How Do You Get to be Number One on Google for Your Squarespace Website
If you don’t want to read a 2,000 word blog about this topic, I’ll go ahead and give you the quick answer: it takes a keyword strategy, hard work, and lots of trial and error.
Now, to learn how to actually do all of that to get started on the right path, keep reading!
You’ve just launched your site, either with me, you’ve done it yourself, or another studio. You excitedly type in either your name or website name in Google to see your shiny new website out there in the wild!
Except, Google doesn’t show it. You’re not on the first page. You might not even be showing up at all, or you mind be on the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th or more pages.
This is completely normal.
Getting on Google isn’t something that happens immediately or overnight. In fact, it takes a lot of dedication and SEO hard work. If your business, name, or website name is a common, then chances are, there are a lot of other businesses who will rank higher if they’ve been around longer.
If only it were as simple as monitoring it with cute paper and string!
Getting onto the first page is not a “given” of simply owning a website.
This is the tough truth, but there it is! Google is a business, meaning it needs to do right by its user base. Google will prioritize relevant, expert, and updated content so it can ensure its users are finding the websites it needs.
Think about it: what if your name was Jane Smith. Why would your name immediately go to the top of all of the other Jane Smiths just because you launched a new website? If there are even 10 other Jane Smiths doing website design, they will have more content, more keywords, longevity, and probably even more backlinks to their website.
This all probably sounds frustrating, but don’t worry! This blog will cover a few steps you need to get started on the correct path to SEO (search engine optimization.)
We’ll cover these topics that are Squarespace specific:
Starting to increase your ranking
How to find your keywords
How to Generate Keyword Focused Content via Blogging
Checking analytics to see what’s working
How do I start to increase my search ranking with Squarespace as a platform?
Google prioritizes, to put it simply, relevant, expert, and updated content. You might have noticed a key word there at the end: content. Creating and generating content is THE way to start to up your search ranking!
Well, wait. You might be shaking your fist at me: didn’t you just launch a new website with tons of web content? If you worked with me, good news! Your site is already full of basic SEO optimization. This means we’ve added keywords in your headlines, named all of your images properly, and written SEO descriptions per page. We’ve also indexed your site on Google, meaning we’ve pushed the changes to Google.
If you didn’t work with me, then ensure your existing content is full of keywords that are relevant to the problems you solve for clients.
Let me say that again a little plainer: put keywords everywhere in your Squarespace site! Google has no idea of knowing what your website is about without them. There is no human being at Google reviewing each of your pages and decoding them. Google is a robot, an AI system! YOU have to add your relevant keywords in your website.
Squarespace doesn’t offer of the crazy SEO plugins that Wordpress does, but meta tags, secret back end portals, and SEO magic aren’t involved in a good SEO strategy at all. A good SEO strategy should work the same on any platform: generating that relevant, expert, and updated content to show Google you mean business!
Lastly, a huge tip that is often overlooked: Your site ranks per page, and not for the overall site. That means that each of your individual pages (or blogs!) has a chance to rank high and for different sets of keywords. Again, it’s not your website, but your individual pages that start to rank on Google.
To recap, you are going to:
Check your website to ensure keywords are in key places per page
Start creating relevant, expert, and updated content
Now it’s time to generate that content. The best way to generate new, updated and relevant content is to blog!
POCKET SEO: Grab the course!
Do you need a bit more information and knowledge about SEO and ranking higher? Grab our entire COURSE on the subject! Put it in your pocket and use per page and per blog.
How to Find Your Keywords
Now here’s the real question! Finding and learning your keywords for your site is the real key to starting to rank high on Google. You rank per keyword (and your individual pages rank, not your overall website). Meaning, I might rank high for “Squarespace Design Atlanta” but not rank high for “Website Design.”
I rank high for “Therapy Website Design” but not high for “Coaching Website Design.”
Let’s go back to the original question and the title of this blog: How Do I Get to be Number One on Google for my Name?
Forget about your name!
What do you DO for clients! You want to rank for your actual industry, not your business name or name. Even my own name is very common so I don’t use it, and I’m lucky to have a website that is unique in its brand name, but that’s just not true for everyone.
Toss that name and business name out the window when it comes to SEO.
Instead, find your keywords.
Here’s a sneak peek of a page of my course: a keyword umbrella. Using this, identify your core keywords at the top, and then get more and more specific using a combination of niche phrases, answering FAQs, specialty phrases, and audience phrases. Check out the example next to the umbrella.
How do I apply these keywords?
Now, to actually apply these keywords, go back to your website and start adding these phrases in your headlines, page titles, bulleted lists, etc! It’s as simple as that. Or, you can move onto the next lesson to learn how to utilize blogging for this.
How to Generate Keyword Focused Content with Blogging
YES! Blogging!
No, don’t roll your eyes at me!
I hate it (actually I don’t, I love writing) but it’s the truth: writing content means writing new blogs. The reason that blogs work is quite simple: we are constantly Googling things. That means, our search queries on Google are in the form of questions that we are seeking the answers to.
Think back (or even better, go look) at your own personal Google search history. Are you simply typing in “Web design” or are you typing in “How to find a web designer for [my industry].”
You want to think in terms of searching content. What questions can you answer for your clients? Now, make those things a blog!
Here are the best ways to blog:
Write How-to Guide
Make it aList
Answer an FAQ
Write a Portfolio / Case Study
Provide Industry Expertise
Review a Tool You Use
Each of those items will help you get keywords into your websites. Keywords are the words (yes, one keyword can be multiple words!) that users will type into Google to get your website.
For example, let’s say I pair:
squarespace website design (keyword) + make it a list (blog type) + therapy clients (niche keyword) + Make it a list (easy to do!)
This might turn into a blog called:
5 Things Therapists Need to Consider in Their Therapy Focused Squarespace Website Design
Yes, this is a long blog title, but it WORKS! This title is also specific, helpful, and speaks directly to my audience. Using this entire article you can start to come up with tons of blog titles that harness the power of your keywords and start ranking higher for these keywords.
In fact, pay attention to this article you’re reading right now. Scroll up and notice how I have keywords in the title, in the section headings, and all throughout the blog itself!
How to Check Your Squarespace Analytics to See If Your SEO Is Working
Alrighty! Now, you’ve found your keywords, written blogs, and you know that you’re trying to rank per page, per keyword and not for your business in general.
Let’s check our analytics to see what’s working.
Keep in mind, I’m going to use Squarespace analytics because that’s what this blog is all about!
You want to peek at your popular content.
This is going to show you what’s performing well. This is where I’m constantly checking to see which of my blog posts performs the best. Currently, a blog of mine I’m not too excited about is ranking high, and that means I wrote tons of other blogs to try to knock that one out of first place.
The other blogs I’m writing (like this one!) serve my main goals, whereas that first blog does not.
Next, I check my traffic sources. This way, you can see if it’s Google, Direct links, or social media that is driving your traffic.
You want to start raising your Google traffic via blogging, because that’s how you start to reach wider audiences and rank higher and higher. Social media traffic is also great, but those are warmer leads who are already following and know about you.
There you have it! If you’re not exhausted after reading this giant blog, you might already know SEO. If you are exhausted, now you know that true SEO takes a ton of work. I spend hours every month dedicated to writing blogs, optimizing pages, and more just to rank high so I can deliver more great content to you!
If you’d like more information, you can book a 1:1 call with me to discuss your SEO, or you can even take my Pocket SEO course directly which has all of this info and MORE!
