Squarespace 101: Beginners Guide to SEO

Squarespace 7.1Squarespace 7.0Squarespace SEO

Jul 6

You have built an amazing website and want to make sure that it gets seen by your ideal clients. This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes in.

I am sure you have heard the term and have probably done quite a few searches on what to do. Maybe you are a little overwhelmed by all the techie jargon and are just not sure where to start.

In this video, I discuss the main goals of SEO and how to get started with SEO in Squarespace.

My first bit of advice is to not try and “outsmart” the search engine algorithm. This includes things like keyword stacking, clickbait titles, and spammy descriptions. Search Engines are very smart. These types of strategies are called Black Hat SEO and although you may see a quick rank increase in the short term, search engines will catch on and probably block your site.

The good news is that SEO is not nearly as tricky as it sounds and as long as you are creating great quality content, you are sure to make your way up the ranks.

What are my main goals?

So let’s get started. Whenever you are thinking about SEO, I want you to ask yourself two questions.

Will this help search engines know what my site is all about?
Will this build trust with search engines?

That’s it. Those are your main two goals; communicating who you are and building trust with search engines. Basically you want search engines to know that you are who you say you are and people want to be on your site.

How do I do that?

How do you accomplish those goals? By doing the following three things.

Technical SEO: This is the technical stuff. This includes all the settings and strategies you can do to communicate who you are, what your site is all about, and provide a great, secure user experience. This tends to be the part that most people focus on. You can get very in depth with this side of SEO but be careful to not fall into the Black Hat strategies I mentioned earlier on.
Amazing Content: This is the part that you should be focusing on! Remember, search engines are smart and sooner or later they will realise that the people who come to your site, love your content. You can have all the technical SEO you want, but if people don’t stay on your site and consume the content you won’t get any rankings.
Backlinks: Getting other sites to link back to your site gives your website authority. This is the last piece of the puzzle and can really help you build trust with search engines.

Where do I start?

Start by making sure search engines know you exist, what your site is about, and that your site is a secure place to be.

Turn on SSL to Secure and select HSTS Secure.
Do some keyword research and put these keywords throughout your website content, in site titles, site descriptions, page titles, and page descriptions.
Submit a Sitemap to Google Search Console: Check out this blog post where I walk you through how to do this on Squarespace.

Then do some market research to know what content your ideal audience wants to consume and start pumping out some great quality content that have your visitors flocking to your site.