6 Reasons You Need SEO on your Squarespace Website
If you’re not familiar with SEO (search engine optimization), it’s how you optimize pages of your website to give it the best possible chance of ranking high up in the search results.
Even if you’re not blogging (which is most impactful if you want to rank), here is why you should care…
Disregarding SEO best practices can create a negative user experience, therefore impacting your ability to convert site visitors into email subscribers or clients.
It’s so easy to focus on the pretty design right in front of you, but what’s going on in the backend of your site is just as important.
That’s why I’ve included SEO as part of my signature framework when building websites for coaches and creatives.
In this post, I’m breaking down 6 important reasons you need SEO best practices on your Squarespace website.
1. Site and page load time can stop ideal clients from reaching your website
You want to make sure that your website loads quickly, within 2-5 seconds. If the pages of your website take a long time to load, people will click out before they see the content.
You can test it with the Google Page Speed Insights tool.
The main culprit that greatly impacts your load speed is images.
Most high quality images are between 3MB and 8MB, but you want to aim for 500KB or smaller for banner images, or images that span the full width of your screen.
For smaller images, you’d want to aim for as low as possible.
I’ll start by manually reducing the image file myself, then move over to tools like JPEGmini Pro and TinyPNG to reduce the image files further without impacting quality.
2. Clear image descriptions tell Google what the image is
It doesn’t sound sexy, but Google should be able to understand your images.
Most images get uploaded to a website as IMG_8439. This is not what you want to do.
You want edit the image file name before uploading it to your site. The file name should include what the image is, keywords you want to rank for, and your business name. If you’re a location based business, like a photographer, include that as well.
Why?
Because Google needs to understand your images. Plus it can help you rank in image search.
Not just that, but many times your file name becomes your alt text. Alt text is what helps people who are visually impaired understand what the image is.
As a Squarespace SEO expert, I see this mistake the most on DIY websites.
3. Text inside images is hidden from Google
I feel the need to include this one because I see this on a lot of Squarespace websites.
Because DIYers don’t fully know their way around the platform, and how to customize it to their needs, they’ll go into a platform like Canva, upload their text, export it as an image, and upload it to Squarespace.
I once worked with a client who had two pages that were all images on her DIY site. You can imagine my horror when I saw this because all that content was invisible to Google 😱
Not only that, but many times the text I see inside images on DIY websites is blurry, making it difficult to read. Therefore, you’re negatively impacting the user experience.
If you must use text inside images images, only use them for script font that is a short phrase. Just note that you can upload your custom fonts to Squarespace, but I know sometimes there isn’t a workaround, like script font that is on top of an image for a specific design effect. Below is an example.
Also, note that blog post graphics/Pinterest pins don’t count 😉 They’re perfectly fine to use on your website.
4. Meta descriptions impact whether or not people finding you from Google will click through to your website
Meta descriptions are what appears below a URL in the Google search results. The point of it is to tell the searcher what the page or blog post is about.
First off, I have to say this because it’s a common misconception - meta descriptions do not have a direct impact on SEO.
Meta descriptions impact click through rate.
Click through rate impacts SEO.
Make sense?
That’s why it’s still important to add a meta description (or SEO description inside Squarespace) to every single page and blog post.
Learn how to write and add meta descriptions to your Squarespace website here.
5. Headings explain hierarchy
Most online business owners get this wrong.
Simply put, headings are the formatting you see when you’re editing your site. Typically on Squarespace, you’ll see Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3.
These help Google understand the hierarchy of your content and what’s important.
Heading 1, as you guessed it, is an important metric in telling Google overall what your page is actually about.
That is why you should only have one Heading 1 on a page or blog post (in a blog post, your title is your H1).
From there, you can use as many Heading 2 and Heading 3 tags as you’d like. On a regular page, try to stick to using them as a hierarchy where H3 comes after H2 on a page to go further into detail about information relating to H2. I know that’s not always easy from a design perspective.
On your blog posts, however, you will want to follow this rule. H2 should be the main points of your blog posts (as you can see on my blog here). Then H3 goes below H2 to break up those points further.
6. Site structure explains site categorization
Site structure has to do with your URLs.
It helps Google understand the categorization of information.
For example, your blog posts should be housed under yourdomain.com/blog.
Google understands that those aren’t standalone pages of content, but rather they fall under your blog.
Same goes for services pages. If you house a preview of your different types of services on a page and then give the option for the site user to “choose their own path,” then you need to adjust the URL for those individual pages accordingly.
For example:
Main page: yourdomain.com/services
Service 1: yourdomain.com/services/service-name-one
Service 2: yourdomain.com/services/service-name-two
As a recap, you want to make sure that you are:
Reducing the image file size so you don’t slow down your website
Rename your images before uploading them so Google and visually impaired people can understand what the image is
Not hiding large paragraphs of text inside images
Add meta descriptions to each page and blog post so you can increase your click through rate in Google
Use headings properly
Set up your URL structure correctly
Are you using these SEO best practices on your website? Have questions? Leave them below and I’ll be sure to get back to you!
Struggling to drive traffic to your website, grow your leads and convert more dream clients?
After implementing SEO strategies for billion dollar global brands and high profile individuals, I help position my clients at the top of the Google search results so they can get seen by the people that need their services most.
Looking for more Squarespace SEO tips? Check out these blog posts: