How to Add SEO to Your Squarespace Blog Posts

SEO

Nov 6

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Optimizing your blog posts with SEO is a game changer.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE SEO for Squarespace checklist right here!

I’m sure you’ve heard all about SEO lately. It seems to be everywhere and nowhere all at once!

Is that even possible? Sure seems like it!

In any case, if you haven’t heard, SEO is super important for your website. I mean, it’s the thing that actually helps people find you instead of you always being on the hunt.

How nice does that sound?

Don’t get me wrong. Social media is great. We’re keeping up with and keeping in touch with long lost friends and family members in ways that weren’t possible even just 10 years ago.

But.

When it comes to business, as great as social media is, it’s also very difficult. Distracting. It causes shiny object syndrome and comparisonitis like we’ve never known. Which can be detrimental to your business if not kept in check.

What if there was another way? That didn’t involve endless, mindless scrolling and empty comments.

Side note: Use social media. Engage on social media. But do so with authenticity and a servant’s heart. Do so not with the mindset of what you’ll get out of it but how you can serve your audience. Trust me, it becomes WAY less stressful this way!

Well I’m here today to tell you there is. And it’s SEO. (Search Engine Optimization if you’re unfamiliar with the phrase. And if you are, I’m SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE. This will change your life!)

It’s the use of keywords and phrases in your website and posts that tell Google what your content is about. Which in turn helps Google show your content to people who are searching for those keywords and phrases.

People. Searching. For. YOU.

Let that sink in. 😉

Okay now that I’ve convinced you you need SEO, let’s get started.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE SEO for Squarespace checklist right here!

The first thing you need to do is research your keywords.

Whaaat? You thought I was going to say write your blog post? Gotcha!

Okay okay, enough being cutesy. Let’s get down to it for real. Do your keyword research. There are tons of tools you can use for this. Two of my favorites are:

Keywords Anywhere. This is a Chrome extension that works with Google. So when you type something into the Google search bar, Keywords Anywhere shows you what the search results look like for that keyword or phrase.

It shows you how often it’s searched (you want something between 10k - 100k searches per month). It tells you how much people spend on ads with that keyword. The lower the price, the less competition.

It also shows you other similar keywords and phrases people search for. This one is golden if the original keyword doesn’t turn up results you like. Check out what else people are searching for to see if something else might suit you better.

Google Keyword Planner. You can find this one in your Google Ads account. It’s free to use, no need to set up an ad! This tool also tells you how many people are searching a specific word or phrase. It also tells you the competition level for a word. The less competition, the more likely you are to land on page one of a search using those keywords.

Why do you need to research keywords first?

Simply so you can use those keywords that people actually search for in your posts. This makes your post must more likely to pop up in Google search results. Google recognizes that it contains the words/phrases people are searching for… so it shows it to them!

Now write your post using those keywords

Use the keywords and phrases you researched naturally throughout your post. It’s important not to keyword stuff your post. That used to be the thing to do. Just put your keywords anywhere and everywhere. But Google picks up on this now. So write naturally, like you’re telling a story.

That’s really it for this part! The rest of the magic happens behind the scenes of your post.

I do want to add this though: use your header fonts sparingly. Each post should only have one H1 line, your title. H2 headers should be used throughout the post to designate sections. Guess what, Google picks up on these too!

Behind the scenes seo pieces

Now comes the fun part! All the little things to do to optimize your blog post. Here we go!

Images

Add images to your post. The main image should be Pinterest optimized. This is the (first) one you’ll use to share it to Pinterest and you want any visitors to your post to be able to share it too.

Make sure ALL images have alt-text. This is SO important. And there are a few ways to do it depending on your website platform. I use Squarespace, so I’ll focus on that one.

In Squarespace, there isn’t a specific place that says “Add Alt-text here!.” So what we’ll do instead is add a caption, then hide the caption. You also want to make sure to give your image file a file name that is focused on the keywords. STOP using those img-3489 file names your phone gives your pictures! Give your photo a name that Google can search.

I usually give it the same name as the caption formatted like this:

some text here that’s probably the name of the blog post | Delana Simmons | SEO and Pinterest Expert

This way, the key words I used for the blog post are in it, my name is in it, and what I do is in it. All things people would search for!

You’ll want to do this for any and every picture in your post.

PRO TIP: Add a signature image to the bottom of your posts. This lets you add more alt-text for Google to document to your posts! I also like to add some additional pinnable images to the bottom of my post. This again lets me add more alt-text for Google, AND it gives readers the option to pin a different image, rather than the main one.

SEO Settings

Now that you’ve got your post done and your images done, it’s time to work in the settings.

To get there, click EDIT in the post sidebar. Then click the SEO tab. Here’s where you’ll see the options to give your post an SEO name and description.

This is the info that shows up in Google searches so use it wisely!! Remember those keywords you researched earlier? Use them here. But don’t keyword stuff.

Keyword stuffing is running a bunch of keywords together to get as many into the description as possible. Google notices this and it will hurt your ranking.

Enter in a readable headline and description using those keywords and click SAVE!

There you have it! The KEY pieces of SEO for your Squarespace blog posts. Have you been doing this already or is this new to you?