Judge a Book By Its Cover! The Werewolf of Fever Swamp and Custom Squarespace Website Aesthetics.

It was a dark stormy night in Glendora, California. 

I stayed up way past my bedtime reading a Goosebumps book.

My little hands trembled as I read the next paragraph. 

“As the yellow light of the full moon shone down, I gazed into the face of the werewolf as it pinned me to the ground. Its dark eyes glared out at me from a human face covered in wolf fur. It howled its rage, its animal snout opening wide to reveal gleaming rows of wolf fangs.”

Aaaaaaahhh!

Sorry, I still get a bit scared remembering that part. 

Like many children who grew up during the 90’s, I read “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp” from cover to cover and still consider it to be a classic to this day. Author R.L. Stine really knocked it out of the park with that one. 

What’s really crazy though is that I might not have read that book if it hadn’t been for the cover. Normally, I would’ve just passed by such books without a second thought.

Truth be told, I wasn’t always the biggest fan of reading when I was a child. Even when it came to spooks and scares, I usually preferred watching the TV show “Are You Afraid of the Dark” on Nickelodeon rather than cracking open an actual book. 

But “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp” was different. The original cover art seemed very visually appealing and immediately caught my attention. The eerie image of a wolf howling with the pale moon and green swamp water in the background was really stimulating for me to look at as a little kid. 

To me, this really demonstrates the importance of aesthetics. 

Had it not been for the great work of artist Tim Jacobus who was responsible for creating that iconic book cover, I might never have read the actual story itself written by R.L. Stine. 

And so it is with website design as well! 

Having an SEO conscious design is great, but your website should also be aesthetically pleasing to look at. Otherwise, you run the risk of having visitors pass over the website just like I passed over all the non-Goosebumps books at my local bookstore back in the day.  

One of my favorite aspects of using Squarespace over other Content Management Systems is the element of customizability. This is what ultimately makes Squarespace so much better in regards to aesthetics. 

For one thing, users can position elements anywhere on a page using the drag and drop editor. This makes the editing process really straightforward, which is a huge plus. 

Furthermore, having access to custom CSS styling then also provides even more control over the look of the site. This means that someone who is versed in CSS coding can take Squarespace's default themes and turn them into custom website templates. 

You can also create a split layout for the website or add Parallax Scrolling to customize it even further. 

But the best part in all of this is just how easy Squarespace is for the average person to use. 

Let’s face it, not everyone wants to become a master CSS coder or spend valuable time learning all of the various intricacies of a platform. 

The good news is that Squarespace has a dashboard that is super user friendly and makes updating content a piece of cake. (Figuratively speaking of course. Please refrain from attempting to eat your computer monitor!) 

While I wouldn’t say that other platforms such as WordPress have a particularly complicated dashboard per se, it is still nowhere near as easy to update content on. WordPress has all sorts of intrusive updates and plugins that could potentially break the site. 

Now let’s take a moment and think about all of this.

What’s more likely to create an aesthetically pleasing webpage? 

A less user friendly Content Management System with fewer customization features and less control over them? 

Or a sleek Squarespace website that attracts web traffic the same way that the Goosebumps books attracted my attention as a kid?

I know which one I’d want to use! It’s a custom Squarespace website!

And if you’d like help creating or managing such a website of your very own, don’t hesitate to book a consultation with me today!

Unlike “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp”, I promise I won’t bite :) 

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