The Squarespace SEO checklist we run on every site

Squarespace handles a decent chunk of technical SEO for you: SSL, sitemaps, clean HTML, mobile rendering. What it can't do is the part that actually determines whether you rank: deciding what each page targets, and configuring the two dozen settings that tell Google what your site is about.

This is the checklist we run on every site we build or audit. Nothing here requires a plugin, a consultant, or code; it's all in the Squarespace dashboard. Work through it top to bottom and you'll be ahead of most of the sites you're competing with.

Site-wide settings (do these once)

• 1. Set your site title properly. Marketing → SEO Appearance. This is the text appended to your page titles, so make it your brand name, not a slogan.
• 2. Write the homepage SEO title and description. Your homepage title is the single most valuable piece of SEO text on the site. Lead with what you do and where: "Custom Squarespace Websites | YourBrand" beats "Home".
• 3. Connect a custom domain and confirm it resolves with SSL (Squarespace does the certificate automatically; if it hasn't, see our DNS troubleshooting guide).
• 4. Set a social sharing image (Marketing → Social Sharing) so links to your site don't render as blank cards.
• 5. Add a favicon. Tiny, but its absence marks a site as unfinished, in browser tabs and occasionally in search results.

Per-page checks (do these for every important page)

• 6. One target query per page. Before touching settings, decide the search each page should win. A page trying to rank for everything ranks for nothing. If you offer four services, that's four pages, not four paragraphs on one page.
• 7. Write a unique SEO title (Page Settings → SEO): the target phrase near the front, under 60 characters, readable by a human.
• 8. Write a unique meta description: 150 characters, say what's on the page and give a reason to click. Google rewrites weak ones, but a good one lifts click-through measurably. We've seen pages ranking in the top ten with near-zero clicks purely because the snippet was flat.
• 9. Check the URL slug. Short, words separated by hyphens, containing the topic. Change slugs before launch; changing them after means setting up redirects.
• 10. One H1 per page, and a sane heading order. In Squarespace this means using Heading 1 exactly once, then H2s for sections. Don't pick heading levels for their font size; restyle the level you actually need instead.
• 11. Add alt text to meaningful images. Describe what's in the image; skip keyword-stuffing. Note a Squarespace gotcha: section background images can't carry alt text, so any image that matters for search should be placed as an image block instead.
• 12. Link your pages to each other in body copy, not just the nav. A services page should link to relevant case studies; a blog post should link to the service it relates to. Internal links are how authority moves around your site.

Technical (30 minutes, once)

• 13. Verify the site in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap; Squarespace generates it automatically at /sitemap.xml. This is also where you'll see what queries you're actually appearing for.
• 14. Connect analytics (GA4 or Squarespace's own) so decisions six months from now are based on data, not vibes.
• 15. Redirect old URLs. If this site replaces a previous one, map every old URL to its new equivalent under Settings → Advanced → URL Mappings. Skipping this throws away every ranking the old site earned. It's the most expensive mistake in site migrations.
• 16. Compress your images. Squarespace serves responsive sizes, but it can't shrink a 4MB original into a fast page. Export images at sensible dimensions and run them through a compressor before upload; aim for under ~500KB each.
• 17. Set hidden pages to noindex. "Not linked" doesn't mean "not indexed": draft pages, thank-you pages and internal pages should have "Hide from search results" ticked in Page Settings → SEO.

Content and local (ongoing)

• 18. Match what people actually search. Your customers don't search your product name; they search their problem. Page copy (especially H1s and FAQs) should use their words. Search Console's query report will tell you the exact phrases once data accumulates.
• 19. If you serve local customers, act local. Name your city on the relevant pages, keep your Google Business Profile complete and consistent with the site, and give each location its own page if you have more than one.
• 20. Publish regularly, on the questions clients ask you. Every recurring client question is a blog post that can rank. This is slow and it compounds. Most of the search traffic to our own site comes from exactly these posts.

What you can skip

A few things people pay for that Squarespace sites don't need: SEO plugins (the platform exposes the settings directly; most "Squarespace SEO tools" are a UI over the panel you already have), submitting your site to directories nobody visits, and daily rank-tracking dashboards for a ten-page site. Spend that budget on better page copy instead.

The honest caveat

A checklist gets the foundations right; it doesn't out-rank a competitor with better content and more authority. If the checklist is done and you're still stuck on page two for the terms that matter, the levers left are content depth, digital PR, and time, or a structured SEO engagement where someone does the pushing for you.