Adding SEO Meta Descriptions on a Squarespace Website (7.0 + 7.1)
2024 Update:
While everything in this post is still relevant today, there’s even more you can do for your Squarespace website to improve your ranking. I highly recommend checking out SEOSpace, the only SEO plugin for Squarespace. SEOSpace was created by Henry Purchase and I hired Henry to help me with my own SEO over the past 6 months. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and have seen a giant uptick in visits and leads since we finished our work. Using SEOSpace is easy and it will recommend a lot of things you can to do improve the SEO ranking of your website. Check out a few of Henry’s videos as well after you read my post.
If you’re ready to improve the SEO on your website, reach out to me and I can put you in touch with Henry to get you to the next level.
Every business is looking to rank higher on search engines. This leads to more traffic to your site resulting in more clients and revenue. To help, Squarespace allows users to easily add SEO descriptions to their site, pages, blog, and collections. This in turn helps search engines to know what content is on your site and when to show your information to a searcher that’s looking for it.
As a Squarespace expert, I work with my clients to boost the SEO on their 7.0 or 7.1 website from multiple angles. One way to easily enhance your website’s SEO is through SEO descriptions.
An example of short SEO descriptions
*Bonus tip: The additional fields below the main description? Those are auto-generated by Google, and come up if visitors to your site go to different pages of your site almost as much as the top page. You can’t control what comes up here, but you CAN control the descriptions below and the title of the pages.
What are SEO descriptions?
SEO descriptions, or meta descriptions, are short texts that describe the content on your site. An SEO description is located below the title of a page on a search engine, allowing readers to know more about a site before visiting.
You can influence what is displayed by editing in these fields within Squarespace:
SEO Site Descriptions
SEO Page Descriptions
SEO Collection Descriptions
Page Descriptions (7.0 only)
Please note, there’s no way to guarantee that descriptions will show the same way for every search. Adding descriptions will affect how your site appears on search engines.
Also, these descriptions do not influence your ranking through the search engines. However, this can help your click-through rate with searchers, improving your rankings as a result.
Another example of well-written, keyword-focused SEO descriptions.
Creating SEO Descriptions
When creating your descriptions, it’s best to keep them between 50-160 words. Also, optimize your descriptions with keywords that make sense for your business. You can brainstorm a keyword list that’s built around your target audience, brand, and products. Your keywords should be searchable and relevant to your business.
Remember to not just stuff your keywords into the description. You’ll want to make sure the reader understands what you’re saying, so craft sentences that have your keywords added in, but that still feel natural. Keep your visitors in mind and think about what words will make them click your site over someone else’s.
Adding SEO Site Descriptions
A Site Description will be used for the homepage of your site. Search engines show this description in search results for your homepage if there’s not content more relevant to a searcher’s query. To add in Squarespace 7.1, from the Home Menu, choose Marketing, then SEO. In the search appearance area, choose the Home tab and add your description in the SEO title description section.
Adding SEO Page Descriptions
In addition to your site description, SEO descriptions can be added to each page of your site. To add, from Pages, click the settings gear of the page you want to add a description to. Then choose the SEO tab and add your description to the SEO Description field.
Adding SEO Collection Descriptions
SEO descriptions can be added to your collections, such as a blog or products. To update your descriptions for a blog page, from Pages, go to your blog page, click the settings gear in the top right corner (7.1) then go to the SEO tab and add your description to the SEO Description field.
For products, access the SEO Description field by double clicking the product. For portfolio subpages, click …, and then choose Settings.
Adding Page Descriptions (7.0 only)
For Squarespace 7.0, page descriptions may display directly on your site based on the template you choose. If you do not have SEO descriptions added in pages, but do have a page description, it is possible that search engines will display this information. To add a page description, from Pages, choose the settings of the page you want to add a description. In the General tab, add the description in the Page Description field.
Forgoing Page Descriptions
If you choose to not add SEO descriptions, Squarespace will set the first 2-3 sentences on your site as the meta description. These first few sentences may work well for your site, but most likely not for a searcher deciding if they should visit your site. I would highly recommend taking the time to add in the descriptions for your site.
Your Designer
Hi friends! I'm Justin Mabee, a veteran Squarespace website designer with over 12 years of experience building websites. As a top-rated Squarespace web designer, I build rich, interactive sites that don’t look like anyone else’s out there – and they’re intuitive enough for you to pick up and run with after we publish. Need SEO help for your Squarespace website? Let’s book a design day.
