How to use keywords on Squarespace for better SEO

Today we are going to explain how you can use Keywords with Squarespace, and how to make the most of them so your website can rank higher in the search engine hierarchy. Scroll down and see our 4 keyword tricks to allow you to create an effective keyword strategy for your Squarespace website, including details on where to use keywords in your Squarespace site. 

What are keywords? 

A keyword is a word or phrase that is used to describe and sum up the content of a Web page, it helps your content to be found by end users. Using correct keywords will allow you to rank higher in search engines such as Google or Bing, and it is one of the most important aspects when creating a SEO strategy. 

1. Research and become a Pro!

Every strategy starts with proper research. Before deciding which keywords you should start ranking for, we recommend focusing on two aspects: 

• Understand your customers: what are their needs, what language they use, what type of content they are interested in. In this sense, some simple tactics of achieving your goal would be to directly talk to your customers, but also check how people communicate in thematic forums, community groups, etc.

• Understand what are the overall searching trends. On the internet there is a huge amount of free resources available that you can use for your research. Some of the most popular and effective sites are Google Keyword planner, Ubersuggest, Wordtracker, Keyword Guru, etc.

2. Use keywords in strategic sections

There are billions of pages which search engines need to process while your potential customer is searching the website of their interest. Search engines will show the best suggestions for your customer, after deciding upon the relevance and popularity of the pages or websites. 

So if you want to help Google by proving your content is relevant, then using keywords in the main sections of your site will help your ranking. Avoid randomly throwing keywords on your page. Don’t focus on creating content for Google Bots, instead you need to create valuable content for real people. Unique summarizing keywords should be introduced in pages where people or bots normally look to reassure themselves your information is relevant for them (i.e. a title of an article about the presets you use should be as descriptive as possible and include words as “photography”, “presets” or anything else you consider the most related to the content you want to share). Here are the sections were you should be introducing keywords: 

• Title

• Headings (H1, H2, H3) and Quote

• The excerpt

• The image File Names & File Title Names

• The Blog Post URL

3. Use long tail keywords

It is important to understand the difference between a keyword and long tail keywords. Whereas simple keywords will drive visitors with some general common interests to your site, take for instance “photography” or “wedding”, a long tail keyword would be a more descriptive and specific phrase the searcher types when being really interested to buy i.e. “Washington documentary Wedding Videographer”. Therefore, it is important to understand what are those tails your customers are searching, as it is explained in this article, long tails will give you a big advantage contrary to your competition because long tail searches will convert faster into sales at a higher rate. 

As a piece of advice for photographers, besides using your long tail words related to your photography niche (i.e. Boudoir, Portraits, Elopement etc.), pay attention to the geographical terminology (city, state or region). Geographical names have proven to be the second most important keywords next to photographer worth ranking for, if you manage to get in the first 7 photographers that appear in Google search for a certain region, that’s a big success. 

4. Configure your Page Names and Meta Descriptions

Meta Description is a snippet of text that summarizes the content of your page, it plays a significant role in on-page SEO and the organic traffic which comes to your website. This tag will most probably appear under your page headline in search engine results, as you can see in the image below.

When working on your page names and Meta Descriptions keep in mind the following:

• Use Descriptive Keywords! You may believe that using romantically vague titles or tags will intrigue visitors to enter your website, however the truth is that it hinders the real power of keywords. You want your message to be as clear and straight to the point to your users so they don't work too hard understanding what exactly your service/product is about.

• It is also advisable to have a unique Meta Description for each of your pages. If you want to help the user experience in Google or Bing, try writing for each of your pages around 155 characters about what the user can see on that page. Using similar meta descriptions on all your site pages will frustrate potential customers when searching for something particular.

The process of introducing the Meta Description on Squarespace site is covered in the Squarespace documentation article “Adding search engine and page descriptions”. 

Wrapping it Up

Now you understand better what is a keyword, how to start your research, and use long tail keywords, you’ve also learned tricks on how to use keywords on your Squarespace site. Improving your SEO should help you attract more organic visitors to your web-site, but if you want to have a better sales conversion, consider updating your Site Design. Professional looking design increases your credibility as a business, but also can impact considerably your overall portfolio presentation and consolidate your brand positioning.

If you’d like to know more about Squarespace SEO, we’ve created an easy to follow three step guide which you can implement today:

Part 1 - 8 Steps to Better Squarespace SEO
Part 2 - Blogging Like a Pro - Using Content for SEO
Part 3 - 3 SEO Tips
 

Creatively yours,
Squaremuse Team!