10 Essential SEO Tips for Optimizing Your Squarespace Website [2024 Guide]
Squarespace has long been a go-to platform for creatives and businesses looking for stunning, user-friendly websites. However, to make sure your website is easily discoverable, you need to implement effective SEO strategies.
With the new Squarespace Refresh update and powerful tools like the SEOSpace plug-in, optimizing your website has become easier than ever. Here’s a few quick tips on how you can make the most of it!
1: Optimize for Local SEO
If you’re a business that serves a specific geographic area, SEO is your best friend. Squarespace allows you to easily add your business’s address, phone number, and other location details via the “Business Information” section in site settings.
Pro Tip: Add your location name to title tags, meta descriptions, and even within your content. Register your business with Google My Business for added visibility. From your Google Business profile, you can link directly to your website.
2: Use SEOSpace Plug-In for In-Depth Optimization
One of the most useful tools for Squarespace SEO is the SEOSpace plug-in. This third-party tool integrates seamlessly with Squarespace and helps you track keyword performance, analyze backlinks, and optimize your content for search engines.
How to Use SEOSpace:
Keyword Research: Use SEOSpace’s keyword tracking feature to find high-performing keywords relevant to your industry.
On-Page SEO Audits: SEOSpace provides real-time feedback on whether your pages are optimized for your targeted keywords.
Backlink Analysis: This feature helps you track where your backlinks are coming from and identify opportunities for more authoritative links.
SEOSpace makes it much easier for DIY site designers to implement good SEO on to their website, and they even offer a free to use plan which is awesome for this.
3. Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are critical for SEO. These are the snippets that show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) and should include your primary keywords. Squarespace allows easy access to these fields in the page settings.
Keep title tags under 60 characters and meta descriptions under 160 characters. Include relevant keywords naturally to boost click-through rates.
Google and other search engines can’t “see” images like we can, so they rely on alt text to understand what an image represents. Make sure every image on your site has descriptive alt text that includes your target keywords when relevant. Alt text should describe the image in a concise and clear manner, while also contributing to your keyword strategy.
Pro Tip: The Squarespace Refresh update introduced exciting new features such as AI-generated meta descriptions on your photos, which save you a load of time, and help your website rank better in Google. Win win!
4. Create SEO-Friendly URLs
Squarespace automatically generates URLs based on your page titles, but these can often be too long or not optimized for search. Ensure that your URLs are short, descriptive, and include relevant keywords.
Pro Tip: Keep URLs under 50 characters and use hyphens to separate words. For example, use “website-design-services” instead of “websitedesignservices.”
5. Optimize Header Tags (H1, H2, H3)
Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) help search engines understand the hierarchy and importance of your content. Squarespace allows easy customization of these headers, so make sure you’re using them to structure your content effectively.
Pro Tip: Use one H1 tag per page for the main title, followed by H2 and H3 tags for subheadings. Incorporate relevant keywords where appropriate to boost on-page SEO.
6. Create High-Quality, Engaging Content
If you’ve made it this far into the article - I’d like to think my own content is engaging enough! Content is still king when it comes to SEO. Regularly update your blog or website with fresh, engaging content that’s optimized for your keywords. Squarespace’s blogging tools make it easy to publish content that drives traffic and ranks well on search engines.
Pro Tip: Share tutorials, case studies, and behind-the-scenes stories about your business. Use your keyword research to determine what topics your audience is searching for.
7. Writing Blog Articles
Blogging is one of the best ways to drive organic traffic, and using a tool like SEOSpace can help you optimize every post. The plug-in offers recommendations on keyword density, content length, and internal linking strategies. The key here is to write content which your visitors will find useful and engaging, as mentioned above.
Pro Tip: Focus on long-tail keywords for your blog posts. These are less competitive and often bring in highly targeted traffic.
8. Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console
Squarespace automatically generates a sitemap for your website, which is essential for SEO. However, you should still submit it to Google Search Console to ensure Google indexes all your pages.
How to Submit: Go to your Google Search Console account, add your domain, and submit your sitemap URL (usually www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml). This ensures that Google’s crawlers can properly index your website.
9. Optimize for Mobile Responsiveness
You know how it is. We use our phones to read (almost) everything. With mobile-first indexing, Google prioritizes the mobile version of your website in search results. Squarespace templates are already responsive, but it’s essential to regularly check how your site performs on different mobile devices.
Pro Tip: Use Squarespace’s device view tool to preview how your website looks on mobile, and ensure text, images, and buttons are properly scaled and easy to interact with.
10. Compressing and Renaming your Image files
Before uploading images to Squarespace, it’s important to compress them. If you’re uploading a 24MB image of a beautiful sunset, it’s going to take an age to load for some people and slow down your website. A slow website is good for nobody! Make sure your image is under 2MB for best practice, but the smaller - the better!
Also ensure to rename your image files with descriptive, keyword-rich file names. This helps search engines understand the content of your images and can improve your visibility in image search results.
Pro Tip: Instead of using generic file names like “IMG1234.jpg,” use names like “makeup-artist-london.jpg” to give search engines more context and boost your SEO.
Congrats! You’ve officially reached the bottom of the article.
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Your Squarespace Designer
Hi, I’m Nick. I've been designing killer brands and stunning websites for over five years. I have worked with all types of clients of all sizes, from entrepreneurs to global corporations, and I combine my graphic design & branding experience with Squarespace specialism to make bespoke websites that are uniquely you.
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