19 SEO Best Practices For Squarespace Ecommerce
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Squarespace provides an excellent platform for ecommerce websites, complete with templates and tools to customize your site. But are you making the most of this platform to bring your ecommerce site to the attention of more visitors and potential buyers?
Our top tips for improving Squarespace SEO can help your ecommerce site rise above the competition and get the eyes it needs. These tips are designed to boost SEO and improve user experience.
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SEO For Squarespace Ecommerce
Before we get to the tips, let’s talk about what SEO improvements can do for you. When you optimize your online store, you can look forward to the following:
You’ll attract more visitors who are interested in what you offer
Your Squarespace site will come up in more searches
You’ll start to see better conversion rates
You can make use of Squarespace’s ecommerce analytics tools to track what’s selling and what isn’t
At Launch Happy we find SEO opportunities to be super exciting, because they’re everywhere! Our teams are trained to find them and help our clients with their Squarespace search engine optimization efforts. Take a look at our SEO packages to see if your business might benefit from one.
In the meantime, go ahead and review our Squarespace SEO tips below to find a multitude of ways to make your ecommerce site more appealing and accessible to potential customers out there.
19 Squarespace SEO Tips For Your Online Store
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Let’s get to the good stuff! Here, in no particular order, we present 19 awesome tips to help you improve your Squarespace SEO. We think you’ll have some pretty cool “Aha!” moments as you review these tips.
1. Narrow Your Keyword Focus
Tools and techniques exist to give you dozens, even hundreds, of potential keywords that might work for your ecommerce site. But not all of these will be worth your while. Instead of trying to incorporate dozens of possible keywords, narrow your focus by concentrating on your product categories.
In most cases, the more specific your focus, the better. Broad, high-volume terms like “women’s shoes” or “kid’s clothes” have already been snatched up by the big guys, like Nike and Nordstrom. Instead, focus on niche product categories, such as “women’s comfortable work shoes” or “gender-neutral clothing brands for kids.” The more specific you get, the easier it will be for interested customers to find you and buy what you’re selling.
2. Prioritize Your Pages
You may not be able to get all of your pages to rank on the first page of people’s searches, and that’s okay. You’ll want to make sure, though, that some of your pages are showing up on that first page. So you’ll need to prioritize your pages and focus on optimizing those.
Think of these pages as your hooks to your site. Which of your products are searched for the most? Which ones have the least competition? These are the pages you’ll need to optimize to rise to the top of searches so that people will click on your site. Once they’re in your online store, they may feel inspired to browse through the rest of your site and discover what else you have to offer.
3. Find Any Issues With Your Site
Your Squarespace ecommerce site may have detrimental issues you’re not even aware of. Our free auditing tool can help.
4. Write Great Descriptions
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Give your product pages some TLC by writing unique, personalized descriptions for each. This special attention will make each page stand out. Visitors do read descriptions to decide whether or not they’re interested in exploring this page further.
Search engines also crawl descriptions; here’s your chance to do some Squarespace search engine optimization by incorporating useful keywords into your well-written description.
5. Optimize Your Images
If your images are too big, they will bog down your site. It will take too long for a page to come up when visitors click on your ecommerce site, and this delay may drive them away.
To avoid this problem, use an image compression tool like ImageOptim to resize your images (making files smaller without sacrificing image quality) so your pages can load faster.
6. Include A Social Sharing Image
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If your customers like their purchase, they may want to share their great find with family and friends. To take advantage of this form of “word-of-mouth” advertising, be sure to include a social sharing image your customers can use to tell others about your great stuff.
7. Include A Favicon
You may be wondering, “What is a Favicon?” It’s simply a branding element that shows up in browser tabs and bookmark lists. They’re also known as site icons. Be sure to use them for all your ecommerce sites.
8. Tag Your Photos
Perhaps you’re wondering, “What’s the point of tagging my images?” The answer is for SEO purposes. Search engines crawl through content, even images, so you can include keywords when you write brief descriptions for your image tags.
9. Hire A Professional Designer
We get it – you’re not a developer. You’re a business owner. You run an online store. You want to focus on customer service and sales volume, not Squarespace SEO, and rightfully so.
That’s where a professional developer can come in to help you. Our business specializes in Squarespace search engine optimization – we live and breathe it. Don’t waste your valuable time. Hire a professional designer to make your site work better.
10. Use Dropdown Accordion Menus
If you try to fit too much information on your navigation bar, it will look crowded and unappealing. Organize your categories and brands by making use of dropdown accordion menus. They keep things nice and tidy for you and your visitors, creating a better user experience.
11. Connect Google Search Console
Google offers incredibly valuable SEO tools that you can tap into for your Squarespace ecommerce site. We highly recommend that you connect to Google Search Console. Its tools and reports will help you measure traffic and help your ecommerce site appear in search results. Be sure to submit a sitemap.
12. Connect Google Analytics
For keen insights on who your audience is and how to capitalize on their behavior, connect your Squarespace ecommerce site to Google Analytics. This tool tracks and reports on website traffic, showing you which keywords are working the best for you, and which pages are getting the most hits.
13. Get A Chatbot On Your Site
Chatbots make a world of difference! They can engage your visitors even during off hours when nobody’s around to answer their questions. Your chatbot can handle the job of answering questions and contacting you via email when the customer wants more information. We primarily suggest Tidio to our clients because of it’s out of the box integration with Squarespace.
A chatbot is valuable in so many ways, for both you and your customers. It can improve the length of time that your visitors stay on your site, which in turn, can improve your Squarespace SEO rankings. It can also help your clients find specific items they’re looking for, in turn, increasing your sales. A win-win all the way around!
14. Enable Pop-Ups
Be sure to enable pop-ups on your Squarespace ecommerce site. Pop-ups grab your visitors’ attention. They can also grab information, like email addresses, so that interested visitors can be added to your mailing lists.
15. Use HTTPS
This is such a subtle but important point, and one of the first places you should start when addressing SEO for your Squarespace ecommerce website.
Some websites start with “http://” while others start with “https://” and you’ll want to make sure your site includes that all-important letter “S” in the URL. This is so important for all websites, but especially for ecommerce, to ensure that transactions are secure. Your customers who are in the know will enjoy peace of mind, and will stay on your site longer, when they see the “https”, and not just “http”, in your URL name.
16. Optimize Your URLs
In general, the shorter, the better. You want a URL that the client will remember. You want one that makes sense and points to your brand. You also want a URL that isn’t too long or too difficult to spell. If your URL is a tripping point for your customers, optimize it.
17. Use Call To Actions
If a visitor wants to take action by ordering an item or contacting you with a question, but doesn’t know how, you will lose potential sales. To avoid this problem, make sure you have very clear calls to action (CTAs) throughout your pages.
Make those “Order Now” buttons easy to find. Make sure they work. Add clear instructions on how to contact you. Make these visible on multiple spots on a page. The easier it is for somebody to place an order, make a purchase, send a question, or take any action on your site, the more sales you will end up making.
18. Hide Dead Pages
Maybe you’ve stopped selling a particular product, or you no longer update or support your FAQs page and it’s full of outdated information. These are dead pages that do nothing but waste your visitors’ time. To keep any dead pages from showing up and frustrating your customers, hide them.
19. Use 301 Redirects
What is a 301 redirect? It’s a way to redirect visitors when they’re searching for a page that has moved to a new location. People may find your old URLs and search for them. When this happens, a 301 redirect will automatically send them to your new, current URL.
Just The Tip Of The Iceberg
There you have it … 19 awesome Squarespace SEO tips to help out your ecommerce site. We hope you’ll make use of them. You will definitely see SEO improvements by taking advantage of the information we’ve just presented.
If you’re looking for additional SEO for Squarespace ecommerce assistance, we are here to help you! Here are great ways to tap into our vast knowledge base and expertise.
Read Our Free Squarespace SEO Guides
We have put together a wealth of information into helpful SEO guides that you can access for free. We invite you to browse through our site and read what you find useful. Examples of our guides include:
Maintaining Your SEO Ranking When Moving To Squarespace
Squarespace SEO: Discover The Best Keywords For Your Business
Major Changes For Squarespace SEO In 2021
Squarespace Search Engine Optimization: The Basics
Step-by-Step SEO Training: Set Up a 301 Redirect And Notify Google
We also have experts available to talk with you, if you have a question that needs immediate attention and that you’re not finding a guide for. We have many ways you can contact us for fast, efficient service and accurate answers to your questions!
Sign Up For One Of Our SEO Packages
We’ve put together convenient SEO packages that you can utilize to help grow your business. Our packages are ideal for those starting out on improving their Squarespace SEO, and also for those who are more experienced and seek additional optimization opportunities.
Choosing a package is easy. Start by choosing one that fits your needs and your budget (remember that if you need to upgrade at any point, you can always do so later). Once you book we’ll send you a questionnaire so we can better understand your Squarespace SEO needs.
After we complete the work for you, we’ll send you a detailed report with our deliverables along with a number of recommendations. We believe in being thorough and clear in our Squarespace search engine optimization work so that you can get on with the task of running your business and leave the important SEO stuff to us. We’re good at it, and we love to help our clients.
Whether you select our Jumpstart Package, 50-Point Checklist, or 100-Point Checklist, you will be getting an incredible value in SEO for your Squarespace ecommerce site. Some of what you can expect from our packages includes:
Connecting your website to Google Search Console and setting everything up correctly
Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console
Setting up your Google Analytics for you
Optimizing title tags and meta tags
Resizing and optimizing your images
Setting up promotional pop-ups
Performing keyword research
Making use of advanced Google Analytics features
And much more!
Review our packages carefully and determine which is best for you. As always, we’re here to answer your questions, so don’t hesitate to reach out and ask us whatever’s on your mind.
Our goal is to keep our clients happy and help their Squarespace sites perform optimally for them. We’ll do the same for you. Contact us today.
