Tips for Improving SEO on Your Squarespace Site

Dec 1

You’ve put in the work, launched your new web site, and now you’re wondering how the heck SEO (search engine optimization) works (i.e., “How do I show up on Google?”). It’s a complex topic, but we wanted to share some additional tips (in addition to the basic SEO work that we do on our client sites) for improving your chances of showing up higher in search results over time.

Two things to remember before we dive in: One, sites don’t show up on Google overnight. It can take several months after you’ve done all of these steps to start seeing results, and it takes continuous effort to stay at the top of search engine results. And two, Due West Design studio focuses on creating beautiful, clean web sites that are easy to use and manage—but we are not a SEO firm. There are fabulous professionals who specialize in SEO that you can contract with if you’d like more long-term support monitoring and improving your search rankings (we love and recommend our friend Emma over at Honey Pot Digital!). With that being said, let’s dive in!

Become Friends With Google

Here are some ways to get noticed by Google:

Set up a Google My Business profile and add as much detail as possible. While you do need to select a city or basic geographic location, you don’t have to have a physical space or list a specific street address.
Ask your customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business profile page. There is a direct link that you can share with people when you are logged into your business profile. Keep your profile active and updated.
Verify and submit your site map to Google Search Console (we do this for clients upon request). Here is an article from Squarespace on how to do this if you’d like to go the DIY route. There are also instructions for indexing your site with Google in this article.

And if you want to, you can also verify your site with Bing using their Webmaster Tools.

Focus on Growing Your Content

Updating your web site and posting new content regularly is a great way to improve SEO. This can be done through edits to existing content, adding new pages or content blocks, adding blog posts or product listings, etc. Here are some tips for content creation:

Use descriptive key words in all of your content
Start blogging as a way to create new content that is published regularly
Include content as part of your overall marketing strategy (more on that below)

Want to outsource your content creation? Check out our friends Amanda at Rough Draft Solutions and the team at Inbound Back Office.

Get Links Back to Your Web Site

Having other sites link back to yours helps legitimize your site with Google by showing that another party considers your content valuable enough to link through to it. This added credibility factors into your overall ranking on search engines and is one of the things Google is consistently testing and looking for. Think of creative ways to get more links back to your web site through things like:

Both free and paid directories that are relevant to your industry and audience
Business, community, sponsorship, or affiliate partner web sites
Sites that you have been published or featured on (through interviews, guest blog posts, podcast episodes, etc.)
Your client’s web sites
Any sites for organizations that you are a professional member of or credentialed with
By writing testimonials for others (often times these will link back to your web site as a courtesy)
Creating shareable content (be sure to include share buttons) that site visitors can click through to from your social media channels

Continue to Optimize Your Squarespace Site

These are all things that we do while building our client web sites in Squarespace, but they are also best practices you can continue implementing once you add more content or update the site in the future.

Use heading styles for your content and only use one h1 tag per page (the rest should be h2, h3, etc.)
Use image alt tags and descriptive image titles for all stand alone photos on the site (not background images or other decorative artwork)
Add SEO page descriptions
Use small image sizes (TinyPNG helps with compressing your images before you add them to Squarespace and you generally want to keep web site images under 2500px at the largest)
Check your site for broken links — this is a great free tool you can use: https://www.deadlinkchecker.com/
Include a site title and description (generally done when the site is first built)
Make sure your SSL certificate is set up properly and current (this is an awesome benefit of Squarespace hosting)

Drive Traffic To Your Site Through Marketing Efforts

This isn’t a SEO tip, however it helps you reach your overall goal—get more interested visitors to your web site. Having a clear marketing strategy and plan can help make your brand more widely known and help people find you online. Here are some additional ways to market your business and drive people to your web site:

Be active on the social media channels where your target audience hangs out. Post regularly and link back to your web site both in your account profile and in any content that lives on your site (like a new blog post).
Build your email newsletter list by including a newsletter signup block on your site’s home page (or any other place where it makes sense), and encourage visitors to engage by offering a free consultation or freebie to download
Update your web site every time you have a new offering, launch, or promotion running
Network (online or IRL) and share your web site address through a business card or in the chat if you’re on Zoom
Set up an email address that shares the same domain as your web site (we recommend Gmail for Business)
Make some PR efforts, like writing and distributing a press release when your site is launched, when you have a new hire, when your business wins an award, when you host an event, etc. Ideally the publication or media outlet will link back to your web site or reach out for an interview.

And if you’re looking for a little help with your marketing strategy, we recommend Emma over at Honey Pot Digital!

As you can see, search engine optimization is not a cut and dry practice and there are a LOT of factors that contribute to how well your site ranks on Google (on any given day). But by implementing some of these best practices your site will have the best chance at moving up the rankings.

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