand what you mean about falling into a rabbit hole of what-ifs. To get out of that, I just had to "take messy action" and see how things worked in real life. I tried it on my own site first, then in a trial site, and just kind of expanded from there as I got more & more comfortable with it. I also asked Nick & Hannah LOTS of questions in the beginning. 😂 Yeah, I mean I don't want to be mean-spirited in pointing out that person's poor design skills, but who's still designing sites like the ones from '99/00s? Even the ones I've seen that are meant to be a throwback with a nod to the old styles (but with a modern twist) weren't like the one I just saw. The designer's link in the footer showed they are more of a photographer & videographer, as their site didn't mention website design as a service at all, so who knows what really happened there. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt, so maybe it was a free/barter kind of thing with someone the client knew personally. Who knows. 😉 Anyway, try not to fall too deep into the what-ifs, –you've got this! I'm sure every designer that comes in after a previous one is a little bit confused, because we all operate a bit differently with different preferences for this or that which make sense to us (& how WE work, but maybe not to others), so that's kind of to be expected. At least with SK the code is backed up & still accessible, so if the next person comes in & needs to see it to make sense of things, they can still see all the custom code written by SK. As far as swapping sites in/out from Active to Inactive & back within our SK dashboard, I have a tutorial post on that too, over here. There's a video at the end of the post so you can literally see how it works in my account. The dashboard style has changed a bit since that post, but the process is still the same. 🙂 Happy I was able to answer so many of your questions!

I've just published a blog post covering most of what I mentioned above & more, as my review of using SquareKicker for over a year on my own site & client sites. 🙂 https://www.launchthedamnthing.com/blog/squarekicker-an-honest-review

The co-owners Nick & Hannah are wonderful! I've had many interactions with them through email & social media and their recent webinar was awesome, giving us a chance to give them real-time feedback & ask questions live. The SK team is always extremely receptive to feedback and always happy to help if I have a question, any time. As a long-time user myself (I've used it for over a year now, having signed up to try the Beta version when they first launched last fall & just renewed my plan this month), I'll answer your questions with my own experience & opinions: Site handoff can still be easy, even if I used SquareKicker! While designing, I try to be conscious of whether I think the client will want to perform edits in SK after handoff or not, and then use that to decide which types of edits I make with SK so they don't cause confusion down the road, as the one downside is that there's not really a visible sign that a block has been edited by SK until you open the SK editor so it can be hard for clients to know whether to edit a style in Site Styles or SK. That said: My clients don't tend to be in industries that keep their site's content updated as often as I do, and so they don't tend to want to edit design stuff after handoff, just content; they also don't want the subscription or to learn an additional thing. I teach my client the how-tos of basic edits & content updates in Squarespace, then remove the site from the Active list in my SquareKicker account so it no longer counts toward my 10 Active sites. If the client needs an adjustment to something I've edited using SK, then I put it back in the Active list, make the changes & once the client is satisfied, I move it back to Inactive. Easy peasy. IF the client DOES want to use SK to edit themselves & take over the subscription, that's easy as well: simply email Nick & tell him specifically what Squarespace website url you need transferred & share the email the client used to signed up for their free trial of SK. Nick transfers the code/changes made with SK and the ownership of the plugin to the client's SK account FOR us; this removes it from my entire site list, gives client full access & they can choose what plan they want, while keeping the changes I made with it & the ability to make further changes themselves. If the client's subscription lapses, the design changes STAY, but further changes aren't allowed until the subscription is active again. SK's subscription cost for clients: Of course! I just explain that SK gives them more design power which will help their site be more unique, but it's an external plugin not native to Squarespace. If they want to use it themselves or have ownership of how it works, they can opt to pay for it longterm (annually) or month-by-month as needed, subscribing & cancelling the subscription when they need to use it & when they don't. It doesn't have to be an ongoing cost, which is nice! A happy side effect of keeping their site in my SK site list, is that I essentially take on the cost as I'm paying for the Designer Plan which allows 10 active sites regardless of what they decide, and I can keep their site in my Active or Inactive list as needed. Inactive sites don't count toward my Active 10, so I rarely reach the limit, but I do typically have 3-5 Active at any given time. On your last concern about not being a "real designer" if you use a tool like SquareKicker, that's just BS and/or imposter syndrome making you second guess yourself! I daresay anyone can say that about anyone, regardless of whether they used a tool like SK or not –just based on a judgment of skills & what was done in the design, alone. 😂 In fact, I recently had a client reach out who'd had their site designed IN Sqsp 2-3 years ago and I've NEVER seen a Sqsp site look so much like something that originated in the late 90s or early 00s. I honestly had no idea Sqsp sites could even look that dated & with a severe lack of design strategy, –and yes I definitely judged the designer a bit! Here's a few things that actually matter, regarding this argument though: 1) You are a designer if you did the work, the work is functional for the client, the finished product ultimately helped their business, you got paid to do it, and the client is happy. That's really all that matters. 2) Design & Development are 2 completely different things. I am a "web designer" and I'm confident in that title; while I can write basic HTML and CSS, I would not call myself (& don't want to be) a "web developer" & that's okay with me! There is a place for both. 3) The nature of how the Sqsp platform works means that more extreme customizations HAVE to be coded in, because it's not included in the native features. Whether or not you write the code yourself points more toward whether or not you've ALSO got some development skills. 4) Anything that saves time is gold to people who work with clients 1:1, because our time is literally money, whether that means automations used in our CRMs or tools like SK –both save us time, but one wouldn't mock us for saving time writing emails or reminders to clients manually when we can automate that & save time. Same deal with using SK; it accomplishes the same task, but faster. 5) I think SK works for many levels of designers, who know coding basics, who can code sites from the ground up, or can't write code at all, which is pretty amazing. Those who would scoff at it or make fun of "us" for using it, etc likely aren't designing on Sqsp to begin with, so I wouldn't let this worry you. I've used it for over a year myself, and some of the changes I make with it, I could write myself but the fact that I don't have to is nice! 6) I'd argue that using SK to make custom changes can actually be smarter than writing the code ourselves if the client isn't on a site maintenance package with you, because if Sqsp changes the code on their backend and our custom code stops working because of that change, it's because the static code written won't update itself; the customization may break resulting in a panicked client request to fix it. BUT if we use SK for stuff like that, this is something they stay on top of for us, so as the code changes on Sqsp's end, SK will quickly update the way the plugin implements those design changes, which keeps things from breaking, and our clients from panicking that something looks wrong or doesn't work/display/whatever. 🙌🏻 7) I also do subcontract work for another Sqsp designer who also uses it for her clients as well, and when I build the sites for her (& also use SK during the build), I just handoff ownership of that site's SK plugin to her when the build is done and she chooses whether to keep the site in her plan or pass off to her client. So never doubt that "real" designers are using it in the wild! lol Hope that helps! 😄