12 Squarespace SEO Tips

12 Squarespace SEO Tips

At its core, Squarespace is a website builder, but it’s also a hosting platform for any kind of website you can think of—including blogs. People love using Squarespace, because it’s super user-friendly, which makes the whole process of building, launching, and managing your website super easy!!! 

Squarespace has over a hundred included templates, a powerful eCommerce platform, unlimited bandwidth, and storage (that means fast page loading times), and built-in SSL certificates. With Squarespace, you can have a high-quality website ready in minutes. HOWEVER, Squarespace does have limited design and SEO capabilities, making bloggers wonder if Squarespace is right for them. 

Though WordPress is our favorite platform for blogs, Squarespace isn’t bad for your blog either. You just need an SEO strategy to make sure your post ranks high on the search engine results pages. A higher ranking means more traffic and more traffic means more monetization opportunities!!!

All around, you need these Squarespace SEO tips to build your plan for success:

Squarespace SEO Tips

12 Squarespace SEO Tips

Integrate Google Analytics. 

To know what’s working well for your blog and what’s not, you need to have an analytics platform that collects your data. Google Analytics is easy to add and gives you a TON of helpful metrics. So, before you start making all sorts of SEO changes, integrate Google Analytics into your Squarespace site. You can find how to install that Google Search Console in the next section. 

Use your own domain. 

Having your own domain is essential on any website. Google favors sites with a dedicated domain, so ensure “Squarespace” is nowhere in your web address. It should just be your blog title! You can buy a domain right there on Squarespace and they’re pretty cheap too. 

Do keyword research.

Keyword research is a big part of your SEO process. We actually feature keyword optimization in a post covering three beginner SEO strategies. You need to understand what your target audience is searching for and include those keywords and phrases in as many pages, titles, tags, and descriptions as possible. You can do this manual using Google, Bing, and other search engines’ predictive search tool or you can use a program like Semrush’s Keyword Research Tool

Use Correct URL Structure

If you already have your domain, the first half of your URL structure is good to go. But, with every added page, you’ll have a new URL slug. This is everything after the forward slash following “.com.” This URL slug needs to present the blog title clearly, but it should not include the blog category, the date, .html, or any random numbers or letters. 

Add SEO title tags and meta descriptions. 

When you look for content on search engines, the websites are displayed with a title and summary of the content. This is called metadata! It’s important because this is the first impression you get to make on your potential readers. Plus, it provides an opportunity to add keywords! Squarespace automatically generates these, but go in and customize them for the best optimization. 

Ensure you have an SSL certificate. 

A great thing about Squarespace sites is that they come with free SSL certificates! This means your website comes secure at no extra cost to you. This is a huge plus because most search engines flag content without SSL certificates as “unsafe” and most users won’t travel to them.

To make sure you have the SSL certificate turned on, go to Security Preference and change your setting to Secure and HSTS Secure. Learn more about SSL certificates in this post “HTTP vs. HTTPS.”

Create a custom 404 page. 

If a reader mistypes one of your addresses or travels on a broken link, you want them to know your website is still up! A custom 404 page will ensure your visitor knows an error occurred, but your content remains available. Best of all, a custom 404 page provides a way out of the error page and onto your site, increasing your traffic! 

Side Note: If you ever change a link, make sure to set up 301 redirects that take anyone traveling on an old link to the right location. 

Add alt text to images. 

If you have any photos or graphics anywhere on your website, you need to include alt text. When you select the photo, you’ll find the option to add alt text. The text should be a short description of what’s inside the image. This makes your website more accessible to those who are visually impaired, and Google boosts websites with this feature!

In Squarespace, it’ll automatically make your alt text the photo caption. Before navigating off the photo edit panel, turn the captions off. (Unless you want to use it as a caption, of course. But, it’s not necessary for SEO.) 

Make sure it’s mobile-friendly. 

Google favors the mobile-friendliness of a website over the desktop UX. That’s because over half of global web traffic now comes from cell phones! That means your mobile experience needs to be top-notch. Make sure you view your Squarespace website through your cell phone to confirm it looks good and works great! 

Do not index low content or duplicate pages. 

There are pages on your website that have a lot of content, like your blog posts. But there may be other pages, like your contact page, that have low word counts. Don’t index low-content pages. Google and other search engines could see all the low-content pages and decide your website isn’t valuable. 

To turn off indexing on a page, travel to that page’s SEO settings and find the index toggle. Select off. This will make sure Google just sees your best content and ranks your website based on that! 

Ensure all pages are at least 500-700.

If some pages on your site have to be low content, fine. It’s like we said, just don’t index them. However, all relevant pages need to be indexed—your blog posts, your about me page, your product pages, and more. So, to make sure Google sees these pages as “high quality” make them at least 500-700 words. 

Upload regular, optimized blog posts. 

Of course, the most important SEO tip is to upload optimized blog posts to your website! Try to post between 1-5 times a week and ensure every post is the best of what you have to offer. Here are a few things that are needed for an optimized post:

  • Around 4 quality photos or graphics with alt text
  • Lots of external and internal linking
  • Uses plenty of subheadings (most importantly, subheading 1!) 
  • Includes a keyword-rich blog title
  • Between 1,500 – 2,500 words long (Here’s more on content length
  • Includes your unique voice and perspective
  • Speaks about a topic the reader cares about

If you want even more blogging tips, check out this post called “Ultimate List of Tips for Bloggers.” It’s the perfect crash course in all things blogging and SEO! 

How to setup SEO on Squarespace

How To Setup SEO on Squarespace

As we mentioned, Google Analytics is a key component of your SEO strategy. To know if all your SEO efforts are paying off, you need to be able to track your metrics! Google Analytics, in our opinion, is the absolute BEST way to do that. 

Squarespace makes integrating Google Analytics SUPER easy. Here are two ways to add Google Analytics to Squarespace:

Method One: Google Tracking Code

Step One: Make a Google Analytics Account

Start by making a Google Analytics account. This is where you’ll view all your insights! 

Step Two: Find Your Tracking Code

To locate your Google Analytics tracking code, click Admin in the lower left-hand corner of your Google Analytics homepage. Then, in the second column, select Tracking Info. Finally, click Tracking Code and your tracking code will be displayed. 

Step Three: Locate Your External Services Option on Squarespace

On the backend side of your Squarespace website, you need to find the External Services page where you can place this tracking code. To find the space for the tracking code, first, navigate to Settings on your Squarespace site and then go to Advanced. From there, scroll down until you find External Services. Select that option and you should see two boxes. Locate the one that asks for a Google Analytics Account Number.

Step Four: Add Your Tracking Code

Now, it’s time to add your tracking code! Simply copy the tracking code from your Google Analytics page and paste it into the first box on the External Services page. Don’t forget to save. That’s it! Google Analytics is now connected to Squarespace.

Method Two: Google Tag Manager 

Step One: Make Google Tag Manager Account 

If you don’t already have a Google Tag Manager account, go ahead and make one. This is where you’ll view your analytics going forward. 

Step Two: Click Admin and Install Google Tag Manager 

Across the top of the page, just below the Google Tag Manager logo, you’ll see the options: Workspace, Version, and Admin. Click Admin. Then, on the right-hand side, click Install Google Tag Manager. On the next page, you should see two codes displayed. Keep these for step 4! 

Step Three: Go to Squarespace and Find Code Injection

On the backend side of your Squarespace website, click Settings. Under the Website option, you’ll see Advanced. Click that. Finally, select Code Injection

Step Four: Insert Your Code

On this page, you’ll see an option to add code to the header and footer of your Squarespace page. Jump back over to Google Tag Manager and copy the first section of the text. Past that into the header space on Squarespace. Then, copy the second set of text and paste it into the footer box. Finish by clicking Save. 

Squarespace SEO Tools

Squarespace SEO Tools

SEO strategy falls outside the scope of Squarespace customer service. They won’t be helpful if you’re not sure why your website isn’t performing well! Luckily, you can always do a free site evaluation with InfluencerSEO to reveal what’s working and what’s not on your website. Get yours HERE

Though Squarespace does have SEO strategy resources, there are plenty of included Squarespace tools that make optimizing your website a breeze: 

SEO Page Settings

Every page has an SEO settings section that allows you to change metadata, remove indexing, or alter social media previews. Utilize all these features to make sure your website appears how you want on social media and search engines!

SEO Web Design 

Remember, Squarespace is a web builder at its core. So, it’s no surprise that they have so many ways to optimize your site via web design. Here are a few ways Squarespace’s platform helps you improve your SEO:

  • Squarespace creates sitemaps automatically, so you do not need to create one manually
  • Squarespace correctly auto-indexes things like events and products
  • Squarespace includes a free SSL certificate
  • Squarespace auto-generates clean URLs that fit most of our optimization criteria
  • Squarespace takes care of mobile optimization for you 

Read more information on web design and SEO here!

SEO Panel

Your website as a whole has an SEO panel where you can control the appearance of your blog across multiple platforms. You can edit your website title, description, and page title formats. And, there’s a preview tool where you can see how it’ll look before applying the changes. 

SEO Translations

Let’s be real, your blog is going GLOBAL. It’s just a matter of time, right?? Well, Squarespace can help increase your visibility and optimize across continents by providing automated translation services. These transitions are even search engine optimized! 

Squarespace SEO Checklist

With these Squarespace SEO tips, you can get your Squarespace blog ranking in no time!

Squarespace is a stellar beginner platform for bloggers. If you have a Squarespace site or are thinking about building one, use these tips to keep it search engine optimized! However, if you’d rather not deal with boring SEO stuff, bring your blog goals to us—we think SEO is anything but boring and would LOVE to take optimization off your plate. You can view our services HERE!

For more SEO help, check out our blog! Not only do we give you more tips to increase traffic, but we also give you the know-how to monetize those visitors once they arrive. Together we’re going to make sure everyone knows about your blog! 

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