When selecting a website builder, business owners often wonder: Is Squarespace good for SEO? Known for its elegant design templates and user-friendly interface, Squarespace is a popular choice, but how does it stack up in terms of search engine performance?
In this comprehensive guide, we dive into Squarespace’s SEO capabilities, highlighting its strengths, limitations, and how it compares to leading platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Shopify. You’ll also gain a solid understanding of SEO fundamentals and learn what features to prioritize in a website builder to enhance your online visibility. These expert insights will help you build a fully optimized website that drives traffic and supports long-term growth.
What is Squarespace SEO?
Squarespace SEO refers to the built-in search engine optimization tools and features provided by the Squarespace platform to help websites improve their visibility on search engines like Google. These tools are designed to make it easier for users, especially non-technical ones, to optimize their content and site structure without relying heavily on third-party plugins.
SEO is crucial for any website owner looking to increase online presence and attract visitors. Here are key reasons why SEO is important:
- Increases Organic Traffic: Effective SEO helps your website appear on the first page of search results, driving more unpaid, targeted visitors to your site.
- Improves User Experience: SEO involves optimising site speed, mobile-friendliness, and navigation, resulting in a better experience that keeps visitors engaged and lowers bounce rate.
- Builds Credibility and Trust: High search rankings signal to users that your site is trustworthy and authoritative, boosting customer confidence.
- Cost-Effective Marketing: Compared to paid ads, SEO offers long-term, sustainable visibility with high-quality content and relevant keywords.
- Enhances Conversion Rates: By targeting primary keywords and user intent, SEO attracts visitors who are more likely to become paying customers.
What Does Squarespace Do Well for SEO?
Squarespace’s built-in SEO tools provide a strong foundation for users starting their SEO journey. Its intuitive interface and effective practices for SEO help simplify optimisation tasks, making it easier to improve search engine rankings. Understanding what Squarespace does well reveals why it’s a popular choice for many business owners.
Squarespace's Built-In SEO tools
Here’s a quick overview of the built-in SEO tools Squarespace offers to help enhance your website’s visibility and search engine performance:
- Automatic XML Sitemaps: Helps search engines crawl and index your site efficiently.
- Mobile-Optimized Templates: All designs are responsive, ensuring mobile SEO compatibility.
- Customizable Page Titles and Meta Descriptions: Basic SEO control for individual pages and posts.
- Clean URL Structures: Generates simple, SEO-friendly URLs automatically.
- SSL Certificates: Free HTTPS encryption improves site security and SEO trust signals.
- Image Alt Text Support: Add alt text to images for better accessibility and image SEO.
- Social Media Integration: Built-in sharing tools that support content distribution.
- Canonical Tags: Automatically implemented to prevent duplicate content issues.
- SEO Page Settings Panel: Centralized location to manage page-specific SEO options.
- Automatic Redirects: Helps maintain link equity when pages are moved or renamed.
- Built-In Blog Functionality: Supports content marketing with optimized blog structures.
Mobile-Friendly Design
Mobile searches account for 83.58% of Google searches, highlighting the importance of mobile SEO. Squarespace offers fully responsive design that automatically adapts your website to all screen sizes and devices.
Mobile optimisation is crucial as Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in its rankings. Whether users visit from desktops, tablets, or smartphones, the consistent, smooth experience boosts user engagement and helps improve your site’s position in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Clean URL Slugs and SEO-Friendly URLs
Squarespace automatically generates clean and simple URL slugs that improve readability and SEO. Beyond this, users can easily customize these slugs to include primary keywords tailored to their content strategy. Having SEO-friendly URLs contributes significantly to better search engine visibility and makes it easier for both users and search engines to understand the page topic at a glance.
Integration with Google Analytics and Search Console
Squarespace seamlessly integrates with essential SEO tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, making it simple to monitor your website’s performance. These integrations provide detailed insights into visitor behaviour, traffic sources, and keyword rankings, empowering business owners to make data-driven decisions and refine their SEO strategies based on actual user activity and search engine data.
Structured Data and Schema Markup
Squarespace includes default schema markup, which helps search engines better understand your site’s content and context. This markup can enhance your listings in search results by enabling rich snippets, such as star ratings or event details, which can improve click-through rates. While basic, this built-in structured data support helps improve your site’s search engine appearance without additional coding.
Automatic Sitemaps and URL Mappings
The platform automatically creates XML sitemaps that guide search engines through your website’s structure, improving indexing and crawling efficiency. Squarespace also supports URL mappings that manage redirects, preventing broken links and ensuring visitors land on the correct pages. Together, these features improve user experience, maintain SEO performance, and protect your site’s ranking by avoiding common SEO pitfalls.
What Does Squarespace Do Badly?
While Squarespace is a robust platform for creating visually appealing websites, it lacks the advanced SEO flexibility that seasoned users often require. Its limitations in customization options and technical control can restrict deeper optimization efforts, making it less suitable for businesses pursuing sophisticated SEO strategies and peak search engine performance.
Limited Advanced SEO Features
While Squarespace offers solid basic SEO, it falls short on advanced capabilities compared to WordPress. It lacks extensive plugin support for specialised SEO tools, restricts full control over code blocks, and offers limited options for custom schema markup. This can be a drawback for advanced users seeking deep SEO customisation and fine-tuning.
Speed Issues and File Size Management
Although Squarespace sites generally perform well, some experience slower load times caused by large image file sizes or heavy template elements. These speed issues can negatively affect search rankings and user experience. Without manual optimisation, these factors may increase bounce rates and reduce your site’s effectiveness in attracting and retaining visitors.
Default Schema
Squarespace’s automatic implementation of the LocalBusiness schema across all websites poses a significant limitation for non-local businesses. This default structured data can mislead search engines about the nature of your site if you’re not operating a local business, potentially impacting your SEO appearance and rankings.
Compounding the issue, Squarespace does not allow users to modify or remove this schema, restricting advanced SEO customization and flexibility. For businesses seeking precise control over their structured data and optimal search performance, this limitation can be a serious drawback, making professional SEO support from Prostar SEO essential.
What to Look for in a Website Builder for SEO
When choosing a website builder for SEO, it’s essential to prioritize features that directly impact search engine visibility and long-term SEO performance. While Squarespace provides a solid foundation with built-in optimization tools, selecting a builder that aligns with SEO fundamentals ensures better rankings and site performance.
Key elements to consider include:
- Built-in SEO features like easy editing of meta titles, meta descriptions, and SEO appearance settings.
- Mobile optimization, including responsive templates and automatic mobile-friendly layouts.
- Custom URL structures, allowing for clean, SEO-friendly URLs with the ability to manage redirects and URL mappings.
- Content management flexibility that supports diverse content formats—blogs, videos, images—with granular control over image sizing and placement.
- Site speed and performance, delivered through optimized code and media for fast loading times.
- SEO tool integration, including compatibility with Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and external keyword research tools.
- Advanced SEO capabilities, such as schema markup, custom code injection, and tools for managing broken or external links.
- Ongoing support and updates to stay aligned with evolving SEO best practices.
By evaluating these critical features, you can ensure your website builder, whether it’s Squarespace or another platform, fully supports your SEO goals.
Is SEO Better on WordPress or Squarespace?
When comparing SEO performance, WordPress generally stands out as the more powerful tool for users focused on advanced optimization and long-term growth. WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility with its vast ecosystem of third-party SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and Rank Math, allowing full control over meta tags, schema markup, canonical URLs, and technical SEO settings.
Its open-source nature supports deep customization, making it ideal for businesses with a comprehensive content marketing strategy and specific ranking goals. Squarespace, on the other hand, provides a more streamlined, beginner-friendly experience with built-in SEO features that cover the basics such as mobile optimization, clean URL structures, and meta editing.
However, its limitations in third-party tool integration and custom code flexibility can restrict scalability for more complex SEO needs. While Squarespace is a solid choice for small businesses or personal sites, WordPress remains the superior platform for those seeking complete SEO control and integration with a wide range of marketing and analytics tools.
Squarespace vs Other Website Builders for SEO
Choosing the right platform for SEO is crucial to boosting your search engine rankings and driving consistent organic traffic. While Squarespace SEO includes user-friendly, built-in tools ideal for beginners, it lacks the advanced flexibility offered by other platforms. Evaluating and comparing website builders based on their SEO capabilities ensures you select the one that best aligns with your content marketing goals and the key ranking factors that influence long-term search visibility.| Feature / Builder | Squarespace | WordPress | Wix | Shopify |
| SEO Capabilities | Built-in tools, basic and advanced SEO | Highly customizable with plugins | Good basic SEO tools | Good for ecommerce SEO |
| Mobile Optimization | Automatic mobile-friendly design | Depends on theme/plugins | Automatic mobile optimization | Mobile-optimized themes |
| Custom URL Control | Moderate control over URL slugs | Full control over URL structures | Good URL editing | Limited URL customization |
| Meta Titles & Descriptions | Easy to edit | Fully customizable | Easy to edit | Easy to edit |
| Schema Markup | Default schema, limited custom | Advanced custom schema options | Basic schema support | Basic schema support |
| Speed & Performance | Good but can be affected by images | Depends on hosting/plugins | Can have speed issues | Optimized for ecommerce |
| Integration with SEO Tools | Built-in Google Analytics & Search Console | Supports many SEO plugins | Supports Google Analytics & Search Console | Supports Google Analytics & Search Console |
| Content Flexibility | Good for blogs and pages | Very flexible with plugins | Good for various content types | Focused on product pages & blogs |
| Advanced SEO Features | Limited advanced features | Extensive with plugins | Limited advanced features | Limited advanced SEO |
How to Ensure Your Website is SEO Optimized
Using a website builder with solid SEO features such as Squarespace is a smart first step toward enhancing your site’s search engine visibility. However, achieving and maintaining strong rankings requires more than built-in tools.
Ongoing efforts like producing high-quality content, optimizing keywords, and implementing technical SEO enhancements are critical for long-term success. To ensure your strategy remains effective and aligned with ever-changing search engine algorithms, partnering with a professional SEO agency is key to unlocking your website’s full potential.
- Expertise and Experience: SEO agencies bring specialised knowledge and experience, ensuring your website follows the latest SEO best practices and adapts to algorithm changes for improved search engine rankings.
- Time Savings: Outsourcing SEO frees up your time, allowing you to focus on core business activities while experts handle complex SEO tasks and strategy implementation.
- Access to Advanced Tools: Agencies use professional SEO tools for in-depth keyword research, competitor analysis, and performance tracking, giving your website a competitive edge in search rankings.
- Consistent Content Creation: SEO agencies help maintain a steady flow of high-quality, optimised content, essential for driving organic traffic and improving your site’s authority and relevance.
- Measurable Results and Reporting: Agencies provide detailed reports on SEO performance and ROI, helping you understand the impact of strategies and make informed decisions for ongoing optimisation.
Boost your Visibility With Canada’s #1 SEO Agency
At ProStar SEO, we help businesses unlock the full potential of their Squarespace websites with proven SEO strategies that drive measurable growth. Our team focuses exclusively on what matters—getting your site found by the right people.
From technical SEO audits and on-page optimization to strategic keyword targeting and high-quality link building, we handle every aspect with precision. Whether you’re running a local business, online store, or content-driven site, we tailor solutions to match your goals and maximize search engine visibility.
Let’s turn your Squarespace site into a powerful marketing tool that delivers real results!
