With Seo Tools for Squarespace, you’ll be able to create, manage, and optimize content in one place. Built to integrate with your Squarespace website, this plugin takes away the headache of writing in different formats, and creating content that is natural in search engines.
Seo Tools for Squarespace is a set of free SEO tools designed for developers to enable them to quickly and effectively optimize their websites for Search Engines. Developed by the DevSquared Group, this plug-in starts with over 50+ free SEO related tools including – Page/Post Analyzer – Page/Post Limiter – Tag Limiter – Title Limiter – Meta Limiter – Link Limiter – Redirector – Keyword Density Checker – Keyword Placement Checker – Root Domain Checker – Robots.txt Checker
Site map
Squarespace automatically generates and links a proper sitemap.xml, which enumerates every URL and image metadata on your site with proper priority for perfect indexing. For more information, visit Your site map.
SSL certificates
All Squarespace Domains and third-party domains include free SSL certificates when connected and pointing to Squarespace sites. This is an SEO best practice, as sites that aren’t SSL-secured may be penalized in search engine rankings.
Clean HTML Markup
Squarespace produces pages with clean HTML markup that is indexable by search engines. There’s no need to add <h1> and <h2> tags in HTML. Just select a Heading style, and those tags are created for you.
Automatic tagging
Images contain proper <alt> and <title> tags, improving search engine indexing. All meta tags for pages and <link> tags for RSS feeds are automatically generated. Image descriptions are converted to <alt> tags.
Clean URLs
All pages and collection items on your site have static URLs that are easily indexed and read by search engines.
Automatic redirects
If you have multiple domains, Squarespace will redirect users and search engines to a primary domain and use rel="canonical" to fix these references. To learn more, visit Multiple domains and SEO.
If you use a custom domain as your primary domain, this hides your built-in domain from search engine results.
Search engine and page descriptions
Squarespace includes fields for editing your site’s search engine and page descriptions. These might appear below your site title in search results depending on the search terms used.
AMP
AMP, or, Accelerated Mobile Pages, creates lightweight versions of web pages to help them load faster on a mobile device. AMP works with Google to prioritize results in mobile searches.
Google rich image search for products
Squarespace structures product information so Google can display additional information in rich search results. These search results can include the product name, a product image, description, price range, availability, and product URL.
Built-in mobile optimization
Google’s technology gives mobile-optimized sites a higher priority in search results. As such, all mobile-friendly Squarespace sites are also search-engine friendly. As long as you don’t disable mobile styles or overload your site with too much content, your site is ready to be found in mobile searches.
Built-in meta tags
HTML <meta> tags in a site’s code help search engines identify a site’s titles and page descriptions. Meta titles and descriptions may appear in search results, depending on what visitors are searching for.
Squarespace automatically adds meta tags to your site from these SEO settings:
- SEO titles – Creates meta title tags for individual pages and collection items.
- SEO descriptions – Creates meta description tags for individual pages and collection items.
- Site title – Creates the title tag for your whole site.
- SEO site description – Creates the meta description tag for your homepage.
On-Page vs Off-Page SEO
Search engine optimization encompasses two practices: on-page SEO (optimizing your website itself) and off-page SEO (increasing external signals to impact your site’s authority). Both practices can help to gain traffic from search engines, but according to Search Engine Journal:
“Links are important, but the biggest bang for most companies’ SEO bucks is ongoing on-page optimization.”
Even Google tells us that to achieve big SEO results, we can start with small, simple changes to a site — this is Google’s approach to managing their own 7000 websites:
“…there are plenty of other ways to drive traffic to your website. Paid media, social posts, and display advertising are just a few. But, when done well, SEO can provide an important — and cost-effective — strategy for organic growth.”
So before you start increasing your site’s authority with links, reviews, citations, and other off-page best practices, use the Squarespace SEO checklist below to make sure your website is search-friendly.
Is Squarespace SEO Friendly?
Short answer, yes. The marketing literature goes a bit far with “we build all known SEO best practices into every Squarespace site,” but overall it is a solid platform. Here are a few SEO benefits built into Squarespace:
- Sitemaps: Squarespace sites come with an automatic XML sitemap. Your Squarespace sitemap stays current and includes all your page URLs and image metadata for SEO-friendly indexing.
- SSL Certificates: Squarespace offers free SSL certificates to all customers. Your site visitors get a secure connection on every page of your site. Google rewards you for adopting HTTPS.
- Mobile-friendly: All Squarespace themes are responsive. Your content and images are automatically resized to fit different devices and screen widths. A mobile-friendly site is critical for Google.
- Clean HTML and URLs: Your HTML markup and URLs are easily indexed.
Register your site with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Registering your Squarespace website with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools is the first thing you need to do to improve its visibility in search results.
By registering your site with these two services, you are telling the two major search engines that your website exists and are ensuring it gets crawled.
This process is very easy — but if you need help, Squarespace has two resources available that will guide you through the process:
Once you’ve registered your site with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, it’s important to submit an XML sitemap to both services — this helps them index your site accurately and lets them know which of the pages on your site are the most important.
Helpfully, Squarespace generates a sitemap automatically for you — the URL for this on your Squarespace site is simply www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml — and you just need to give Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools this link.
In both services you do this by going to your site’s dashboard, and then clicking ‘sitemaps.’
Conclusion
Seo Tools for Squarespace is a set of tools that let you do on-page keyword research for each web page of your Squarespace website. The toolset includes a rank checker, a website explorer, and a toolbar – all three are designed to help you optimize your website so it ranks higher in search results. You can use the toolbar on any web page or blog post to instantly get an analysis tailored specifically to Squarespace sites.