There are so many myths floating around about how Squarespace negatively impacts your SEO. I’m here to let you know this is absolutely not true, but there are several steps you can take to leverage your potential in this area. Read on to see some simple, actionable steps you can take today!
Image Alt Text
One of the easiest, and sometimes most overlooked SEO tips is adding alt text to images. In Squarespace, you’ve got two options for adding alt text to images. One is changing the “filename” right below the upload box for the photo itself. This is especially important if you don’t save your photos with SEO friendly names before uploading. The other option for adding alt text to images is to write an image caption for your photo, and making sure “do not display caption” is selected. This works for the inline photo option, but can always be done before switching back to your intended photo design (i.e. poster, collage, etc.).
Don’t forget, Google can’t see your photo, so “IMG_001” really won’t help you out much. By adding keyword rich alt text you’re helping your photos get seen in Google searches, which in turn can increase your chances of being found online!
Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console
Wait, submit a what now? If you’re trying to increase your SEO, you’re obviously focused on being found by the search engines. By submitting your sitemap to Google, you are essentially telling Google what pages exist on your website, how they all come together, and what content can be found there. Kind of like a cheat sheet of your site.
In your settings menu, select connected accounts and set up with Google Search Console. When going through the setup, you should also submit your sitemap to Google. Squarespace has made this super easy to do, just type in yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml when prompted for your sitemap. Connecting your site will help you understand your SEO ranking and what people are searching for to find you!
Be cautious of keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is essentially when you just list a bunch of words or phrases that are all super similar, just to try to get your ranking higher. Search engines are smarter than this, and will actually penalize you for this kind of writing. Rather, try to write content that is meaningful for your audience, and sprinkle in relevant keywords as needed to improve your SEO. What would someone be searching for to find the exact post you are writing? What topic is your content covering? Is it solving a specific problem? This is also good practice for yourself provide more meaningful, engaging content for your audience.
Optimize your URL slugs
Squarespace allows you to change the URL slugs of all your pages as you are creating them (and after). Sometimes we crate new pages as test pages or just to try something out, then end up leaving these pages and forget to change the URLs. Make sure all your URLs make sense so that they are easier to find. Simply click the little settings icon for each page and scroll down to the “URL Slug” field. Verify that this looks exactly like you want it to! Oh, if you change it, don’t forget to double check that your internal links still work, you don’t want people to get lost on your site from broken links.
Why would your pricing page be yourdomain.com/newpage when it could be yourdomain.com/pricing – help people out by making this as easy as possible!
Image Sizes and Site Speed
Site speed and image sizes are closely related, and can also impact your SEO ranking. No one wants to visit a site that takes forever to load, which could cause higher bounce rate and decreased SEO ranks. Squarespace recommends that your images be less than 500kb each for best possible performance.
Although it is important to have smaller file sizes, you also don’t want to sacrifice the quality of the photos. I’m sure if you went to a website you’d leave fairly quickly if all the photos looked blurry or pixelated? Yep, so will your visitors. Use a tool like JPEGMini to help you lower the file size without sacrificing quality!
If you’re looking to work with a web designer to create a stunning & strategic website for your business, look no further! I help creative entrepreneurs in the wedding industry create beautiful websites that help you stand out from your competition and communicate your value.
Sound good? Stop by the services page, and let’s get started!
Do you have any questions about Squarespace SEO? Leave them below!
