Most people understand the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) for a WordPress website. But what if you are using a website builder like Squarespace to construct your website? This Squarespace SEO review will answer many of your questions.
What is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimization) is the work of making your pages easy for search engines like Google to find, understand and show to people searching for what you offer.
Search engine optimization is a group of techniques designed to achieve a page one ranking on the search engine results page (SERP). Google is the dominant player in search, so it is best to focus on what it is looking for to determine page rank. There is a lot of mystery surrounding how the various ranking factors contribute to your page’s final result because if there were a set formula, everyone would use it, and all the scores would be relatively the same.
The basic components of SEO include keyword usage, backlinks, and site responsiveness. There are other factors to be sure, but when most people think of SEO, what they are thinking about is the keyword component of the algorithm.
Google’s primary intent is to deliver the searcher the best answer to the searcher’s query. A query is made of keywords, the words someone types into the search box. The main keywords in the query “how do I make applesauce” are “make applesauce.” With so many pages on the internet today, a simple two-word keyword is usually too competitive for a small business. A better target is a “long-tail keyword,” a longer and more specific phrase that is often three or more words. In the applesauce example, “best applesauce recipe” would be a much better keyword. Here is what keyword research looks like in diib:
What is Squarespace?
Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder that bundles hosting, templates, analytics, domain names and online store tools into one subscription.
Squarespace is a web hosting platform similar to WordPress in that it offers hosting, website templates, analytics, domain names, e-commerce solutions, etc. Squarespace is a one-stop shop for your website. Unlike WordPress, however, you cannot use the Squarespace website builder or tools at another web host, so with Squarespace you get all of it or none of it. Here is an example:
Squarespace offers a variety of plans and features. They also offer a free trial so that you can be sure that you want to use their product before beginning your subscription. Every Squarespace plan includes built-in SEO tools, such as an automatic sitemap, editable page titles and descriptions, and a Search keywords report. Most small businesses won’t need a developer to handle SEO on Squarespace. If you want hands-on help, Squarespace runs a marketplace where you can hire an independent Squarespace Expert for a fee.
How is Squarespace SEO different?
Squarespace SEO follows the same rules as SEO on any other website; the only difference is which settings you use to do the work.
Squarespace may even have an advantage, because Squarespace builds many “technical SEO” best practices (the behind-the-scenes setup that helps search engines read your site) into its templates. For example, Squarespace automatically creates and updates your sitemap, generates structured data and makes every site mobile-optimized.
There are some nuances that are unique to Squarespace in how you use their tools, but the basics for good SEO practices are no different from WordPress. Squarespace very clearly lays out what you should do in their support materials.
Does Squarespace have an SEO checklist?
Yes, Squarespace publishes a free SEO checklist that walks you through what to do before and after your site goes live.
Squarespace provides an SEO checklist that you can use while building your website. The checklist covers the steps to take before you publish, after you publish and as your site grows. The Squarespace SEO checklist also includes content best practices and what to do if your site’s ranking changes. You can use the checklist to launch any site, because the activities are not Squarespace specific; only the tools used might be. For example:
What should you do before you launch a Squarespace site?
Before launch, set your site title and description, turn on SSL, add your location details, write an SEO description for each page and customize your 404 page.
Before you launch your website, there are a few activities you should complete while building your pages. These include:
- Add Site Title: Adding a site title, site description, and site icon
- SSL Enabled: Ensure SSL has been enabled
- Update Contacts Page: If your site has a physical location, be sure to create a Contacts page and include a map. A Contacts page with a map is essential for brick and mortar businesses, but not as critical for online-only companies.
- Connect to Social Media: Connect to social media and add social sharing icons
- Meta Descriptions: Write a meta description for every page. Squarespace calls these SEO descriptions and recommends 50 to 300 characters. Google has no length limit on meta descriptions but cuts off the snippet to fit the screen, so put the most important words first.
- Create a 404 page: A custom 404 page (the page visitors see when a link is broken) keeps lost visitors on your site. Squarespace’s checklist recommends adding links to popular or important areas of your site. A custom 404 page also makes broken links easier to spot, because you can see when the 404 page starts getting visits.
- Format Page Titles: Determine the format for page titles
- Format Blog Titles: Determine the format for blog URL titles and slugs
What should you do when you launch a Squarespace site?
At launch, verify your site with Google Search Console, ask Google to index it and connect Google Analytics.
- Set up: Set up and verify your site with Google Search Console
- Request: Manually request that Google index your site
- Connect: Connect your site to Google Analytics
- Verify with Bing: Verify your site with Bing too, which Squarespace’s checklist also recommends
What should you do after your Squarespace site launches?
After launch, keep publishing new content, watch your analytics and fix broken links and Google alerts as they come up.
After launch, you are in business. Now is the time to continue to edit and build new content. Keep an eye on Google Analytics, and use the analytical tools available on your Squarespace plan for insights into how your page is performing. For example:
Make sure that you redirect any missing or broken links and respond to any alerts that Google sends you regarding your page. Ignoring problems does not make them go away, and unresolved problems can keep your pages out of Google’s search results.
Are Squarespace’s content guides worth reading?
Yes, especially for beginners: Squarespace’s content best practices cover the basics of writing pages search engines understand, though experienced SEOs won’t find much new.
The Squarespace content best practices document is fairly basic for any user that is experienced with SEO and does not contain any earth-shattering insights. However, for beginners, the document is a valuable guide to the basics of content creation. The overall collection of guides is excellent. Their interlinking practices make it easier to dive deeper when necessary.
Fresh, up-to-date support content is always a good sign of a company that cares about its users, and Squarespace does seem invested in its customers’ success.
How do you see which keywords bring visitors to your Squarespace site?
Open the Search keywords panel in Squarespace Analytics, which shows the searches that led people to your site.
Keyword use principles are the same for Squarespace as they are for any other site. What makes Squarespace SEO keywords different is their keyword dashboard, which is included in all of their hosting plans. Here is an example of what you may see:
Squarespace’s Search keywords panel shows Google data pulled from Google Search Console, plus data from other search engines such as Bing. The panel shows which search keywords bring the most clicks and can guide your overall SEO strategy. The Search keywords panel is nice to have, but if you want to improve your SEO yourself, you’ll want other SEO tools as well.
What keyword mistakes should Squarespace users avoid?
The two biggest keyword mistakes are keyword stuffing and keyword cannibalization, where several of your own pages compete for the same search.
Beyond Squarespace’s own keyword guides, it helps to know which mistakes to avoid. Most people have heard the term “keyword stuffing” but have no idea what it means. Google defines keyword stuffing as “filling a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate rankings,” such as repeating the same phrase so often that it sounds unnatural. In the early days of SEO, some site owners also hid keywords in white text on a white background to trick search engines. Google’s spam policies treat hidden text as a violation too.
Today’s keyword stuffing offenders tend to show up in alt-tags, where keywords are inserted into alt-tags that have nothing to do with the image being displayed. Alt-tags are meant to be a written description of the image for blind and low-vision visitors who cannot see the image. Therefore, if you have a picture of someone reading a book, the alt-tag should be “person reading a book,” not your primary keyword. Here is an example of alt text:
The other concept you should learn about is keyword cannibalization. Keyword cannibalization happens when several pages on your own website target the same keyword, so your pages end up competing with each other instead of with other sites. To avoid keyword cannibalization, give each page one primary keyword.
Primary keywords should appear in the leading paragraph of your post or page, in its title, and anywhere else the keyword fits naturally in the remaining text. Google will also match your page to related searches you didn’t target directly, often called secondary keywords.
When your Search keywords panel shows a page appearing for a related search, treat that term as a candidate primary keyword for a new page. Then use internal links to connect the two pages on your site. A separate page plus internal links is the cleanest way to rank for secondary keywords. Target one keyword per page on purpose, let Google find the related searches, and then build on what the data shows.
Another way to look at it: over the life of your website, you may publish hundreds of posts or pages. Each page needs its own keyword to bring in the most organic (unpaid) traffic, and one unique keyword per page is the foundation of SEO. Paid ads can buy visibility, but the visits stop when you stop paying, and Google says investment in paid search has no impact on your organic search ranking.
What SEO tasks does Squarespace handle automatically?
Squarespace automatically creates your sitemap, adds structured data, uses clean URLs and makes your site mobile-friendly.
In its support article, “What Squarespace Does for SEO,” the company outlines the many technical SEO features that they have automated so that the user doesn’t have to think about them. The automated features cover things like metadata and page tags. Structured data markup and sitemaps are automated too, and Squarespace notes that you can’t edit or remove its structured data. Automation makes Squarespace very user-friendly, but automation can also be a problem if any of these settings need to change. Google frequently changes the search algorithm, and if any major updates occur that would make the current default method not optimal, you’ll be at the mercy of Squarespace to correct any issues.
Where can you get more Squarespace SEO help?
The best free sources of Squarespace SEO help are Squarespace’s own help center, its webinars and its community forum.
Squarespace offers free webinars, and Squarespace also has a community forum of Squarespace users who support one another with answers to your questions.
Is there a Squarespace SEO plugin?
A Squarespace SEO plugin is not required. All of the relevant SEO tools are embedded into their interface and do not require a plugin.
Should you pay for Squarespace SEO services?
Most small businesses can handle Squarespace SEO themselves with the built-in tools, so paying for help is a business decision rather than a requirement.
Squarespace’s main paid option is its marketplace, where you can hire an independent Squarespace Expert. Hiring an Expert is more about building your site than about SEO, and an Expert will mostly follow the same steps as the checklist above.
Don’t expect Squarespace’s regular support team to plan your SEO for you. Squarespace’s help center says “Customer Support can’t assist with SEO strategy” and that Squarespace can’t guarantee ranking changes.
For the most part, it is still a business decision when it comes to paying for any kind of SEO services. SEO is designed to drive free, organic search traffic to your site. If you are paying for SEO optimization, then that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? At that point, it is no longer free traffic; you have paid for it.
But before you resort to paid advertising, there is one more little-known practice to improve SEO. When all is said and done, the quality of your content determines the quality of your SEO. Hire a professional writer who is well-versed in keyword usage to write your content. Google says its ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, so the quality of the writing matters far more than how often a keyword appears.
What else affects your Squarespace site’s rankings?
Besides keywords, Google looks at things like page experience, backlinks and mobile-friendliness when deciding where your pages rank.
Site speed matters too. Google says “Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems”; Core Web Vitals are Google’s measures of how quickly and smoothly a page loads and responds. Good scores alone don’t guarantee top rankings, and this review does not cover site speed for Squarespace sites in depth. Rankings depend on more than keyword usage and other basic SEO best practices. Google also evaluates backlinks, mobile responsiveness, site maps, the robots.txt file, and many other things in addition to keyword usage when determining position for the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Some of these settings are outside your control on Squarespace, so a review by a Squarespace consultant may help, not only for SEO but also for how your site affects bounce rates and conversions.
How can diib help with Squarespace SEO?
diib connects to your Squarespace site and turns your traffic, keyword and site health data into plain-English recommendations.
Hopefully, this Squarespace SEO review has cleared up any questions that you may have had about Squarespace SEO. Utilize the training and guides available from Squarespace and your SEO efforts should be equal to those of their “experts.” The basic premise of keyword usage is the same everywhere. Still, SEO is about more than just keywords, and those things may not be optimal on Squarespace. diib fills that gap with analysis of your entire website and your social media results. Here are some diib features that help Squarespace sites:
- Custom Alerts, which keep you informed on your website health and any changes to Google’s algorithms that can affect your traffic patterns.
- Objectives with customized suggestions on ways to improve your website health and organic traffic.
- Insights into not only your own website statistics, but those of your key competitors, as well.
- Sync your Facebook and Instagram accounts to pull in your Insights metrics, such as post clicks and page visits, plus your YouTube video performance.
- diibLive office hours with diib’s growth experts, who can help you fine-tune your SEO efforts for your Squarespace site.
Get your free 60 second website scan and learn more about your SEO strengths and weaknesses.
FAQ’s
Yes, Squarespace is a solid choice for search engine optimization (SEO) for most small businesses. Every plan includes built-in SEO tools, and Squarespace automatically creates your sitemap, adds structured data and makes every site mobile-optimized. No platform can guarantee rankings, so your keywords and the quality of your content still matter most.
Neither platform is automatically better, because SEO follows the same rules on WordPress and Squarespace. Squarespace builds many technical SEO settings, the behind-the-scenes setup search engines read, into its templates, so you don’t need a plugin. The trade-off is less control: you can’t edit or remove Squarespace’s structured data.
Start with Squarespace’s free SEO checklist. Before launch, add your site title and description, make sure SSL (the security setting behind https) is on and write an SEO description for each page. At launch, verify your site in Google Search Console, request indexing and connect Google Analytics.
Squarespace recommends 50 to 300 characters for each SEO description, the short page summary Google may show under your link in search results. Google has no length limit on these meta descriptions, but it cuts off the snippet to fit the screen, so put the most important words first.
No, paying for Google Ads does not lift your Squarespace site’s SEO. Google says investment in paid search has no impact on your organic search ranking. Ads buy visibility only while you pay, and the visits stop when the ads stop. Organic (unpaid) traffic depends on useful content and a well-set-up site.
