Squarespace is a great platform for building your website, but it can be hard to manage all the elements that go into making a website work. That’s where Seo Tools For Squarespace comes in.
As the name suggests, this tool is specifically designed for Squarespace users. It allows you to take advantage of the best SEO practices that apply to Squarespace-hosted websites, so you can make sure that your content ranks high on search engines and gets as much traffic as possible.
This tool will help you:* Write better meta descriptions* Optimize your site’s internal links (like linking between pages and posts)* Add keywords to your content
Seo Tools For Squarespace
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving your site’s ranking in search results. While the factors search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo use to rank sites are kept secret and change often, we build all known SEO best practices into every Squarespace site.
As the host for millions of websites for over a decade, we’ve implemented various strategies to help your site appear in search engine results. Squarespace has the technical side covered for you—there’s no need to search for plugins or use custom code.
This guide focuses on the SEO-friendly features that are included by default and work automatically on every Squarespace site. Some SEO features need to be enabled or rely on your text input. We’ll cover those features in How you can use Squarespace’s SEO-friendly tools.
Tip: Register for our Growing Your Audience webinar where we’ll teach you about Squarespace’s built-in marketing, SEO, and analytics tools. You’ll learn SEO basics, strategies to build and engage your audience, and how to track your marketing efforts.
Site map
Squarespace automatically generates and links a proper sitemap.xml, which lists every URL and image metadata on your site with proper priority for perfect indexing. To learn more, visit Your site map.
Clean URLs
All pages and collection items on your site have static URLs that are easily read and indexed by search engines.
Automatic redirects
If you have multiple domains, Squarespace redirects visitors and search engines to a primary domain and uses rel="canonical" to fix these references. To learn more, visit Multiple domains and SEO.
If you use a custom domain as your primary domain, this hides your built-in domain from search engine results.
Structured data
Structured data helps Google understand and classify pages and their content. Squarespace automatically generates structured data using these schemas:
- Blog post
- Event
- Local business
- Organization
- Product
- Website
It’s not possible to edit or remove this data.
Automatic tagging
All meta tags for pages and <link> tags for RSS feeds are automatically generated. Images contain proper <alt> and <title> tags, improving search engine indexing.
Squarespace automatically adds <alt> tags to image descriptions. For most images, if there is no description, <alt> tags are added to the filename instead. To learn more, visit Adding alt text to images.
Google rich image search for products
Squarespace structures product information so Google can display additional information in rich search results. These search results can include the product name, product image, description, price range, availability, and product URL.
Built-in mobile optimization
Google’s technology gives mobile-optimized sites a higher priority in search results. As such, all mobile-friendly Squarespace sites are also search engine-friendly. As long as you don’t disable mobile styles or overload your site with too much content, your site is ready to be found in mobile searches.
Clean HTML markup
Squarespace produces pages with clean HTML markup indexable by search engines. For example, <h1> and <h2> HTML tags are automatically added to headings and other key text on your site.
How you can use Squarespace’s SEO-friendly tools
For some of Squarespace’s automatic SEO tools, you’ll need to enable them manually or edit text in built-in fields before they’ll affect your site. This includes:
- AMP – Enable AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, to generate lightweight versions of your blog posts with AMP formatting that loads faster on mobile devices. AMP works with Google to prioritize results in mobile searches.
- Built-in meta tags – When you add SEO descriptions to your pages, Squarespace automatically adds HTML <meta> tags to help search engines identify your site’s titles and page content.
- SSL certificates – All Squarespace Domains and third-party domains include free SSL certificates when connected and pointing to Squarespace sites. Ensure SSL is enabled in your domain’s settings, as sites that aren’t SSL-secure may be penalized in search engine rankings.
For more on optimizing your site for search engines, follow our SEO checklist and visit Increasing your site’s visibility to search engines.
More help
SEO strategy falls outside of the scope of Squarespace Customer Support because search engine technology frequently changes and everyone’s marketing needs are unique. Because of this, we can’t guarantee results like ranking changes or listing appearance in a search engine.
While we’re unable to provide specific SEO advice through email and live chat, there are other ways you can get more SEO help:
- Attend an expert-led Growing your Audience webinar.
- Get advice from the community in the Squarespace Forum.
- For hands-on help, hire a vetted SEO expert to build your site with SEO in mind
seo checklist squarespace
All Squarespace sites are built for clean indexing by search engines, but the content you add to your site and how you present it plays a big role in how well people can find you. As you prepare to publish your site, go through the list below to ensure your site is optimized for search engines and visitors alike.
For more in-depth explanations of SEO best practices, visit Increasing your site’s visibility to search engines. If you want hands-on help, you can hire a vetted Squarespace Expert to build your site with SEO in mind.
Tip: Register for our Growing Your Audience webinar where we’ll teach you about Squarespace’s built-in marketing, SEO, and analytics tools. You’ll learn SEO basics, strategies to build and engage your audience, and how to track your marketing efforts.
Before publishing
Before publishing your site, optimize it for search engines.
Site information
Add a site title – Even if you’re using a logo, you should add a site title, as the text may be Indexed by search engines. We recommend you keep the title under 60 characters and include one or more keywords.
Add a site description – Add a short (50-300 characters), relevant, readable description of your site to your SEO site description. This text may appear below your site title in search results, depending on what your visitors are searching for.
Add SEO descriptions – Ensure each page on your site has a unique SEO description. The text should be short and readable (50-300 characters), and describe the content of the page. You can also add SEO descriptions to individual blog posts, products, and events.
Check your page and title formats – Control how your page titles appear in browser tabs, social shares, and search engine results. You can set this for page titles, the homepage, and collection items (such as blog posts or products).
Site design
Add a browser icon – Your site’s browser icon or favicon gives visibility to your site’s brand. The icon may appear in search results, browser tabs, and elsewhere on the web.
Add social sharing images – Social sharing images display on social media when you or someone else shares your site. Add one to represent your whole site, one for each page individually, and one for each blog post, product, and event.
Create a custom 404 page – Customize the 404 page with links to some of the popular or important areas of your site. This encourages visitors who encounter a broken link to stay on your site, rather than immediately going back to search results.
Review your content – Ensure you’ve followed our content best practices for all pages on your site.
Domain and URL setup
Connect a custom domain – Using a custom domain (rather than the built-in .squarespace.com URL) strengthens your brand and makes it easier for potential customers to find you in search results.
Connect to social media – Set up social sharing to link to your social media profiles, push content as you publish it, and encourage people to share your pages.
Ensure SSL is enabled – Confirm your SSL panel is set to the Secure setting. Sites without SSL may be penalized.
Check URL slugs – It’s best to have URLs that reflect the content of the page. If you save a blog post, product, or event before adding a title, the URL slug will be a random string of characters. Check the slugs for each page and item on your site, and change any that don’t use real words.
Choose your blog post URL format – If you’re blogging, choose how your blog post URLs are automatically created. While you can choose any options that fit your needs, we recommend you always include the post’s title.
Location information
Add your location – Your site has a better chance of appearing in searches for your area if Google and your customers can confirm your location. If you have a business with a physical location, we recommend you create a Contact Us page with your address and a map.
Publish your location online – Create and manage online listings for your business’ physical location, serviced areas, and hours of operation. If you already have a Google My Business listing, connect it to your site and manage your information through Squarespace.
After publishing
To help surface your site and its content to search engines, we recommend doing the following as soon as your site is published:
Verify your site with Google Search Console – After you’ve verified your site with Google, you can manage your site’s presence in Google search results and review how visitors find you.
Request that Google index your site – This asks Google’s bots to review your site and update search results with your new content.
Verify your site with Bing Webmaster Tools – Verify your site with Bing to manage your site’s presence in Bing and Yahoo search results.
Connect to Google Analytics – Track visits and other reporting on your site through our built-in integration with Google.
Enable AMP – If you have a blog, enabling AMP creates a stripped-down version of your site that loads faster on mobile devices.
As your site evolves
As you add or edit content, ensure that your site stays as friendly as possible for search engines.
Optimize new content
Make updates strategically – Continue optimizing your site by following our content best practices.
Redirect changed or broken links – If you change the URL slug on a page on your site, create URL redirects to forward visitors who go to the old URL to the correct page.
Continue updating and adding content – Updating your site often helps search engines view your site as an active site. One way to regularly add content to your site is to start blogging.
Track your site traffic
Use your site’s analytics tools – Visit your site’s Search keywords panel and other analytics panels, such as Activity log, Popular content, and Traffic, to track changes to your site traffic and search engine ranking.
Follow Google Analytics – Use our integration with Google Analytics for more visitor tracking and reporting.
Content best practices
As you build your site, keep in mind the following best practices for your content.
Text content
Use keywords strategically – Include text on your site (including page titles and descriptions) that matches the search terms people use to find sites like yours. For more help, visit Adding keywords for SEO.
Structure your content – Structure your pages with headings to keep your text skim-friendly and help search engines navigate your content. Visit our tips for more help.
Images
Add alt text to images – In addition to increasing accessibility for visitors who use assistive screen readers, alt text also helps search engines identify the content of a page.
Give your images readable file names – Image file names may also be used as alt text. Follow our best practices when creating your image file names.
Keep your pages nimble – To ensure your site loads well, we recommend keeping images under 500 KB and overall page size under 5 MB.
Pages and collection items
Add social sharing images and SEO descriptions – As you add new pages to your site, give them social sharing logos and SEO descriptions.
Add tags and categories – Organize your blog posts, products, gallery images, and other content with tags and categories to help visitors navigate your site.
Link to your site’s content – Where it’s relevant, use page links to connect the pages on your site to each other.
Customize URL slugs – As you add pages and collection items, ensure their URLs reflect the content of the page.
Site ranking changes
If you notice a dip in ranking right after optimizing your site, it’s okay. It’s normal to see some fluctuations in your ranking while search engines index your changes.
If your ranking hasn’t gone up after a week or two, check analytics to see if there are site traffic trends that might explain the dip. For example, a change in how other websites link to your site can affect your visibility. You could also consider updating your keywords to target different search terms.
More help
SEO strategy falls outside of the scope of Squarespace Customer Support because search engine technology frequently changes and everyone’s marketing needs are unique. Because of this, we can’t guarantee results like ranking changes or listing appearance in a search engine.
While we’re unable to provide specific SEO advice through email and live chat, there are other ways you can get more SEO help:
Attend an expert-led Growing your Audience webinar.
Get advice from the community in the Squarespace Forum.
If you want hands-on help, you can hire a vetted SEO expert to build your site with SEO in mind.
Conclusion
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