As Squarespace gradually increases its market share in the field of website development, there is still plenty of ambiguity surrounding it. It is constantly compared against content management systems like WordPress.
While some find its navigation convenient, other people find it limited in functionality.
If you are a new business looking into Squarespace for creating content, here is everything you need to know about what it has to offer in terms of search engine optimization:
Consider Your Content Needs
Several small businesses claim that even with Squarespace’s limited SEO options, compared to WordPress, they have managed to achieve success.
The key is to consider the needs of your business.
If you are looking to create a brochure website that provides an overview of your business, it is entirely possible to use Squarespace in order to rank on search engines.
Alternatively, if you are looking to build a content-heavy website – a blog with regular posts, a photography website, or a business website with a large portfolio of images – you may want to explore more versatile options.
This is due to several reasons:
- Squarespace works great for a brief navigation menu, but isn’t ideal to create extensive navigation systems. Your ideal Squarespace website will be made up of URLs that are only one-click deep.
- If your technical website development knowledge is limited, chances are you will find it hard to embed rich snippets to your website using Squarespace. While an advanced developer will be able to do this, the basic functionality of the platform does not support it.
- With a content-heavy website, you will want to optimize metadata components of your text, as well as your image captions and alt tags. WordPress plug-ins like Yoast make this incredibly easy to do. This is not the case with Squarespace, which does not allow any SEO plug-ins to be added.
Determine Your Development Skill and Budget
Squarespace has the reputation of being easy to use. However, this does not mean it is ideal for beginners.
The platform is intuitive because of its limited functionality, and therefore works best for simple website development.
If you want to add complex components like automatic image-compressing or controlled website caching, you will be unable to do so without adding specific coding to your site.
On other platforms, these functions are often automated, or made easier with additional tools.
Explore the New Squarespace Version
If you have been skeptical about Squarespace in the past and have not had SEO success with it, the features in the brand new 7.1 version might change your mind.
Previously, Squarespace wasn’t ideal for certain kinds of businesses. Now, with improved e-commerce features and pre-built webpage segments, the platform might be ideal for the way small local businesses operate on the web.
Squarespace also offers a 100-page limit, which means there is a wide boundary to incorporate search engine optimized content.
It is essential to remember that your type of business and website is the key to making Squarespace work with your SEO.
The platform may not be perfect for a website with substantial visual content, which will suffer from low browsing speeds on mobile devices and negatively impact your rankings.
