Squarespace SEO Advice

In this episode, Meredith's husband critiques Squarespace's recent SEO update, describing it as a mostly superficial improvement without real functional value, masking the same ineffective SEO advice previously offered by Squarespace. He offers a couple of tips for Squarespace and a free trial for the Squarespace Fundamentals 

Chapter Markers
[0:24] Frustration with the original Squarespace SEO episode
[1:45] Visual updates to Squarespace’s SEO tools—no real improvements
[2:22] Comparing Squarespace to Yelp in terms of user support
[3:18] Inconsistent rollout of new SEO UI across Squarespace accounts
[4:20] Why the original episode was scrapped in favor of more practical advice
[5:00] Ignoring Squarespace’s SEO checklist and why it’s not helpful
[5:32] Introducing the Squarespace Fundamentals guide
[5:54] Using Squarespace’s AI tool for image alt text
[6:40] AI-generated meta descriptions and bulk editing tip
[7:06] Similar tools likely coming soon (Wix, WordPress, Showit, etc)

Check out Meredith's newly relaunched website:
https://meredith-zinner-photography.com/

Access the Squarespace Fundamentals for One Week
https://seiq.meredithshusband.com/checkout/one-week-trial

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Meredith's Husband
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Episode Transcript

Meredith's husband (00:00):
Something has been upsetting me a little
bit recently.
Just one thing.
Well, aside from the news Okay,the news is pretty bothersome,
but something else, entirelyseparate from the news, has been
bothering me.
I'm with you.
Remember, we've been doing someepisodes on Squarespace.
Yes, last week I said I did anepisode, we did an episode, and
then you have to redo it.
And then I checked outSquarespace and they had redone

(00:23):
it and yes, so I was going backlooking at that episode.
It came out to be much longerthan our typical episodes and I
just feel it wasn't that helpful.
It was reviewing what I thoughtwas a turd on the part of
Squarespace and presenting theircustomers with some SEO advice,

(00:44):
their SEO checklist, they hadall these things and I was
reviewing it.
And then, yeah, I went ontoSquarespace after we recorded
that episode before I publish it, and then I had redone it.
But what they did, as far as Ican tell, is they basically
painted a turd.
Oh, I thought you said it was agood thing.
No, that was something else.
I'll get to that in a second.

(01:05):
Okay, we're not repeating whatwe've already said.
No, this is going to be inplace of that episode, because I
want this episode to be helpful.
I feel like that episode justwasn't that helpful.
Oh, okay, yeah, trash it, yeah.
So I'm going to do this oneinstead.
Okay Now.
So Squarespace updated their SEOsection.
Yes, looks a lot better but,like I said, it seems like it's

(01:31):
paint on a turd.
It's still a turd.
I started to dig in a littlebit.
It was the same stuff that Ihad said a week earlier was kind
of worthless.
Right, still worthless.
It just looks much nicer andknowing like kind of working
with companies for many yearsnow, my feeling is that somebody
in the chain of command atSquarespace was like we need to
do, we need to make this SEOstuff better, and they assigned
it to someone to make it lookbetter, but didn't actually they

(01:54):
didn't make it any better,which I find is really fun.
I just I don't like the waySquarespace approaches business.
To be honest, I put them in thesame category with like Yelp,
ooh, like, not.
Well, yelp is probably worse.
Ooh, yeah, but absolutely,after working with or trying to
work with Squarespace supportfor a year plus with your site,

(02:18):
I feel very strongly that theydon't have your best interest at
heart.
Do they have their bestinterest?
Yes, they just want to keepsubscribers, okay, and, like
I've said before, there is aplace for Squarespace websites,
like your site is on Squarespace, because you wanted to design
it, yeah, which we actually wejust relaunched last week.

(02:38):
Yes, with your design, but myHelp Editing, massaging of
content, yeah, you're making itfor everyone Less frustrating,
let's say, for people visiting.
Anyway, so where was I?
You were painting a turd andsaying that Squarespace really

(02:59):
works for them.
So what I imagine is somebodyat Squarespace told somebody
else, a team of people, to makeit better, and they made it look
pretty nice.
To be honest, it looks a lotbetter, but it's just the same
old stuff, right?
Then, just a couple days ago, Ihave access to a few different
Squarespace accounts.
Yes, and I logged into anotherone and it hadn't been updated.

(03:23):
It still looks exactly the wayit used to.
So they haven't even rolled outthese changes to every account.
So your Squarespace account,meredith, looks confused.
So I'm going to describe thisyour account has been updated,
has the new look, the new lookand feel, but the same old
content.
I just checked another accountand it does not have the new
look and feel, it just has allthe old stuff.

(03:43):
So, especially.
I don't want to roll out thatprevious episode we did, when
you may or may not even see thenew stuff.
So this is why I've been kindof frustrated Again frustrated
with Squarespace.
Oh my gosh, what a surprise.
So, rather, like I said, ratherthan releasing that episode,
which I kind of feel now is likewould be almost like painting
my own turd I decided my SEOadvice.

(04:07):
If you're on Squarespace, mySEO advice is don't bother with
all the stuff that their SEOchecklist and all their guides.
It's just not worth it.
Really, there's too much stuff.
There's like the SEO checklist,for example, is one of the
pieces.
Like the SEO checklist, forexample, is one of the pieces.
If you go through that list,which we did in a previous
episode, half of it doesn't evenhave anything to do with SEO,

(04:29):
and the other half is just likekind of very generic good SEO
advice.
Okay, so it's not worth it.
There's nothing new.
Yeah, but, like I said, I wantto be helpful.
I don't want to just have anepisode where like, oh,
squarespace is garbage, goodluck with it.
What I think would be helpfulis the Squarespace fundamentals
which I put together on mywebsite.
That is in the paid section,though, so I created a special

(04:54):
link below, so the first 10people to use that link will get
access for a week for free.
It's a monthly subscription, soif you want to keep it, you can
do that, but the first sevendays will be free.
So if you want to check it outand go through, I think that's a
very helpful.
Well, I created it to be ahelpful step for Squarespace, a
good beginning, I will say also,there's another helpful piece

(05:15):
of advice, I think, forSquarespace.
So remember we mentioned thenew Squarespace AI tool.
So remember we mentioned thenew Squarespace AI tool.
Yeah, very briefly, theylaunched this and what it did is
it helped to update your imagealt text.
Yeah, yeah, yes, okay.
So, in using that, what I havefound to be very helpful and
most efficient, time-wise andprobably get the best results,

(05:39):
is, when you're creating aSquarespace site or when you are
uploading images to it, do notgive it alt text.
Don't put alt text in there.
Leave it blank, and for you,what I actually ultimately did
is I went in and deleted all thealt text from all the existing
images, and then I'm going to goback and use the tool, because

(05:59):
the tool is so much easier touse in bulk.
Great.
Now I will probably do the samething with the meta
descriptions.
This tool also does the metadescription tags.
Also, if you are not onSquarespace, you will probably
start to see tools like thiselsewhere, because it didn't
occur to me at the time, butthat tool collecting all your
images that are missing alt tagsand suggesting alt text is a

(06:23):
very simple tool to create.
I didn't realize how easy thatwas.
Like I could literally do thatwithin 10 minutes.
I'd go to ChatGPT and write aprompt that would do that.
However, the thing aboutSquarespace is that it will
update the images for you Okay,but if you're not on Squarespace
, you will start to see ads forthese types of tools.
Okay, what do they call?
I don't know, but there'sprobably going to be a bunch of

(06:46):
them.
Many platforms, like Wix,includes them already.
It's just a tiny little toolthat Wix includes.
It doesn't bring much attentionto it.
It's just a tiny little pieceof their SEO suite, let's say,
and, like I said, they didn'tmake mention of it.
Squarespace, on the other hand,made it seem like it was

(07:10):
changing the world.
Anyway, okay, I digress.
I don't know what these toolsare going to be called, but
they're very easy to create.
So if you see something thatdoes something like that, yeah,
I would use that.
If you're on WordPress orShowIt or you're on Wix, use the
Wix tool.
So if you want to check out theSquarespace Fundamentals, the
first 10 people using the linkbelow get a free week.
Sweet, I hope that's helpful.