That is the second publish in our collection the place we take a look at the on-page search engine marketing of the world’s hottest CMS methods.
On this half, we’re specializing in a well-liked CMS within the “click on and go” small enterprise web site world; Squarespace, a CMS that presently powers 3.0% of internet sites globally (as of June 2024).
Once we first examined Squarespace three years in the past, we got here to the conclusion that we wouldn’t advocate it for web site house owners who wish to absolutely optimize their web site. There are simply too many on-page search engine marketing elements that you may’t management. However is that also the case in 2024?
Learn on to find:
- how effectively arrange for on-page search engine marketing Squarespace is out of the field in 2024,
- how one can configure your Squarespace web site to rank increased in Google,
- the technical search engine marketing points we discovered on the platform
Let’s get began with a abstract.
In Abstract: Is Squarespace good for search engine marketing?
Squarespace’s fundamental attraction for small enterprise house owners is its fast and straightforward, “level and click on” means of establishing an internet site. No technical data required, simply click on by way of the setup wizard and you’ll be on-line in a matter of hours.
It’s probably not a CMS designed to be tinkered with. It’s designed to get your enterprise up and working on the internet. Quick. And it does that very effectively.
However for these of us who prefer to tinker — in search of the flexibility to optimize each component of an internet site — that’s a giant disadvantage.
So, sadly, our conclusion from three years in the past nonetheless holds true:
In case you’re critical about search engine marketing, Squarespace might be not a sensible choice.
You may management some search engine marketing fundamentals. However there are both massive gaping holes or (we really feel pointless) hurdles to leap if you wish to get extra superior.
And all the things that you simply can’t do to optimize your Squarespace web site is one thing {that a} competitor on a distinct CMS may be capable of do to realize a bonus.
search engine marketing is warfare. And also you don’t wish to go driving into battle on a horse when your opponent is advancing in direction of you in a tank.
We’re going to cowl intimately how Squarespace handles management of the search engine marketing fundamentals.
However first, right here’s a abstract of our findings.
How we examined the search engine marketing capabilities of Squarespace
We arrange a small web site on a Squarespace marketing strategy.
We selected a well-liked theme and loaded the positioning with demo content material.
And we additionally examined two of the preferred themes listed right here.
The assessments included guide evaluate, working the Squarespace websites by way of our personal search engine marketing audit software, and testing utilizing third-party instruments corresponding to Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.
Squarespace search engine marketing: The nice, the dangerous, and the ugly
Earlier than reviewing Squarespace’s management of on-page search engine marketing elements, let’s run by way of among the search engine marketing highlights (and lowlights) of the platform.
We’ll kick issues off with a constructive.
Good: Squarespace’s HTML code is (comparatively) clear
It’s actually not an search engine marketing deal breaker. However we imagine there’s a bonus to having clear, bloat-free code on the entrance finish of your web site.
Visible web page builders can generate some critically ugly code.
Nonetheless, we had been happy to see that the HTML code Squarespace generates is comparatively clear.
There’s nonetheless a little bit of “DIVception” (DIVs inside DIVs for no specific motive) relating to format. However for content material, a paragraph is a paragraph, and a heading is a heading.
We might do with out the duplicated inline fashion for every tag. However a minimum of there’s no bizarre wrapping every paragraph in a div, and the textual content inside it in a span like this scorching mess from one other CMS we examined….
Squarespace’s HTML code will not be excellent. Nevertheless it’s positively not the worst we’ve seen.
Good: Easy integration with Google Search Console
Google Search Console can provide you worthwhile perception into:
- the key phrases driving impressions and visitors to your web site from Google
- any points Google discovered whereas crawling it
However for non-technical customers, establishing and verifying Google Search Console could be a little tough. Squarespace makes it straightforward.
Simply head over to Analytics > Search Key phrases, click on the button to attach with Google, permit entry, and also you’re completed.
Right here’s the total (extremely easy) course of.
Dangerous: Out-of-the-box Squarespace websites are prone to fail Core Internet Vitals
Google’s “Web page Expertise” replace rolled out on cell in summer time 2021 and got here to desktop as effectively in 2022.
To recap, Web page Expertise assesses a number of UX and security measures (HTTPS, mobile-friendly, no intrusive interstitials) and measures pace and format stability by way of three “Core Internet Vitals” metrics.
You may learn our full rundown on Core Internet Vitals right here.
And the dangerous information is that — whereas ticking the UX and safety bins — our take a look at web site (and the favored themes we examined) all failed Core Internet Vitals.
Whereas Cumulative Structure Shift could also be good, the pace points are possible more durable to beat as they’re patially attributable to blanket loading of core scripts and kinds, even when not utilized.
Certainly, JavaScript execution time accounted for over 4.5 seconds of whole load time.
There are actually beneficial properties to be made by way of pace optimization, however you’re beginning on the again foot.
That being mentioned, beginning on the again foot doesn’t imply it’s inconceivable. And, as a matter of truth, the Core Internet Vitals Know-how Report exhibits over 65% of Squarespace websites on-line appear to go Core Internet Vitals which is definitely a surprisingly excessive quantity.
And as you possibly can see from the graph, Squarespace has continuously improved its CWV metrics over the previous years.
Backside line:
Out of the field, Squarespace websites appear to be sluggish and don’t have nice Core Internet Vitals. Nonetheless, it’s clearly potential to realize a superb rating with sufficient work.
Ugly: Lack of management over superior search engine marketing options
Need to edit your sitemap manually?
How about your robots.txt file?
Circuitously.
For a lot of small enterprise websites this won’t be a problem. However we’d actually like the choice.
And customarily, we discovered the platform to be missing relating to management of any (even semi) superior on-page search engine marketing elements.
On-Web page search engine marketing Fundamentals: How does Squarespace measure up?
Now let’s flip our consideration to regulate of among the elementary on-page search engine marketing elements.
Does Squarespace cowl all of them?
No. As in our final take a look at in 2021, there are nonetheless massive gaps. And on prime of that, sure on-page search engine marketing duties are more durable to do than they need to be.
Right here’s our abstract once more.
Be aware: having management of an search engine marketing rating issue will not be equal to its optimization. search engine marketing audit instruments like Seobility supply recommendation on the best way to correctly optimize every component and discover errors in optimization which can be holding again your web site. See our search engine marketing audit information for extra info on the best way to absolutely optimize your web site.
search engine marketing Titles and Meta Descriptions
Management in Squarespace: sure
A web page’s title continues to be some of the necessary on-page rating elements. And a well-written meta description may help you get extra click-throughs (though Google gained’t all the time use it).
Squarespace enables you to add and amend the search engine marketing titles and meta descriptions for every web page in your web site.
Simply click on the gear icon subsequent to the web page you wish to edit, then choose search engine marketing.
You may edit your web page’s title and outline, and preview the way it will look in search.
Tip: for extra superior previewing (together with cell preview), take a look at our free SERP Snippet Generator software.
All good to date. However we do have a minor(ish) grumble.
Squarespace enables you to arrange templated title codecs on your pages. Under you possibly can see we have now this set to “web page title (%p) — web site title (%s)” which is the default.
Settings > Advertising and marketing > search engine marketing Look
That is helpful. And customarily together with your model in your titles is a good suggestion.
So what’s the issue?
Properly, you possibly can’t overwrite this title format on particular person pages. And if there’s a web page the place you wish to go for an extended, keyword-rich title and take away your model title to keep away from truncation…
…effectively, you would wish to take away the template and add your model title to all different pages seperately.
Which is moderately annoying.
Study extra about search engine marketing Titles and Meta Descriptions
Web page slug / URL
Management in Squarespace: sure
We advocate creating brief, descriptive, 2-3 phrase slugs, together with the first key phrase (or phrase) for every web page. Use hyphens to separate phrases.
Squarespace mechanically generates web page slugs primarily based on the web page’s title.
It’s also possible to set/change the web page slug for every web page in your Squarespace web site below Web site > Pages then clicking on the settings icon subsequent to the web page in query. . Below Common you’ll discover the URL Slug area:
Essential: for those who change the slug for a web page, you’ll have to arrange a 301 redirect to level the previous URL to the brand new one. This information from Squarespace covers the best way to do it.
Study extra about URL slugs/permalinks
Canonical URLs
Management in Squarespace: probably not
On smaller websites, you in all probability gained’t want to fret about this.
However when you’ve got a collection of comparable pages in your web site — i.e. concentrating on the identical key phrases, or with very small variations in content material — there could also be instances whenever you’ll wish to set a canonical (grasp) URL.
This helps to keep away from duplicate content material points.
Sadly, whereas Squarespace will set a canonical URL for every web page in your web site mechanically, there’s no straightforward approach to edit it. Which type of makes it a bit pointless….
¯_(ツ)_/¯
There’s a workaround that you should use, although it’s not probably the most person pleasant one and solely works for pages and never weblog posts.
To vary the canonical tags for a person web page in squarespace, go to a web page’s settings and navigate to Superior. You may add customized code to the web page right here.
Copy and paste the next script, ensuring to vary “https://instance.com/abc” to the URL you wish to set because the canonical.
So, though it’s technically doable, they don’t make it straightforward for you!
Study extra about canonical URLs
Index management (robots meta tag)
Management in Squarespace: partial
The robots meta tag instructs Google to both index (1), or to not index (2) a web page:
- – index this web page please Google
- – ignore this web page please Google (however observe the hyperlinks on it)
You don’t really need the primary one as (assuming your web page meets their high quality requirements) indexing is Google’s default motion. Nevertheless it doesn’t do any hurt to have it in place.
Squarespace enables you to add a noindex robots tag to a daily web page by checking the “Cover Web page from Search Outcomes” field.
However they don’t allow you to noindex particular person weblog pages…
For some motive, they’ve taken an “all or nothing” method within the weblog. Your solely possibility is to noindex all the things.
Not precisely ultimate.
Study extra about index management
Heading Tags (h1, h2, h3 and many others)
Management in Squarespace: partial
Heading tags (h1, h2, h3, and many others) assist Google perceive the construction, and subject(s) of your web page.
They need to be correctly nested.
For instance, an h1 tag would typically be the primary subject (degree 1), an h2 might be a subtopic (degree 2), and an h3 might be a sub-sub subject (degree 3), and many others:
(subject of the web page)
Goldfish
(subtopic)
Caring on your goldfish
(subtopic of goldfish)
Clear your fish’s tank often
(subtopic of caring on your goldfish)
Cats
(subtopic)
Caring on your cat
(subtopic of cats)
Squarespace means that you can set heading tags from h1-h4.
Whereas this could cowl most content material, there are positively instances whenever you may wish to go all the way down to h5, and probably even h6.
So the platform setting this difficult restrict could stop you from absolutely optimizing your content material.
Study extra about heading tags
Schema markup
Management in Squarespace: type of
Schema markup is a kind of structured knowledge that may assist Google perceive:
- the kind of content material on a web page (i.e. recipe, evaluate, product, article),
- the entity behind the web site (i.e. group),
- and can be used to indicate further search options (wealthy snippets)
In case you’re not aware of schema and its impression on search engine marketing, we advocate studying our wealthy snippets information.
You may add customized schema markup to a daily web page on a Squarespace web site. However you’re going to must do it utilizing their “code injection” performance, which you’ll discover below “Superior” in web page settings.
Be aware: you’ll have to generate the schema markup your self. We advocate this free software.
Just a little unintuitive, however a minimum of it’s potential.
The dangerous information nonetheless is there’s no code injection possibility for weblog posts. Which implies you gained’t be capable of add customized schema to a weblog publish.
Study extra about structured knowledge and wealthy snippets
Picture search engine marketing
Management in Squarespace: sure
The three most necessary components of picture search engine marketing are:
- Alt textual content (description of the picture for display readers and serps)
- File measurement (smaller = sooner = higher)
- File title (we advocate utilizing descriptive file names)
Let’s begin with a constructive.
In case you overlook to make use of a descriptive filename, Squarespace will allow you to change it. Which is a pleasant contact.
With regards to optimizing your photos although, you gained’t get a lot assist. Whereas Squarespace will mechanically create varied sizes for you, they gained’t compress or optimize your photos.
And as for including alt textual content…
It’s very straightforward to do by merely filling within the alt-text area.
Study extra about picture search engine marketing
HTTPS
Does Squarespace run over HTTPS? sure
HTTPS has been a confirmed Google rating sign since 2014.
And right this moment there’s actually no excuse for any web site to nonetheless be working over HTTP. However any search engine marketing advantages, it’s unsecure.
So we’re happy to say that each Squarespace web site (whether or not on a customized area or not) runs on HTTPS.
Study extra about HTTPS
Robots.txt file
Management in Squarespace: probably not
A robots.txt file means that you can cease search engine bots from accessing sure areas of your web site.
For instance, you might need a bit with user-generated content material that you simply don’t need crawled or listed by Google.
Sadly whereas Squarespace will create a default robots.txt file on your web site, there’s presently no approach to edit it manually. We want to see them add this performance sooner or later.
That being mentioned, within the web site settings below crawlers (Settings > Web site > Crawlers), you possibly can select to dam search engine crawlers and/or AI crawers sitewide.
This doesn’t provide you with a lot management, but it surely’s one thing I assume…
Study extra about Robots.txt
XML Sitemaps
Generated by Squarespace: sure
An XML sitemap helps Google discover (and index) all of the pages in your web site.
Squarespace mechanically units up and maintains an XML sitemap on your web site (pages, weblog posts, and many others), nonetheless, there isn’t a approach to edit it. However a minimum of, noindex pages can be mechanically faraway from the sitemap.
Study extra about XML Sitemaps
Is Squarespace mobile-friendly?
One phrase reply: sure
When designing your Squarespace web site, there’s a superb likelihood you’ll be specializing in the way it appears on desktop.
However cell visitors overtook desktop visitors means again in 2017. And Google has been prioritizing the cell model of your web site for crawling and indexing for some time now.
The excellent news is that Squarespace websites are absolutely responsive, and (pace points however) work effectively on cell.
Simply ensure that to preview how your web site appears on each desktop and cell. And bear in mind it’s the cell model of your web site that Google prioritizes. So when you’ve got a function that shows on desktop however not cell, then Google could not take it under consideration when rating your web site.
You may swap to cell view by clicking the cellphone icon within the Squarespace editor.
Different search engine marketing Options Value Mentioning
Squarespace search engine marketing Guidelines
Squarespace has its personal search engine marketing guidelines you should use to begin optimizing your web site. It solely covers a portion of what you are able to do to optimize your web site and doesn’t go into nice element, however Squarespace isn’t an search engine marketing firm and their customers are primarily newbies.
General, it’s a superb place to get began.
That being mentioned, when you get your web site and the fundamentals on the guidelines arrange, we advocate utilizing our personal web site audit software to optimize your web site.
It offers particular suggestions on your web site and goes into much more element, permitting you to actually make a distinction in your search engine marketing efficiency.
In conclusion: Squarespace is just appropriate for web site house owners who don’t want to optimize their web site absolutely
We don’t like to speak negatively a few platform.
However on the finish of the day, technical search engine marketing evaluation (and naturally suggestions for enhancements) is what our software is all about. So it will be remiss of us to advocate a CMS platform the place you’re unable to completely optimize your web site.
There are simply too many holes. And sure optimization duties (like modifying canonical tags) appear unnecessarily onerous to finish. Sadly, Squarespace hasn’t made vital enhancements on this space over the previous few years.
However with that being mentioned:
In case you’re on Squarespace already or don’t want management over each issue, like within the case of a interest web site, it could nonetheless be a superb possibility for getting your web site up rapidly.
Whether or not you select to make use of Squarespace or not, our recommendation stays the identical:
- run a full search engine marketing audit (you possibly can observe this information),
- allocate time to fixing points and optimizing your web site (the place potential),
- concentrate on creating high-quality content material that helps your customers and absolutely solutions their search queries,
- construct your web site’s authority by incomes high-quality backlinks (take a look at our beneficial hyperlink constructing ways right here)
Be aware: This CMS evaluate has initially been written in 2021 by David McSweeney and has been up to date for 2024 by Bram Vergouwen. Bram is a search engine marketing specialist with greater than 6 years of expertise working with corporations throughout totally different nations and industries, offering custom-made search engine marketing options and techniques that improve on-line visibility.
Within the different components of this collection, we reviewed the on-page search engine marketing of Wix, GoDaddy, WordPress and Joomla. And we’ve in contrast the search engine marketing execs and cons of every CMS in a last roundup publish, the place we additionally revealed one of the best CMS for search engine marketing.
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