Common Squarespace Design Mistakes that Hurt SEO
As a Squarespace designer and SEO specialist, I’ve had many clients come to me frustrated that their beautifully designed website doesn’t show up on Google. The problem often boils down to 5 common mistakes. In this post, we’ll cover what these mistakes are and how to fix them so you can finally start ranking on Google.
Squarespace SEO Mistakes
1. No Keyword
Keywords are specific words and phrases potential customers might search for to find your business, product, or content.
Think of keywords as the secret language between your website and search engines. Without them, you're practically whispering, hoping someone out there might randomly stumble upon you. But with the right keywords, you're shouting from the rooftops, "Hey, I'm over here, and I have exactly what you need!"
Your keyword plan should include three components:
Branded keywords: These are keywords that directly include your business name or variations of it. Examples: "Rosie's Floral Boutique," "Rosie's Flowers Vancouver". These help people who already know about you find your website easily. They're crucial for building brand recognition.
Product/Service keywords: These are terms people would search for to find your type of product or service, even if they don't know you exist yet. Examples: "wedding florist Vancouver," "custom floral arrangements". These are how you attract new customers who are searching for what you offer.
Informational keywords: These are the heart of answering customer questions. People are searching for information using questions or phrases like "how to...", "what is...", "best way to...", etc. These help you attract and build relationships with potential customers at an early stage.
I have another article that covers keyword research for beginners. Once you have a list of 5-10 keywords, follow the guide here to add keywords to your Squarespace site.
2. Misuse Header Tags
You may have noticed that in Squarespace’s text editor box, there are various options for text formatting: Heading 1 to 4, and Paragraph 1 to 3. These are not solely for visual formatting, but also to structure your page for search engines and website accessibility.
Think of heading tags as the outline of an essay. Just like a well-structured essay guides the reader, proper heading tags help search engines understand the hierarchy and key points of your content. By using keywords in your headings (especially your H1 and H2 tags), you give clear signal to search engines what your page is about.
Use heading tags to organize your content in order of significance as follows:
Main Heading (H1): Every page should generally have only one H1 tag. This is typically your page title or a slight variation of it.
Subheadings (H2): Use H2 headings to break up your content into major sections. Include relevant keywords when it makes sense.
Smaller Subheadings (H3, H4): If needed, use H3 and H4 tags to further divide sections within your H2 sections. Use these sparingly.
Paragraph (P1, P2, P3): Squarespace provides three levels of paragraphs to make adjusting font size easy. You can use any or a mix of them, search engines see all of them as the same paragraph tag.
3. Minimal Text On Homepage
Another common Squarespace SEO mistake is using the homepage simply as a hub of links to other pages, requiring users to click on several pages to understand your business. Not only is this a bad user experience, it also hurts your SEO. For a small site, search engines need enough text on your homepage to understand what your website is about and determine if it's relevant to search queries.
Here’s the written information you should include in your homepage:
Headline: Clearly state who you are and what you offer in a few attention-grabbing sentences. Include the primary keyword here.
Problem: What problems do you solve for your customers?
Benefits: Highlight the main benefits of your offerings, phrasing each benefit as a way your offerings solve the problems mentioned earlier.
Offering: Provide a brief description for each of your product/service.
About: Show the real people behind the business. If you want the site to rank for a person’s name (eg. sole proprietorship business), use their name as an H2.
4. Thin Content
Google wants to serve up the most helpful results. If your web pages include very little text or content that doesn't offer any real value to the visitor, it doesn't give them enough information to understand what your page is truly about or whether it matches a searcher's intent.
For example, if you have a photography website with only images and no captions or descriptions, it will be very difficult to show up on Google.
Here’s what to do instead:
Add more details about your products/services.
For gallery/portfolio pages, write a brief descriptions under each image, including location, type of shoot, and any relevant keywords.
Start blogging. Offer unique insights, answer common questions, or share case studies related to the topic.
5. Generic Page Titles
Page titles are one of the strongest signals to search engines about a page's content. However, when you use default page titles like "Home", "About", "Services", it doesn’t tell search engines or potential visitors what your website is about.
Here’s an example for writing page titles:
Bad: A bakery's page titled "Services"
Good: "Custom Cakes & Pastries - Rosie's Bakery, Vancouver, BC"
More Tips To Make Your Squarespace Website Show Up On Google
1. Register Your Site With Google
There are two free services you can use to let Google know about your business:
Google Business Profile: This allows you to create a listing for your business that appears in Google Maps and local search results.
Google Search Console: This allows you to speed up the indexing process, which helps your website ranks faster. It also alerts you to any errors or indexing issues on your website that might affect how you appear in Google search. You can follow our guide to connect Squarespace to Google Search Console.
2. Create Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites that point back to your website. Search engines see these backlinks as a kind of vote of confidence. The more high-quality websites that link to you, the more trustworthy and relevant your site appears to search engines.
There are many strategies to build backlinks. When you have a new business, the easiest way is to submit your website to relevant directories in your niche or local areas. You can find these directories by googling "[Your Niche] directory" or "[Your Location] directory".
Conclusion
Did any of these mistakes sound familiar? If so, don't worry! It's never too late to make changes. Take some time to review your Squarespace site and implement the fixes we discussed. If you need help with an in-depth SEO audit, contact us!
