Socium Media
Jul 15, 2020 | SEO

How to Improve SEO on Squarespace

Since its launch in 2003, Squarespace has quickly become one of the most popular website builders on the internet. From the ease of use to low-cost and great functionality, many businesses are seeing the benefits of using an option like Squarespace.

And in terms of search engine optimization, Squarespace is a great way to introduce yourself to the world of SEO. Squarespace provides a simple interface to easily access the different meta tags throughout your site.

So, let’s get right into optimizing your Squarespace site!

How to Optimize the Homepage Meta Tags on a Squarespace Website

The first step I take when optimizing a Squarespace website is to edit the homepage. If you think of your website like a hierarchy, or a pyramid, the homepage sits on top. It is the highest authority page on your website and tends to rank for the most keywords. The homepage title tag should focus on a high-level term that is relevant to your business.

To Edit the Homepage Meta Tags

  1. Sign in to your Squarespace account by going to Squarespace.com or your website and tapping the ‘ESC’ key.
  2. Once in the admin menu, select Marketing.
  3. Under Discovery, click SEO.

Under SEARCH APPEARANCE you will see a preview of what the title tag and meta description will look like, then form option for SEO TITLE FORMAT and SEO SITE DESCRIPTION.

Squarespace SEO Title Tag Field.

SEO TITLE FORMAT is where you will place your optimized Title Tag. We recommend the title tag to be between 60 to 70 characters and should contain your target keywords. Make sure you replace %s with your optimized tag.

Squarespace SEO Meta Description Field.

SEO SITE DESCRIPTION is where you will place your optimized Meta Description. We recommend the meta description to be between 150 to 160 characters. This tag should give a brief description of the page.

How to Optimize Meta Tags on a Squarespace Website

Now that the homepage meta tags are optimized, you will now need to optimize each individual page on your Squarespace site. But, before we get into editing each page, we will need to make some adjustments to the SEARCH APPEARANCE in the SEO settings.

To Edit the Search Appearance of Pages

  1. On the SEO settings page, under SEARCH APPEARANCE, click Pages.
  2. Remove %p – %s from SEO TITLE FORMAT. (Feel free to remove %i – %s from items too if you will be optimizing those individually.

Squarespace SEO Page Settings.

This step removes the default template that Squarespace implements as the title tag. By default, it displays Page Name – Site Name, but in most cases, we do not want the site name to repetitively appear after our Title Tags. This space should instead be used to target keywords. And, if we do want the site name to appear, we can simply add it to the page title tag manually.

To Edit the Page Title Tags

  1. Go back to the main admin menu and click Pages.
  2. Hover over the page you’d like to edit and select the gear icon.
  3. Under Page Settings, select SEO.

This brings up the SEO settings specific to this particular page. Here you can see a preview of what your Title Tag and Meta Description will look like, edit the meta tags, and also Noindex a page from appearing in the search results.

Squarespace SEO Page Settings Options.

SEO TITLE is where you will place your optimized Title Tag. Again, as we noted before, the title tag should be between 60 to 70 characters and contain your target keywords.

Note, the character count to the right of the form fill is counting the characters remaining, not counting the number of characters used.

SEO DESCRIPTION is where you will place your optimized Meta Description. Again, we recommend the meta description to be between 150 to 160 characters and be a unique description of the page.

How to Optimize H1 Tags on a Squarespace Website

To optimize the H1 tag on a Squarespace website, you will need to edit the Page Title. Since this optimization changes the name on the frontend of the site, I typically tell clients to optimize at their discretion. Meaning, if you can optimize the H1 tag, without it looking forced or ruining the aesthetic of the page, then I would recommend optimizing, but if the H1 tag is a branded product name, or would affect the aesthetic of the site, then stick with the brand.

To Edit the H1 Tags

  1. From the main admin menu, click Pages.
  2. Select the page you would like to edit.
  3. Then click the EDIT button in the top left corner.
  4. The H1 tag is generally the main heading on the page or the page title, select the text that is styled as Heading 1.
  5. Once edited, click DONE in the top left corner.

Edit Squarespace H1 Tag.

The H1 or Heading 1 tag helps Google and Bing understand the content on the page. If you think of the page structure as a hierarchy, the H1 tag is the highest-level, H2 is the next highest, and so forth. So, generally the H1 tag should be optimized towards the keyword the page is targeting.

To Sum it All Up

Squarespace has made the process of implementing and optimizing SEO meta tags very straightforward. The magic of SEO and ranking highly for targeted keywords really comes down to your keyword research strategy, meta tags, and onsite copy.

Do you have a question that wasn’t answered, or do you need help optimizing your Squarespace website? Reach out to our SEO team by scheduling a Free Consultation!

Ricky Weiss
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