Squarespace is a great Content Management System (CMS), if you’re looking for a minimalist, easy to use platform to build your website. Squarespace offers a multitude of features like Google fonts, minimal photo editing features, high quality Unsplash images, custom themes and more. It is truly one of the best website builders out there.
But Squarespace is also great for SEO. On this blog, we will be discussing about Squarespace SEO, including tips and tricks on how to get more traffic your site and get better rankings in Google.
But before we get to the tips for Squarespace SEO, let us first answer some of the burning questions regarding it.
Is Squarespace good for SEO?
When it comes to SEO, Squarespace has a lot of advantages that other platforms lack.
First, the platform is built with best practices in mind—there are no unnecessary elements that slow down your site, like overlays and pop-ups. This means that your pages will load quickly and Google will rank them higher.
Second, the platform uses clean code that makes it easy for search engines to read content on your website. Some sites have fancy formatting that’s hard for search engines to understand because it’s not very clear what the most important information is (when all of it looks the same). With Squarespace, you won’t have to worry about this.
Third, their templates are mobile-optimized and responsive, which means they look good on any screen size and make it easy for people to navigate your website on their phone or tablet. This is increasingly important as more and more people use mobile devices to view websites. Google also takes into account how mobile-friendly a website is when ranking pages, so using a mobile-optimized template is essential.
Does it Help to have a Squarespace SEO Plugin?
No! Because Squarespace doesn’t have an SEO plugin like many other website builders, because it is built with simplicity in mind.
If you use Squarespace, you don’t need to use a plugin because everything is already built into the interface. Instead of having to use a lot of different plugins to make Squarespace work, the platform was built by its founder to work as-is and not need any extra tweaking.
Tips for Squarespace SEO
Making your website easy to navigate is a key part of Squarespace SEO. When people visit your site, they should be able to find what they’re looking for with as few clicks as possible. For example, consider including a search bar on every page of your site so people can quickly find what they’re looking for—even if it’s buried three levels deep in your navigational menu.
Adding links to other pages on your website not only helps with SEO, but also helps users find what they’re looking for and get more value from your site. Linking to other pages on your site on and off the homepage, in blog posts, and in product descriptions will help visitors go deeper into your site and explore more of what you have to offer.
2. Keep your URLs short!
Simplify your URLs as much as you can, as search engines love short URLs.
When you set up your landing page on a site like Squarespace, it’s automatically going to create a URL for you with the name of your website attached to it. For example, if your site is called “Bungee Jumping 101” and the page is called “How To Jump Off a Bridge Like A Boss,” it’ll look like this:
[website name].com/how-to-jump-off-a-bridge-like-a-boss.
That’s a good start, but it could be better! Try to get rid of everything in the URL that isn’t absolutely necessary. In this case, here’s how you do that:
Go to the settings of your landing page (Settings -> Advanced -> Page URL). Then, simply type in the name of your page (“how-to-jump-off-a-bridge”).
Title Tags
Your site title should be the most important information on the page, but it shouldn’t be too long or boring. We recommend keeping it between 40–60 characters long.
Your meta description should be a short paragraph that describes what’s on the page and what action you want readers to take next (like read more about something.) It also needs to include relevant keywords for that particular page to help search engines understand.
Meta Descriptions
Just as you want unique titles for each page of your website, you’ll also want unique meta descriptions for each page. Meta descriptions give search engines an idea of what’s on the page, so you’ll want to make sure that each meta description reflects what’s actually on the page.
An easy way to remember this is to think about how you’d describe this particular page in a few sentences. The meta description should be that description, but shortened so it can fit into the box provided.
4. Keyword optimization
In Squarespace SEO, keywords are one of the most important factors to rank your website. Here are a few tips for keyword optimization.
Choose your keywords wisely
When you’re doing keyword research, you want to find phrases that have a high search volume but low competition. The lower the competition, the easier it will be for you to rank on Google. You can use Google’s Keyword Planner or Ahrefs Keyword Explorer to do your research.
Include keywords in your titles and headings
Include your keywords in the title tags and headings of your webpages, making sure that they read naturally with your content. You can highlight text and click the header button (h1) or subheader button (h2) in the menu bar at the top of the page when editing your website to make text into a heading or subheading.
Write simple URLs that include keywords
Your URL should be concise, readable for both users and search engines, and include keywords if possible. When creating a new page, Squarespace will automatically generate a URL based on the page title—you can change it by clicking “Edit” next to the URL field at the top of the page when editing your website.
5. Don’t forget image SEO!
One of the best ways to do SEO with a Squarespace website is to optimize your images. When you upload an image, be sure to add an alt tag that describes what it is. This will tell Google what your image is about, which will help them understand your content better, and improve your rankings in search.
For example, if you were uploading a picture of a dog licking its lips, you could include this as the alt tag: “dog licking lips”.
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Conclusion
If you want to do Squarespace SEO audit for your website then you could easily follow the aforementioned tips. The best way to start with good SEO is to make sure you’re familiar with the basics. Acquaint yourself with the on-page factors that play into SEO, as well as the off-page factors (or keyword research in particular). And don’t be afraid of keyword research—if you don’t make mistakes with it, you can’t learn a lot about your niche and what people are searching for.