| Read time 14 min read

How do I Do SEO for Squarespace?

Test your SEO in 60 seconds! Diib is one of the best SEO tools in the world. Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

Scan your website DA in 60 seconds! Diib is one of the best SEO tools in the world. Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

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Easy-to-use automated SEO tool

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Intelligently suggests ideas to improve SEO

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Keyword and backlink monitoring + ideas

How do I Do SEO for Squarespace?

Read time 14 min read
Squarespace seo

Test your SEO in 60 seconds! Diib is one of the best SEO tools in the world. Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

Scan your website DA in 60 seconds! Diib is one of the best SEO tools in the world. Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

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Easy-to-use automated social media + SEO tool

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Automated ideas to improve Social Media traffic + sales

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Keyword and backlink monitoring + ideas

How Do I Do SEO for Squarespace?

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.

Start With The Basics: What is SEO?

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. That query consists of keywords. Keywords do not include things like articles, pronouns, and simple verbs. These words are called “stop words.” A listing of stop words can be found simply by doing a Google search for “what are stop words.” The query “how do I make applesauce” would be reduced to “make applesauce.” With the proliferation of pages on the Internet today, a simple two-word keyword is too competitive. Keywords should be what are known as “long-tail keywords,” which are three or more words in length. In this example, “best applesauce recipe” would be a much better keyword. Here is the Diib Keyword Research Tool that can help you with your keyword campaign:

Squarespace seo

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a web hosting platform similar to WordPress in that it offers hosting, website templates, analytics, domain names, e-commerce solutions, etc. It is a one-stop-shop for your website. Unlike WordPress, however, you cannot use their website builder or tools at another web host. It is all or nothing when it comes to Squarespace. Here is that page:

Squarespace seo

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. All of their plans include SEO tools and technical SEO. There is no reason to look for any custom developer support for SEO on Squarespace. If you do want some additional SEO support, SEO consultations are included in some of their plans, and they also offer expert support for additional fees.

Test your SEO in 60 seconds!

Diib is one of the best SEO tools in the world. Diib uses the power of big data to help you quickly and easily increase your traffic and rankings. We’ll even let you know if you already deserve to rank higher for certain keywords.

  • Easy-to-use automated SEO tool
  • Keyword and backlink monitoring + ideas
  • Speed, security, + Core Vitals tracking
  • Intelligently suggests ideas to improve SEO
  • Over 500,000k global members
  • Built-in benchmarking and competitor analysis

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How is Squarespace SEO different?

The bottom line is, Squarespace SEO is no different from SEO anywhere else on the web. There may even be advantages to using Squarespace because they have embedded a lot of what is called “technical SEO” best practices into their templates and extensions.

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.

The Squarespace SEO Checklist

Squarespace provides an SEO checklist that you can use while building your website. It walks you through the steps you should take pre launch, at launch, and post-launch. This Squarespace SEO checklist also includes information on content best practices, what to do if your site ranking changes, webinars, and forum support. This checklist can be used to launch any site because the activities are not Squarespace specific; only the tools used might be. For example:

Squarespace seo

Before You Launch

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. This 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: Create Meta Descriptions for all pages (150-160 characters in length) Note: Squarespace calls these SEO descriptions and says they should be 50-300 words. However, Google will truncate these descriptions at around 160 characters.
  • Create a 404 page: This is important not only aesthetically, but if you have a custom 404 page in your hierarchy, you will be able to see if it starts getting hits, and that will be useful in your search for broken links. If you do not have a custom 404 page set up, it will use a Google default that may not provide the same level of detail.
  • Format Page Titles: Determine the format for page titles
  • Format Blog Titles: Determine the format for blog URL titles and slugs

When You Launch

  • 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
  • Enable: If you have a blog, enable AMP, which offers a stripped-down version of your site for mobile devices

After You Launch

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:

Squarespace seo

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 Google has been known to de-index pages where problems have not been resolved after a period of time.

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Squarespace Content Best Practices

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 the newbie, it 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.

Squarespace made major revisions to all of its documentation in July 2021. Finding fresh and up to date support content is always a good sign of a company that cares about its user base. For all intents and purposes, Squarespace does seem to be invested in their customer’s success.

Squarespace SEO Keywords

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 seo

Squarespace has a Search Keywords panel that allows users to see site data from all of the major search engines. This site data shows which search keywords result in the most click-throughs and can guide your overall SEO strategy. It’s nice to have, but frankly, there are other SEO tools you should be using if you are focused on improving your SEO yourself.

More About Keywords

What Squarespace does not provide is a basic tutorial on keyword usage and things to avoid. Most people have heard the term “keyword stuffing” but have no idea what it means. Keyword stuffing is inserting keywords that are non-related to your content in places that are not visible to the user. In the early days of SEO, webmasters would include white text on a white background and insert adult-related keywords lie “xxx” or “porn” to try to trick the search engines into sending them more traffic. Google caught on to that pretty quickly, however.

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 verbal description of the image for the blind 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:

Squarespace seo

The other concept you should learn about is keyword cannibalization. This is when you are competing with other pages on your own website for the same keyword. In other words, you are bumping yourself off of page one. This is why there is never any reason to use more than one primary keyword in your copy.

Primary keywords should appear in the leading paragraph of your post or page, in its title, and anywhere else, it flows naturally within the remaining text. That’s it. Any secondary keywords will be determined by Google (this is a naturally occurring phenomenon) and will serve to add to your domain’s authority.

In fact, when Google determines secondary keywords on a page, this is a signal for you to use this term as a primary keyword on another page. Then, be sure to use internal linking to reinforce the relationship between the two pages on your site. This is the “proper” way to rank for secondary keywords. You should never use more than one keyword deliberately, let Google do that work for you, and then leverage the results of the indexing.

Another way to look at it is this; you may be making 100s, if not 1000s of posts or pages over the lifetime of your website. You’re going to need a unique keyword for each in order to drive the most organic traffic to your site. That’s the foundation of SEO. Otherwise, stick to paid advertising that guarantees you one of those top three results on the SERP.

Other Squarespace SEO Features

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. These include the use of metadata, title and alt tags, etc. Other things like structured data markup, canonical tags, and site maps are all automated. While this makes Squarespace super user-friendly, it can also be problematic if any of these things need to be changed. 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.

We hope that you found this article useful.

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Really enjoying SEO and other forms of website optimisation for my KoffeeKlatch contract site. I never thought I`d every say those words. I enjoy the regular email updates on my numbers and the tasks to improve them. Love getting numbers that are relevant and that I can understand AND do something about.
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More Squarespace SEO Help

Squarespace offers a free “Growing Your Audience” webinar, which is a live, expert-led event. They also have 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.

What About Squarespace SEO Services?

There are a couple of paid Squarespace SEO services. The first is their “Hire a Squarespace Expert” option, to, as they advertise it, “build your site with SEO in mind.” This is actually more about building your site than it is about SEO. This individual isn’t going to do anything outside of the box other than follow the steps outlined in their checklist mentioned above.

Their other option is their “Squarespace Select Plan.” This plan offers dedicated support and guidance under the guise of SEO Consultation Again, this is about teaching you how to use the tools already in place. There is no special sauce here. This is just a dedicated help desk whose support personnel will teach you about their SEO features. Their regular customer support folks do not address any kind of SEO issues.

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. If you are going to pay for traffic, there are many more cost-effective means to do so.

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 is looking for the best content, and that clearly has a lot more to do with the quality of the writing than keyword usage.

FACT: 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. (HubSpot)

Other Considerations

It’s also vital to remember that your website’s speed is an important ranking factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. This review does not address any questions about site speed for Squarespace customers. It’s not just about 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).

Many of these things are outside of the webmaster’s control on Squarespace and are things that might benefit from having a Squarespace consultant review — not because of SEO, but because how things impact other aspects such as bounce rates and conversions.

Diib®: SquareSpace Analysis and Metrics Instantly!

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. This is where Diib comes into play. We offer analysis on your entire website and social media effectiveness. Here are some of the features our SquareSpace clients love:

  • Custom Alerts, which keep you informed on your website health and any changes to the google 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 profile to give you insights into the specifics of your social media campaign. Things like individual post performance, demographics of users, best time of day to post and conversions.
  • Enjoy a monthly collaborative session with a Diib growth expert that can help you fine tune your SEO efforts and guide you to Shopify growth and success.

Call today at 800-303-3510 or click here to get your free 60 website scan and learn more about your SEO strengths and weaknesses.

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FAQ’s

With a decent range of SEO tools, SquareSpace sites often hit Google’s coveted first spot on the SERPs. If you are already using SEO best practices, have a good working knowledge of them, SquareSpace is a great option for your business.

While WordPress may have stronger SEO juice and power, SquareSpace is better for beginners and in-house tools. On WordPress you have to add plugins for the various tasks you want to do, whereas SquareSpace has them built in to its software.

Your SquareSpace domain, like all other domains, will auto-renew each year on the renewal date. Make sure you review all your options when cancelling service or cancel your domain.

Great question! When you upload content into your SquareSpace account, you still own that content. You do, however, give SquareSpace permission to use it in ways to promote, protect and provide services.

SquareSpace does not have a built-in advertising integration platform, however, you can include ads on your site through third-party services like Google AdSense. Always double check the ad content through SquareSpace’s Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

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With so many members we are also able to provide wholesale pricing combined with very high-quality work on services such as:

  • Quality backlink development (DA10-DA80 websites)
  • Professional Google Analytics installations
  • Website speed analysis and optimization
  • Keyword research
  • Article writing and publishing (500-5000+ words)
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Daniel Urmann

Author Bio:

Daniel Urmann is the co-founder of Diib.com. Over the past 17 years Daniel has helped thousands of business grow online through SEO, social media, and paid advertising. Today, Diib helps over 150,000 business globally grow online with their SaaS offerings. Daniel’s interest include SMB analytics, big data, predictive analytics, enterprise and SMB search engine optimization (SEO), CRO optimization, social media advertising, A/B testing, programatic and geo-targeting, PPC, and e-commerce. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in Finance and E-commerce from Cornell University – S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management.

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