How I became an expert at Squarespace SEO | Squarespace SEO Series

I’m about to #NotHumbleBrag, sorry not sorry. Thanks in advance for letting me indulge myself and toot my own horn here in this blog post :)

LOL jokes aside, today’s blog post is a fun one that pushed me out of my comfort zone.

If I’m being totally honest, it feels a little weird to write this but it’s a topic that I’ve been asked about quite a few times over the past few weeks, and I’m not going to leave my readers hanging. People have been asking me how I learned so much about Squarespace SEO, how I became an expert in this super random niche, and how I set myself apart from others in the online space who also offer this service.

These questions have been landing in my inbox, they’ve come up during my Squarespace SEO Audit & Consulting sessions, and even a a few people have slid into my DMs asking about it haha.

Well, my friend, I’m here to share my own experience, thoughts on my journey and the learning curve, and let you know how I became the internet’s “go-to” source for everything related to Squarespace SEO.

Am I saying that I am THE ULTIMATE SQUARESPACE SEO EXPERT and that no one out there comes close to my skills and knowledge? No. The person with that top-honor title is probably employed by Squarespace and leads a team of tech geniuses at their head office haha!

What I am saying, however, is that I have achieved expert status when it comes to Squarespace SEO. I’m not trying to brag but I’m proud of my work and I hope that this post shows anyone who reads it that you too can become an expert in anything, so long as you’re willing to put in the hard work and shamelessly self promote #realtalk

Remember that SEO is an art, not a science. There’s so much to learn about Squarespace SEO which is why I have written about it a lot - it’s the most popular topic on my blog by far. Check out my Squarespace SEO page for more resources, blog posts & video tutorials and get your copy of my Squarespace SEO Checklist below for free!

SQUARESPACE SEO SERIES

This article is part of my series on Squarespace SEO. I have so many tips to share on the subject that it would have been crazy to put it all in one article! There are many misconceptions about Squarespace SEO which is why I've dedicate so many posts to this topic. Enjoy!

Click to view all posts in the Squarespace SEO Series

Visit my Squarespace SEO page for lots more resources.

Alright, let’s dive right in.

How I first became interested in Squarespace SEO

To kick things off, let’s rewind a few years ago to the early stages of my business.

I started building and designing custom Squarespace websites, first for myself then as a business that took on clients. Things started off well and I was able to learn a lot and improve in a relatively short time. I secured my first few clients and built up my portfolio from there. Those first handful of websites were admittedly quite basic, they didn’t have many exciting features or customizations, but they got the job done and my clients were happy.

Once I decided I wanted to really make a go at the whole freelance web designer thing, I realized that I’d have to up my game on my own website and content marketing strategy. I had a new business and I wanted more clients and a stable business.

I realized that I needed to set myself apart from other web designers who offered similar services so I started thinking about ways that I could stand out or add more value. One way that stood out to me was that I could offer SEO as part of my custom Squarespace website packages. When I looked at what my ‘competitors’ were offering in their packages, most of them were not offering SEO (or if they were, it was super basic and not enough to really have an impact).

My clients were already asking me about SEO as I built their sites and while I had a very basic understanding of SEO, I was by no means an expert… yet.

I wanted to be knowledgeable about Squarespace SEO. I wanted to be able to confidently add this feature as part of my custom Squarespace website packages without feeling like I was offering a half-assed or incomplete service. Not only would it set me apart, it would also be a value-added service that would allow me to charge more for more projects.

In order for that to happen, I’d have to hit the books.

How I started learning about Squarespace SEO

I had it in my head that I was going to learn about Squarespace SEO so that I could improve my own website AND offer it as part of my custom Squarespace website package. Great, but where did I start?

Well I can’t say that what I did was particularly groundbreaking : step 1 was to read everything in Squarespace’s knowledgebase.

That gave me a very solid foundation but I knew that there was more to learn that wasn’t covered in their general articles.

Next up, I turned to my good ‘ol friend Google and read everything I could get my hands on about SEO. Blog posts, online articles, Google Search Console’s knowledgebase, you name it.

Yes, it was super dry and extremely boring to read Google’s knoweldgebase reference articles but I knew it had to be done if I wanted to get a full, well-rounded understanding of Squarespace SEO.

I learned what the general SEO teachings were and then figured out how to apply them specifically to Squarespace websites. A few years ago, most of the SEO blog posts and articles were written about and focused on Wordpress, so I had to get creative and think about how I could apply these recommendations and best practices to the Squarespace platform too. That’s not really the case anymore, thank goodness, but at the time I was trying to learn about a relatively new topic that hadn’t been covered a whole lot. Gotta work with what you’ve got!

After that, I turned to Youtube and was thrilled to find a few more recent video tutorials that covered Squarespace SEO.

To round things out, I attended various in-person and online workshops, panels, digital summits, etc. Some of these were free events held by various tech groups around my city but many others were paid events #investinyourself. I learned SO MUCH from these in-person and online workshops, highly recommend.

All of this is to say that I took matters into my own hands and learned about Squarespace SEO on my own time and dime. I didn’t take a class or online course (because that didn’t exist), I self-taught because that was the only way to get all the information I wanted to learn.

One thing to note here is that it took SO MANY HOURS to get this point but I didn’t mind because I was genuinely interested in the subject. Every SEO strategy and tactic that I learnt was exciting, helped me build on my knowledge, and I couldn’t wait to try it out to see what kind of results I could get. This is super important to note because if you ever want to become an “expert” at something, you have to be willing to stick with it for a long time. You can’t expect to learn everything overnight - LOL, I wish. Instead, know that you’re in it for the long haul if you ever want to be an expert, so make sure that it’s something you’re willing to dedicate the time to.

Practice makes perfect

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he famously talks about the 10,000 hour rule needed to achieve expert status. While I think he has a point, I don’t fully buy into that idea.

Instead, I decided that to become an expert at Squarespace SEO, my priority would be to learn and practice enough to get the results I need and want.

There’s huge power in practice because it’s what’s going to get you over the initial learning curve.

In my case, I started off with my own Squarespace website and got a handle on SEO in a “safe” space. From here, I was able to take things one step further and work on my custom Squarespace design clients’ websites. I also collaborated with some friends, family and online biz pals’s websites - anything I could do to test things out and confirm that I was on the right track and able to get great SEO results every time.

Remember that expert status is relative and the bar is going to vary depending on your industry, niche or area of interest. In my case, Squarespace SEO is a relatively small niche so it wasn’t that hard to stand out and set myself apart from others. Obviously I had to learn more than the competition but I also had to have better results and make sure that people knew about my expertise.

Share what you learn, teach what you know

As I dove into the thrilling world of Squarespace SEO, I started publishing blog posts and video tutorials about the topic.

Hardly anyone was creating content about it at the time so I wanted to help others get the info I wished I’d had. It wasn’t that long ago that I myself had been a clueless newbie and I knew I could contribute valuable information to others. I thought about what kind of stuff I wished I’d read when I was first learning and started there. I didn’t have to be an expert to share this info, I just had to know more than the people I was teaching, the people who were reading my posts and watching my video tutorials. I started off with fairly basic content about Squarespace SEO and then as I learned more and up-leveled, the topics became more detailed or specific.

Click to view all posts in the Squarespace SEO Series

While it’s true that I started off sharing these Squarespace SEO blog posts & video tutorials to simply help others, I was also doing it to have something to write about on my blog and videos to include on my (tiny) Youtube channel #realtalk :)

I noticed that these blog posts in particular were starting to pick up traction online and when I checked out the Analytics of my site, I could see that they were performing well. These blog posts about Squarespace SEO were bringing a lot of traffic to my website, yippee!

An added bonus was that my Squarespace SEO Series was setting me apart from other people online, and they were establishing my authority on the subject. I was starting to be “known” for Squarespace SEO, which felt great!

My blog post 50 things you need to know about Squarespace SEO in particular started to show up in a number of expert roundup style blog posts online, examples here and here, and bringing in a lot of traffic through Pinterest. Pretty neat, and from here things started to grow.

Not only were potential clients taking notice, but so too were my peers. The first time one of online online biz friends referred to me as a Squarespace SEO expert to her audience, I was hyped! It was also an “aha” moment because I got to acknowledge that what I was doing and putting out into the online space had value and was being noticed and recognized.

Started offering Squarespace SEO related services & digital products

So by this point, my audience was growing and people were coming to me with Squarespace SEO specific questions. They were asking if I could take a look at their websites and see that everything was set up correctly with SEO in mind.

I started offering Squarespace SEO Audit & Consulting sessions and I’m thrilled that this service has been a hit so far. These consulting sessions are one of my favourite parts of business, something I truly enjoy, and I have been so happy with the results that my clients have experience!

While I adore these Squarespace SEO Audit & Consulting sessions, I’m sadly not able to take on every single request because there are simply not enough hours in a day. That’s when I decided it was time to create a digital product all about Squarespace SEO so that I could serve anyone who wanted it, whenever they wanted it! Digital products let me reach a wider audience AND people can learn & implement the lessons on their own sites, at their own schedule. Game changer!

Top Squarespace SEO - online course

In February 2019, I released my first online course called Top Squarespace SEO. It was a lot of hard work to create and launch this online course but I had a BLAST and am thrilled with how well it’s been received! Read the recap here or view the Top Squarespace SEO course and enrolment details.

Squarespace SEO for Affiliate Marketing Masterclass

Not long after that, I released my Squarespace SEO for Affiliate Marketing Masterclass. This masterclass was originally a bonus included in my Top Squarespace SEO online course but I had so many requests for the masterclass as a standalone digital product that I ended up making it available on it’s own! Read more about how this Masterclass came together here or view the Squarespace SEO for Affiliate Marketing Masterclass enrolment details here.

Releasing these two digital products about Squarespace SEO pushed me to share my knowledge in a concise, easy to understand way. I got to organize all the lessons, break down the content, and show it off to my students in a way that would make sense and was simple to follow along with. Easier said than done but I loved the challenge!

The online course and masterclass also cemented my expert status for Squarespace SEO. No one else offers an online course or digital product that compares to mine - I’ve checked, trust - and I know that I have provided enormous value in a really accessible way. Yahoo!

Final Thoughts

Like everything in life, practice makes perfect. I didn’t become an expert at Squarespace SEO overnight - far from it, I wish!

It took a LOT of time and effort to get to where I am. But now that I’ve learned so much, I’m thrilled that I can share it all with you, my dear blog readers, clients and audience.

If you too want to reach “expert status” and stand out as a leader in your niche, I’d say the biggest thing is to pick something you enjoy. You won’t stick with it if you aren’t interested in the material and you’ll get super bored sharing the same information over and over again if it’s not something you’re passionate about.

From here, present and teach about what you know on your topic. Share what you’ve learned, show your work and highlight your experience. Don’t be afraid of a little shameless self-promotion either! Get over the discomfort, people want and need to learn about what you know. Does it feel weird to write a blog post like this, proclaiming your “expert status” at something/anything? Yes but whatever, I did it anyways :)

Now it’s your turn to tell me, what do you want to be an expert in? Is there any niche or area of expertise you can master? What will set you apart from others in your industry? How can that improve your online business? Did you like this blog post or was it an obnoxious opportunity for me to boast about myself? I’d love to know so leave me a note in the comments below!

No matter what type of Squarespace website you have, SEO is something you should learn about because it can only help you get in front of your ideal audience, reach more potential clients and customers, and take advantage of what is essentially free marketing. I encourage you to start where you are and work on improving your SEO a little bit at a time, you’ve got this!

If you want more SEO goodness, be sure to check out my Squarespace SEO page for all resources on the topic.

You can also sign up for my newsletter (right here or below), where I often share Squarespace SEO tips, tricks and high-quality exclusive content. I send out emails to my list every week and while I don’t talk about SEO every time, I can guarantee that you’ll still find the newsletter topics interesting, entertaining and worth your time.

Finally, shameless plug : hit me up with any specific questions you have about Squarespace SEO and your website because I’m your girl. You can reach out to me directly if you’re interested in working together on your website and we can talk about whether or not you would be a good fit for my consulting and ongoing services. I can’t take on every request to do SEO consulting but I do pick a few websites and businesses to work with every month and I’d love for you to be one of them.