5 Squarespace SEO website mistakes small business make & how to fix them

29 Aug

Here at Squarely we get lots of questions about Search Engine Optimisation and Squarespace SEO and how it can work for small business websites in Australia

From the surface it seems like there are a few limitations with Squarespace and SEO, as there aren’t any plugins you can add to Squarespace (like Yoast in WordPress), and there are a few structural issues related to Squarespace and SEO (namely the child pages and only 3 available header styles - however can be customised with CSS)

Having said that, Squarespace sites do rank well in Google and Bing searches when set up the right way!

Lucky for you, if you’ve designed your own Squarespace website without using professionals like Squarely or if you worked with another company who haven’t really got their head around search, no need to worry!

Follow our tips below and you can easily take a few basic steps to improve your website’s search engine results.

Here are the 5 most common Squarespace SEO mistakes we see on Squarespace websites.

1 VAGUE KEYWORDS / NO KEYWORD RESEARCH AT ALL

This is a biggie in business! So many people are way too general with the keywords they target. For example, take a look at this blog post title and the first paragraph. You can see that we’ve targeted the phrase “Squarespace Website SEO.” This is far more specific than if we’d targeted “SEO.” We’ve narrowed down the pool of searchers, however they’re the RIGHT type of searches we’re looking for. For example, if your business website offers Dental services for families in Melbourne, you’re far better off targeting those keywords vs just “Dentists in Melbourne” or “Family Dentists.” Think about your ideal audience, what they would be searching for, and how you can answer they’re questions on your Squarespace website.

On the flipside, we’ve seen so many websites targeting keywords that are filled with technical jargon and industry speak or so rarely searched that you may only have a few searches every month. Do your keyword research and make sure that people are actually searching for the keywords you’re using.

HOW TO FIX - YOUR NEXT STEP

Develop more descriptive keyword phrases
Try Keyword Research tools: UbërSuggest & Google Trends.

#2 YOUR SQUARESPACE SEO ON YOUR WEBSITE DOESN’T SEEM NATURAL

We see a lot of small business websites still using the old school practice of stringing keywords together in a jumbled list of words or phrases. This not only looks ridiculous, but it reads terribly, and more than likely deters your customers by hitting the back button as fast as they found you. A quality page description, page title or headline should use natural, comfortable language infusing in those keywords you’ve researched and targeted. For example, don’t write a page description like “family dental health dentist advice” This makes no sense to anyone.

Write a nice phrase like “ABC Dentist Practice offers Dental advice to families in the Melbourne area. To make a booking, Call Us Today This also has an added bonus of a Call-to-Action (CTA) in the Google search preview. #squarelyprotip

HOW TO FIX - YOUR NEXT STEP

Write your SEO optimized descriptions in easy to understand natural plain English using your newly found targeted keywords

#3 SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS FORGET TO OPTIMIZE THEIR PAGE TITLES FOR SEO ON THEIR SQUARESPACE WEBSITE

Exciting! This is a simple and easy on to fix on your small businesses Squarespace website. Squarespace has some great Search Engine Optimisation functionality built-in for you to modify. In Squarespace, you have the ability to modify the “Navigation Title,” “Page Title,” and “SEO Title.” Since Squarespace recently added these variables, we now recommend a crafted, SEO optimised Page Title and SEO Title.

For example, if you have a ABC Family Dentist in Melbourne, Victoria, your contact page could have the following:

Navigation Title - Contact Us
Page Title - Contact ABC Family Dentist
SEO Title - Contact ABC Family Dentist - Melbourne, Victoria

HOW TO FIX - YOUR NEXT STEP

Review and re-write your page titles to be more specific to what the page content is showing, and what keywords your Squarespace website is targeting.

#4 SMALL BUSINESS USING THEIR BRAND NAME AS THEIR ONLY SQUARESPACE SEO KEYWORD ON THEIR WEBSITE

Basic Search Engine Optimization is about matching the keywords of your customers search on Google with the keywords you have on your Squarespace small business website.

Google searches your Website Page Titles, the URLs and website copy to decide which websites should appear for certain SEO keywords.

Try this. Pull up Google for a minute Google your business website. In the search engine results page. Do you just see your brand name listed like the example below?

Unfortunately, most companies (including Zebra Legal) fail to optimize their site with keywords such as Amsterdam, Commercial or Law Firm on their homepage.

Sure, it’s usually helpful to have your brand name listed (especially if you aren’t ranking for your own company name), but you should also have 3–5 other keywords at the “product or service level.”

HOW TO FIX - YOUR NEXT STEP

Figure out what keywords your customers are searching besides your brand name. For example “Amsterdam Commercial Lawyers” The most valuable keywords are the ones a customer would use when searching for a product or service when they don’t know who provides it.

#5 THINKING YOU’LL GET RESULTS WITH YOUR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ON YOUR SQUARESPACE WEBSITE OVERNIGHT

Like anything and everything in the world, success comes for consistency, discipline and the willing to learn and grow. With Search Engine Optimisation on your Squarespace website it’s exactly the same. There’s no magic bullet that will get you to rank on Page #1 of Google overnight. You can however pay $500 or $50,000 for specialised SEO services, but still that won’t guarantee Google’s #1 spot at the top of the search results.

At the end of the day Google is the only company that can guarantee the No.1 position on Google for your small business.

““Any Search Engine Optimization agency who gives you a guarantee of ranking #1 on Google is over promising in order to sell you.””

Keep in mind your rank also depends on your competition. If you’re in a market that’s highly competitive with other companies that have done extensive SEO work for years, then you should expect your SEO results to take a lot longer.

HOW TO FIX - YOUR NEXT STEP

Be patient - Google results take 2-4 weeks to index and come into effect
Measure your results. Set a baseline, and work from there.
Engage an agency like us to talk more in-depth about Search Engine Optimisation for your Squarespace website.