10 Quick and Easy Squarespace SEO Tips
Squarespace has a number of areas where you can improve your SEO (search engine optimization) rankings. And who doesn’t want that? Of course, we all do. It’s how our audience can find us. With so much competition these days, it’s essential to do as much as we can to help our efforts to be seen. Here are 10 quick and easy tips to improve your SEO while working in Squarespace.
#1 - Research Keywords
While not specific to Squarespace, researching keywords is Step 1 in understanding your audience’s search efforts, what they are looking for, and what words they are using to find you. Keywords still hold tremendous value in the world of SEO. If we continually use our keywords in our content to explain who we are, and what it is we offer, it makes us easier to find. Granted, it is no longer considered good practice to “stuff” our content with keywords. This is discouraged by Google, and the key is to strike a balance between adding good keywords, but also not overdoing it to make our content seem unnatural.
There are many good tools to research what keywords are being used by your audience. Here are a few. Try them out, and see if you can gain some more insight into your audience, and help you get seen.
Semrush
Google Keyword Planner
ChatGPT
#2 - SEO Site Description
A site description is the default description that will display when your site comes up in a search result. Once your site comes up in the search results, this is a key area to help convince the potential customer to come to your site. It’s important to be very clear here… who are you, what do you have to offer, and what sets you apart. Too many words and they may not land. Too few, and you may not be taken seriously. Make sure to be adding some keywords here that you have researched in tip #1 above.
In Squarespace, go to Settings > SEO Appearance. You’ll see where you can edit your Site Description (highlighted by the red arrow below). Once you edit that, you will see what your listing will look like when pulled up in Google (red circle below)
#3 - SEO Site Title
The Site Title is what will display as the title of your website in both the google search results (highlighted in red cirlce below), as well as at the top of the browser window. According to your keyword research in tip #1 above, this will most likely be a place where you can use one or more of your top keywords.
In Squarespace, go to Settings > SEO Appearance. You’ll see where you can edit your Site Title (red arrow). Leave the symbols (% |) in there. This will automatically put your company name first, then add your site title after that. Once you edit that, you will see what your listing will look like when pulled up in Google (red circle)
#4 - Page Titles
The Page Title is an important place to add some keywords as well. It is what will be displayed at the top of the browser window. Google likes to have a few descriptive words here to make it stand out more than just the standard - Services, Contact, etc.
In Squarespace, go to Website > Pages. Roll over the page you want to change the Title, you’ll see a gear icon - click that and it will pop up a window to edit some parameters of this page, including the Page Title.
Once this window pops up, you can edit the Page Title on the top line (red arrow). This is what will display in the top of the brower window and where you will want a small description preferably with keywords. The next line “Navigation Title” is what is displayed in your navigation Menu. It’s best to keep this short and to the point. “Services” will be fine here.
#5 - Page Descriptions
You’ll want to add a short description for each page. If you don’t Google will default to your Site Description for each page. This is one more place we can add relevance to our website and another chance to add keywords. Go to Page Settings > SEO then add a short description in the line “SEO Description” (red arrow ). Unless you want to hide this page from Google, leave “Hide Page from Search Results” disengaged.
#6 - Headers
Google has long recommended using an H1 tag for the first header of your page, then moving sequentially down the page with an H2, H3, H4 etc. Typically the first header on your page lets the user (and the search engines) know what your page is all about. From there content can be further divided into sub sections of your main idea. It creates a better user experience for the user as well helps search engines make order of your content. Some have said it may not have an enormous impact on SEO in the end, but I stick with it as I have always done it and don’t want to miss out on any SEO optimization. Simply choose Heading 1 (red arrow)
#7 - Image Optimization
Images have a place in your SEO results as well. Google will want you to optimize all your images on your site in a couple ways.
First, it is important to have images that are not too large in size. Optimize your images as much as possible to be somewhere under say 300k in file size. There is no magic number, just a balance between good resolution so the image is clear, and file size. Larger images on the site I would typically shoot for around 1280 pixels in width max. Smaller images can be smaller. There are a number of tools to help you with this including Photoshop, Gimp, Figma.
Second, you will want to add an “Alt tag” to each image. This is a way that Google can “read” your images. What is the image and what does it have to do with your website. Also people with visual impairments using screen readers won’t be able to determine what the image is without the Alt tag. It’s good for accessibility, and it’s good for SEO.
When you click the “edit” icon on your image once placed on the page, this pop up window will appear. Add a description of your image in the IMAGE ALT TEXT line (red circle). It is encouraged not to “stuff” keywords here and go too crazy, just make a description that makes sense. If you would like to change the FILENAME as well you can do that here too. This helps if your filename is something super complicated and irelevant to the image. You might want to change it if it’s something like 36789hrlask.jpg.
#8 - Connect to Social Media
Social media is unquestionably one of the better ways to reach a large audience. By connecting your social media accounts to your website, you can better leverage your social media audience and connect them with what you are doing on your website as well. The more your “brand” is connected in various ways, the better SEO results you will have. There are two places you can add your social media accounts in Squarespace.
Go to Settings > Social Links
This is where you can add your social icons so your users can click over to your social media accounts.
Go to Settings > Connected Accounts
This is where you login to your accounts in order to push/pull content from your social media accounts. For instance, the Instagram block can be used to bring in your posts from Instagram and display them on your website.
#9 - add a Sitemap to Google
You will want to submit your site map to Google Console. Your sitemap is an xml file that Squarespace automatically generates. It contains information about all the pages on your website. Google wants to see these pages in a concise way to better crawl your website. Google likes sitemaps. You will need to submit your sitemap to Google Console. Go here and create an account if you haven’t already. https://search.google.com/search-console/about .
Click on Sitemaps, then add “sitemap.xml” at the end of your domain name. Click submit and you have told Google where to find it. It may take some time for Google to crawl your site again, but next time it does it will find your sitemap.
#10 - Blogging
Many say the #1 thing you can do to enhance your SEO results is to Blog. Blogging can take time and effort to come up with ideas, and write them in an authentic way, but the effort is worth it if you can do it.
There are many SEO benefits to Blogging.
Be an expert in your field. Google is searching for relevant information on your search terms. The more content you have that demonstrates you know what you are talking about and have expertise in one particular area, the more Google will serve up your website to people searching for that information.
More Content = More Keywords. The more content you have (more blog posts/pages) the more chance you have to increase the amount of keywords you have searchable. Again, no need to add keywords in an artificial way, but the more you write about your subject, the more Google will recognize common keywords you are using.
Your website is alive and well. Google likes websites that are updated frequently. If you consistently add blog posts, Google will recognize that you are in business and active in your community. This will rank higher than a website that is dormant for years with no updates and no new content.
Awesome headlines drive Traffic. Creating enticing headlines in your blog posts is the #1 driver in traffic to your website. Once they find you through a blog post, they can then click around to find out more about you and take a look at your products/services. A great tool to help you is Headline Studio. I have been using this tool for some time and I love it.
Give it a try here…