7 Kick-Ass Squarespace SEO Tips (how I rank all my blogs)
I use Squarespace for all of my brand sites and blogs. It’s simple, powerful and I get tens of thousands of monthly visitors, which helps me grow my personal brand.
I worked in content marketing for over 4 years, and one thing I’ve noticed is their platform choice doesn’t matter nearly as much as their SEO strategy and the content itself.
Put another way, Squarespace SEO works great. You need to pull the right SEO levers.
So after many years of formal work, writing hundreds of thousands of casual words and getting hundreds of thousands of visitors to my blogs, these are my top Squarespace SEO tips.
Let’s get to it!
1. Optimize Your Squarespace Template for SEO
“Your template is a great shell to get started with, but you’ll need to tweak things to get fully optimized.”
These are the first steps I take for SEO on all my Squarespace sites.
Site Design / UX
Make things scannable
Use images and graphics
Have simple, clear navigation
Add a search bar for your blog
Avoid long-running paragraphs
Make your fonts big enough
Create (and stick to) your brand kit
Use bullet lists, italics and bolded text
Don’t confuse visitors with too many CTAs
When in doubt, just go with the less is more rule
Compress your images for site speed (I aim for <500 KBs)
Explore more:
➤ Epic Squarespace Design Tips
Include the Core Pages
Homepage
About
Contact
Affiliate disclosure
Terms & conditions
Privacy policy
Blog
Services, products, portfolio (if relevant)
Explore more:
➤ Key Features of a Great Site / Blog
Metadata / URLs
Metadata is shorthand data that describes other data on your site.
This includes stuff like your SEO site title and description (under ⚙️ —> Marketing —> SEO Appearance) and the SEO data for each individual page or post (under each page’s ⚙️ —> SEO).
For example, my SEO site description here is “The Squarespace / blogging resource for kick-ass creators, artists and modern creatives at large.”
I use core keywords I want to be known for (like Squarespace, blogging and creators) and I succinctly describe what my site is about and what I do.
Your metadata helps Google better understand your website. But it’s also the short snippet people see about your site, blogs and pages in Google.
Good metadata can boost your click-through rates (CTR) and conversions. And optimizing your metadata SEO starts with knowing which keywords to use. So let’s keep moving.
Explore more:
➤ SEO for Bloggers (complete guide)
2. Know Your Keywords — Use Your Keywords
Good SEO starts with good keyword research. Finding and using the most relevant keywords for your brand, goals and audience is the first thing to focus on.
So here are some key things to keep in mind when choosing and using your keywords for SEO on your Squarespace site:
Choose relevant keywords. For example, if you’re a personal brand, start by turning yourself into keywords.
Use Google. Google’s autocomplete (the search bar) is a great place to research and find exact-match keywords to use.
Check keyword data. Use a free tool (like Ahrefs or Semrush) and prioritize keywords with good search volume and low competition.
Check the search intent. Always review the search results and identify exactly what users are expecting to see and read with a keyword.
Put your keywords in the right places. Use your core keywords in H1 titles and H2 headers, SEO titles, meta descriptions, URLs and within the body text.
Create pillar pages and content. For your most important keywords, create pillar pages or ultimate guides; to establish SEO authority in your niche, create high-quality blog content.
Explore more:
➤ Keyword Research 101 (how I find good keywords)
3. Start a Blog
“One of the best ways to boost your SEO and build real topical authority for your website is to create awesome content for search engines — aka, start a blog.”
Squarespace is great for blogging and it’s who I use for all of my blogs. Blogging success is less about the platform you’re using and more about the quality of your content strategy.
So here are a few key tips to keep in mind:
Do good keyword research. Again, keyword research is key to good SEO. It’s the art of discovering and writing on good topics (that are relevant for your brand and expertise).
Build topic clusters. Topic clusters are groups of related keywords. They help you cover a subject in full and establish SEO authority.
Stay consistent. Blogging takes time and publishing once a week is better than 10 posts all at once and then stopping for months at a time.
Stay on-brand. Don’t write posts outside of your niche just for traffic.
Explore more:
➤ Squarespace for Blogging (full guide)
4. Connect to Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a web service that lets you track your site ranking, keywords and overall performance.
Good SEO requires having good data. And the first way to start collecting that data is through GSC.
Squarespace makes this whole process super easy:
Click on the ⚙️ icon
Click on Marketing and then SEO Appearance
Click on Search keywords
Click Connect
Log into your preferred Google account
Review permission and hit Allow
Wait ~72 hours for data to populate
Squarespace does have an area to monitor your search performance in their platform (in the Marketing tab under Settings). But using Google Search Console will give you a lot more information and control (like requesting immediate indexing of new pages and posts).
5. Track Your SEO Data + Continuously Optimize
“Long-term SEO success takes monitoring, tweaking and constant updating. This is blog optimization over time.”
As you build out your brand and write more articles, you’ll start getting key insights into which posts are crushing it (and which aren’t). This information helps you decide what content needs to be updated, overhauled or even deleted.
This is content pruning and it’s something I’ve spent the better part of 2024 doing. I’ve actually deleted or moved (using 301 redirects) more posts than I’ve published new ones — and yet my traffic has increased.
Put another way, more content doesn’t always mean more traffic. Creating high-quality, super relevant content is always more important.
So track your data and use it to make informed content decisions. This is where having good SEO tools comes into play.
6. Use SEO Tools
There are tons of greats tools and resources for Squarespace. And using the right ones can definitely boost your SEO efforts.
Google Search Console and Google Analytics (GA4) are two great resources to start with. But there are plenty more third-party tools worth exploring.
Here are some that I use:
Ahrefs Webmaster Tool (free)
Track your keywords, site performance and more
Ahrefs Keyword Generator (free)
Great for getting initial basic keyword data
Semrush Keyword Research tools (free)
Keyword search data, AI-driven topic inspiration and more
Hotjar (free)
Get heat maps and user engagement data
MarketMuse (free)
A bit advanced, but great for content clustering, research and more
7. Patience / Expectations
SEO isn’t like social media. While Google Discover can get you initial clicks, SEO generally takes many months to build momentum (especially if you’re a new site).
So think long-term. Building search engine authority, like all great things, takes time.
Here are some quick tips for staying patient with your SEO:
Set achievable goals
Set realistic timelines
Set small milestones and blog goals
Celebrate the little wins along the way
Imagine where you’ll be in 2 or 3+ years (not in 2 or 3 months).
Explore more:
➤ How to Have Slow Expectations
FAQs / Squarespace SEO
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Definitely.
I had the same question when I first started my Squarespace blog. I came from WordPress and so many bloggers recommended sticking with that. But I wanted to try something different. And it worked.
I consistently rank in the top positions for competitive keywords. Remember, good SEO is more about content quality, consistency and pulling the right levers.
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Squarespace does have some SEO features and capabilities — but it doesn’t have SEO tools per se (as in tools for research or SEO auditing).
You can get a quick glance of your keyword rankings and search performance in your the SEO Appearance tab (under Marketing). But Google Search Console and GA4 will give you better data and insights.
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Optimizing your Squarespace website for SEO is pretty simple. You just need to get a few things right to get the ball rolling. Mainly, you need to:
Use the right keywords in the right places
Connect your site to Google Search Console for monitoring and indexing
Ensure your design and site usability is optimized and mobile-friendly
Create blog content for SEO and niche authority
Keep your site active and updated
