SEO Tutorial: How To Set Up Your Squarespace Website for Success
If you've been wondering how to set up your Squarespace website to use SEO properly, this article is for you!
Welcome to the fourth installment of the SEO Made Simple Series. If this is the first post you’re reading in the series, welcome!
This is a five-part series intended for SEO beginners who want to learn enough about SEO basics to get started without getting overwhelmed.
In the previous installment of the series, I covered the different places where you should use SEO keywords on your website and in your content.
If you're new to understanding SEO keywords, I highly recommend checking out the last two posts in the series.
In this installment, I'm going to show you exactly where to put all of the items that I covered in the previous video/article on your Squarespace website.
We'll cover everything from your overall site's back-end settings to your page and article settings. We'll go over alt text and everything in between!
Contrary to what some folks might have you believe, it's pretty easy to get SEO set up in Squarespace without too much trouble.
Because this series of blog posts is based on a video series, they are a little different. They are basically ‘show notes’ of the videos.
This is a rather long tutorial, so I’m hitting the high points below. I highly recommend watching the YouTube video below to see the full demonstration and tips. I’ve included timestamps at each section so you can jump to that place in the video if you like!
With that in mind, here’s where to use your SEO keywords on your website!
YOU TUBE VIDEO
Squarespace Navigation Shortcut/Tip
Before we dive in, I want to share a quick tip when it comes to navigating your Admin dashboard in Squarespace. When I write/record these videos, the navigation menus is what it is at that point in time. Squarespace does make updates on a fairly regular basis, so if you're watching/reading this months or years into the future and you don't see exactly what I'm seeing here, fear not!
PRO TIP: My quick tip for how to find anything you're looking for in the Squarespace admin menu, is to use the search function. You can find it by clicking on the little magnifying glass at the top of the panel. It will pop up a dialog box where you can type in anything you're looking for and it will give you the link to where it is!
(Also, you can use the shortcut of typing the forward-slash (/) and that will pop up the search box too).
Site Level SEO Settings
Video Timestamp: 2:25
The first thing I want to show you is how to get to the backend settings for your site, where you’ll enter site-wide SEO settings.
You will find this under ‘Settings’ then ‘Marketing,’ and it’s listed as ‘SEO Appearance’.
Settings > Marketing > SEO Appearance
This is where you're going to set up how your homepage, your individual pages, and then your individual items (individual items are things like your blog posts or products in your shop) will show up in search results pages (SERPs).
HOME PAGE SETTINGS
The first tab is how to set how your home page will appear. Under SEO Title Format, you can choose the following:
%s - Your Site Title (your site title is set up elsewhere, and we go over that in a bit.)
%p - Your Page Title
You can choose one or both of those and in which order they appear. The box above it will show you a preview of how it will look in Google search results.
You can also add additional text manually (possible option for adding a keyword here), but be careful your title doesn’t get truncated. I give some examples in the video.
SEO SITE/META DESCRIPTION
After formatting your site title, it’s time to move on to the meta description or ‘SEO Site Description’ as shown in Squarespace. This is where you want to input your SEO keyword-optimized description of your website/business.
Remember to keep it to 160 characters maximum to avoid truncating the results pages. If you absolutely can’t keep it to 160, at least be sure your keywords are in the first 160!
Important note: You will notice Squarespace will allow you to input a title and description much longer than the SEO best practices recommend. But you’ll be better served to try to keep them within the recommended parameters so they don’t get truncated or penalized.
Check out your preview box to see how it looks!
SITE-LEVEL PAGE SETTINGS
On the next tab, ‘Pages,’ you’re going to repeat the same thing, but for how your individual pages will be formatted in search results.
It’s generally recommended that your page title comes first. This is how it will show in the search results but also in the tab on the internet browser.
One thing you will not is that there's no place to put a meta description here. That’s because you’ll be setting the individual page titles and meta descriptions on the pages themselves. We’ll go over that in a later section.
SITE-LEVEL ITEM SETTINGS
Items are going to be things like individual blog posts or products in your shop. You’ll notice you have an additional option here - ‘%i - Item title.’ This is the title of your blog post, for example.
I recommend that you have the item listed only, or at least have it come first if you're going to include the site title. But keep in mind from an SEO perspective, particularly with blog articles, that anything that's in this field is going to count towards your character count, so your site title may not even show up in the search results.
Focus on making sure the title of your item is within the character ranges for SEO best practices.
Page Level Settings
Video Timestamp: 10:09
Now, let's go see how we set up individual pages.
Select the page you want to set up and click on the little cogwheel or settings wheel to the right side. This is where we're going to set up our page-level SEO settings.
Click on that, and you’ll open up the settings page as shown here:
You’ll notice a lot of different settings here!
First is the ‘General’ section. This is where you will set your page title.
Next, the navigation title is what shows up in your main navigation pane if you have it in your main navigation. They don't have to be the same, but it’s easier if they are. This is what will come over where you selected %p under SEO Appearance for your main site level settings.
Next, you have your URL slug. If you can, and it makes sense, it's another place where you can use some keywords, too. If you can keep your URL slug around 4-6 words total, that can also help with SEO.
Below ‘General’ is SEO page settings.
This is where you'll set your page title for SEO, as well as your meta description for this page.
You can also set it to hide the page from search results.
If you don’t want a page to be found by SEO or don't want to have it be searchable, you would just toggle this on to hide it from search results.
This may be useful for ‘thank you’ pages, legal policies, and private content you don’t want open to internet searches.
When you come into this for the first time, these will be blank. If you do not enter anything, it will, by default, use your page title in the format set, but you can put in your own title here.
Also, if you don’t enter a meta description, the search engines are going to come up with their own description of what they think is best. So, it’s always better to put in your own meta description and give the search engines some guidance.
And don’t worry if your changes don’t immediately show up in search results. It can take some time for the engines to catch up and recrawl your page to update their results.
Setting Your Site Title
Video Timestamp: 14:25
I mentioned previously about setting the site title. So, where do we do that?
You do that within your site header.
Go to any page and enter Edit mode, then go to your header section, click on ‘edit header,’ and then go to ‘site title and logo.’
This is where you enter your site title. Regardless of whether you're using a logo or not, you need to put in a site title.
If you don't have a logo, the site tile will show up in your header.
Backend Local SEO Settings
Video Timestamp: 15:17
In previous videos from this series, we talked about local SEO. There are a couple of places in your settings where location can be important.
In your Admin navigation panel, go to ‘Business Information.’
Settings > Business Information
This is another backend setting where you can input location & business information, even if you don't put your location information specifically on a public-facing website page.
The search engines can still be aware of it and still serve your business in the search engine results when somebody searches for ‘your type of business near me’
I can use my own business as an example. As a Web Designer, I have a virtual business. I don't have a physical location, but I can include some location information of generally where I'm situated.
I can still get some local visitors to my website and to my business, even though I don't have a brick-and-mortar location.
Having a Google Business Profile is also helpful, but if you’re virtual, that can be tricky and not always possible.
On-Page Local SEO
Video Time Stamp: 17:20
But what if you do want your location information to be public on your site?
Where else might you use your location on a page?
Your Footer
A section with your location on a map and information
Video shows how to do this
Add a preset layout section with a map: Add Section > Contact
Add a Map Block to a section
Again, use your keywords in these sections!
On-Page SEO Content
Video Timestamp: 19:10
We've updated our site and page settings. We've set the SEO and page titles. We've got the meta descriptions.
How do we structure our pages for our SEO content?
I'm going to get real with you here unless you want to go blind or fall asleep real quick; this section is best if you watch the demo in the video. It will be much easier to follow and understand than a ton of screenshots and text!
In the video demo, I go over page hierarchy, how and where to use H1, H2, and H3 headers, and where to use your SEO keywords throughout the content of your page.
Image Alt Text and File Names
Video Timestamp: 23:08
Let's talk images! You can utilize keywords with your images, as well.
Two key places to use keywords for images are in the Alt-text and the image file name.
Alt text helps with accessibility because it is what screen readers read for people who use them.
They serve a dual purpose when it comes to SEO. It's going to help your SEO rankings by showing that your content takes accessibility considerations into account. And if your alt-text includes a keyword or two, that will also improve your SEO.
Don’t forget that the search engines can read images. So, they read that text and factor it into their results. In addition, there’s a better chance your images will also appear in search results!
However, keep in mind that your alt text should be relevant to the image and describe the image. If you just stuff keywords or use text that does not match at all what’s in the image, that can work against you!
The same applies to file names. You don't want to get overly wordy in your file names either or have them not make sense. But it’s another opportunity to use keywords when appropriate.
When uploading an image to your website, give the image file a name that makes sense (this will also help you find it in the future).
For example, instead of going with the default file name like image_3789.jpg, try vinyasa_yoga_class_boston_studio.jpg.
Make sense?
Squarespace Alt-text Pro Tip!
I learned something the hard way and pulled my hair out for a while. Let me help you avoid that!
Watch the video for a clear demonstration of this tip.
Video Timestamp: 26:22
When you are in the edit image box and have typed in your image alt text, click outside of the box! Click outside in the margins of your page BEFORE you exit page EDIT mode.
Sometimes, what happens is that if you enter your alt-text and don’t click elsewhere on the page to close out the edit image box, and then you Exit page edit mode - the alt-text won’t save.
So, put in your alt text, then your file name, and click outside on the page somewhere, and you should be fine. Okay?
Image Size
Another important factor with Squarespace SEO is making sure images are an appropriate size. Make sure that your images are under 250 kilobytes for regular images and 500kb for banners. The size of images affects the speed of your page loads, and search engines do take page speed into account.
Blog Post SEO
Video Timestamp: 27:29
Once again, I’m going to recommend you watch the video demo of this to see this in action and understand it easily.
The same basic principles apply here as they do to your other pages. The title of your blog post (your article) is going to be your H1, H2 will be for your sub-headings, and so on.
You’ll utilize your SEO Keywords in the headings, body, and images.
Note about keywords in the body of your article. Most recommendations I've heard are to try to sprinkle your keywords in around every 100 to 150 words. But, as I mentioned in the past, you want to make sure it flows naturally, and you don't sound like you're trying to stuff keywords or ramble on.
It can take some time to get the hang of how to spread your keywords throughout your content, but your headings, subheadings, body, and images are the places to do that and vary them a bit. Remember to use related keywords.
Blog Post Settings
Once you’re ready to post your blog entry, click on the three dots next to it in the main navigation panel and choose settings. Here is where you’ll input all the settings for the blog post, just like you do for a regular web page.
Titles, descriptions, feature images, URL slug, etc., get input here! You’ll also be able to set up categories and tags and choose whether or not you want those to be found in searches.
If you’re curious to learn how setting up a blog post template can save you time, you may like this article:
Easily Create a Squarespace 7.1 Blog Post Template
Summary
We covered a lot of ground in this post, but as you can see, it's not difficult to update your SEO settings within Squarespace.
What you need to focus on is nailing your SEO strategy, figuring out what keywords you want to target, and getting practice with the SEO titles, meta descriptions, images, and page structure.
That's going to serve you really well in the long run.
Remember, SEO is not a short/fast strategy. It takes time, and it will take time for you to learn and master it. Just start simple, keep at it consistently, and results will come!
Coming up next is the final video/post of the series. I'll wrap up everything I've covered. Plus, I'll share the tool stack for my SEO strategy, as well as resources for ongoing SEO education as you continue to learn more about SEO and develop your strategy!
If you found this helpful, don't miss out on future posts! Subscribe to my email list so you’ll be the first to know when new videos/articles are published!
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