This is a detailed guide and checklist for websites built on the Squarespace platform, updated for 2024. As a top-ranked Squarespace SEO Specialist, I want to point out ALL the platform-specific ways you can optimize pages of your site for their target keywords.

You’ll learn:

• Insight into keyword research

• Exactly where to place keywords on-page and in backend settings

• Best practices for writing meta descriptions

• The power of URL’s and page titles and how to optimize both

• How to optimize images before and after uploading to your site

• And a whole lot more

Let’s begin!

Keyword research is the very first step of any Search Engine Optimization work.

Keywords are how people find websites.

You probably landed on this article because you entered a search query into Google, right?

So our first step is to find out which search queries, or keywords, your target audience is entering into Google.

 Part 2

SEO Titles

 Continuing to use our Bellingham dog trainer example, let’s pretend we’re working on a page of our website specifically focusing on the keyword: reactive dog training bellingham.

At the top of the page, we could create an intro statement such as: “Is your dog reactive? Dog training can help bring balance.”

Or something along these lines. The point is to place the keyword into a statement in an organic way. It might be a little awkward if the top of the page read “Reactive Dog Training Bellingham” right?

This is also a good spot -above the fold- to use H1 and/or H2 text formatting and a nice image. (You’ll learn how to optimize images in just a bit!).

Here’s an example of how the top of the page might look:

Search engines observe a hierarchy when it comes to the text formats they prioritize, which is intuitively H1 having most priority, on down to H3, H4, and normal body text.

As you develop text content for this page, keep in mind to incorporate your keyword whenever possible and in an organic natural way (I can’t stress this latter part enough- don’t overdo it and get spammy).

Part 7

Optimizing Blog Posts

Just like we covered earlier in this article for pages, a blog post MUST have an optimized URL.

By optimized, we mean: the URL must contain the keyword.

For our example, let’s use a keyword from this website’s blog: wedding planner website design.

Since this is the keyword I’m targeting, I put it into the blog post URL field verbatim, using hyphens to separate words:

You access this area in the blog post’s backend settings, accessible by going to your blog list, then clicking EDIT to the right of the post, then choosing the OPTIONS tab:

The other thing you need to do while in the OPTIONS tab of your blog post settings is upload an optimized thumbnail.

To optimize the image, refer back to the earlier instructions in this post: resize and rename.

RESIZE: The thumbnail image needs to be no longer than 1500px on the longest side

RENAME: Rename your image filename to be the keyword for this blog post, e.g.: wedding-planner-website-design.jpg

After you’ve done these two things -then- upload as the Featured Image for this post.

Next, you’ll go to the SEO tab of the blog post settings and enter an SEO title & description, as explained above in this article. Remember that your SEO title should be between 50-60 characters and contain the keyword for this post, and your SEO description should be between 150-160 characters and contain the keyword.

Page titles and URLs, remember? Muy importante!

Optimize your blog post title by incorporating the keyword into the title.

Now we move to the on-page blog post settings!

Just like on general pages of your Squarespace site, you need to add your keyword to all of the images within a blog post.

Do this by adding the keyword for this specific blog post in the filename and caption fields of each image, remembering to set the caption to OFF after you’ve added it.

Try to include your keyword as much as possible without being spammy or unnatural.

One way to do this is to restate your title after the introduction paragraph(s) of the post. Use slightly different language than the title, while still including some variation of the keyword.

If it’s appropriate, you can feature call-to-actions within the blog post.

But I always make sure to add one at the bottom of the post.

Why? Because otherwise, what does a reader do once they reach the end of the post? If you don’t provide them with somewhere else to go [on your website, ideally], they’ll likely click away.

What kind of CTA you use will depend on the blog post topic. Maybe it’s a link to browse your portfolio, or to view your services (or a specific service), or maybe it’s a link to purchase a course or other digital product.

You can present your CTA as a simple text link, an image with a link embedded, a button, etc.

You have them on your website, now keep them.

Blog post design, layout, sidebar, and other elements also play an important role in overall SEO and performance.

A Squarespace blog can be a powerful tool for the success of your brand.

I delve deeper into blogging for SEO in my Squarespace SEO Expert course.

 Conclusion