It’s no secret that blogging adds value to your business and if you’re already writing one you can understand why. With that being said, I found myself in the Youtube rabbit hole the other day and noticed a trend of prominent bloggers talking about the value that SEO has on a WordPress self-hosted blog and not much about Squarespace.
While its true that Squarespace is an all-in-one platform – meaning there are no plugin options like WordPress – there are definitely options to help you improve your SEO. The best part? These won’t cost you any money, only your time so prepare yourself to sit for a moment.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is not only one of the most crucial components of any successful website or blog, but it’s the process of utilizing specific keywords, tags and even metadata that make your site more visible in a search engine.
For example, Google is the largest search engine and requires regularly updated content to rank your content higher within their search engine. When I worked in Marketing, we outsourced a company to handle all of our ranking and SEO systems. Now that I’m utilizing these features for my own business it’s been interesting to see the difference and measure results.
Ready to optimize your blog posts on your own?
Google Business
I’ve always known about Google Business, but to be honest: I didn’t use it for my business before. I decided to research and realized this is another free tool that Google offers that not only boosts your Search Engine rankings, but makes it easier for potential clients to find you – organically.
Utilize Keywords and Phrases
The best way to rank higher on Search Engines is to utilize your keywords or phrases. These are words or phrases that Search Engines use to measure your website. Here are examples of how keywords or phrases may be used in this post about starting a blog:
Keywords: Squarespace, Blog, etc.
Keyword phrase: “Starting a Blog on Squarespace”
These words are subtle enough for the Search Engine to pick up and not too much to lower your ranking – yep, too many keywords will lower your rank. So be careful not to add too many. Another thing to remember is to: not mistake tags and categories as your keywords. Instead integrate keywords throughout your blog post. If you make this mistake, you could instead cause search engines to pick your tags as relevant instead of your actual content.
Use this keyword tool to find tools and generate suggestions.
Interested in updating your blog site to yield better results? Read this article on six ways you can update your blog.
Add Image Captions and Titles
Adding text to your image files is so important. Why? Because Search Engines can’t see images in the same way they can read text. This means you have to update your file names and even captions of every single image.
What works for me is to update all of my image names before I actually upload them. This way I don’t have to manually do it while waiting for the upload. While the photo uploads I go ahead and update the caption, but hide it within the post like shown below.
Manually Update SEO
You’ll notice on the SEO tab of your blog post a full SEO page. You’ll want to update the SEO Title and Description sections. Although it states it’s optional, you’ll want to fill this out to be sure that the content appears correctly with the Search Engine. See the difference between no SEO below.
Once this is completed, save your post and hit publish. To double check how you rank, you’ll clear your search history, and head back over to Google or Pinterest to search your post name again. You should be excited to see your Google search match the Squarespace preview. If you’re curious for more check out this free tool that dives in further to your site (and even prepares a full report for you!)
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