How to blend the technical and creative sides of Squarespace SEO.jpg

Ohhh, do I have something fun here on the blog for you today :)

Today, we’re talking about how you will get the best results for Squarespace SEO when you blend the technical/strategic/hard skills AND the creative/energetic/intuitive side of things.

WAIT, before you roll your eyes and click away because “you’re here for the Squarespace SEO talk and not some woo-woo manifestation crap”, hear me out!

The link between the two is much closer than you might believe and once you understand that you’ll get the best results by embracing both sides of Squarespace SEO, I know you’ll approach your work with an entirely different attitude!

In this blog post/video tutorial, I’m going to explain exactly what I mean by the “technical” vs “creative” sides of Squarespace SEO, tell you why you need to understand both if you want lasting success, and finally share my best tips and what I’ve learned from working with and teaching hundreds (thousands?) of clients, students and general website users.

As a Squarespace SEO expert and leader in this super random little niche, it’s my job/pleasure to introduce you to things like this and present it in a way that makes you think, yes Charlotte I can handle this!

This is the kind of insider info that I share with my Squarespace SEO consulting clients and students in my online course, Top Squarespace SEO. But since I’m not one for secrets and truly want the best for anyone with a website, I’m giving you the summarized goods here - totally for free!

Read the blog post or watch the video tutorial below - before long, you’ll see how you too can blend the technical and creative sides of Squarespace SEO for best results on your own website!

Don’t skip this one, my friend.

Some of you reading this might be totally new to Squarespace SEO and are looking for an introduction to this topic, someone to hold your hand and show you it’s not actually that scary. On the flip side, you might already be familiar with a few points on this list already but maybe you are looking for confirmation that you’re on the right track and haven’t missed anything important. No matter where you are in your Squarespace SEO journey, I know you’ll benefit from this info!

Alright, enough chat - let’s take a look at my tips for blending the strategic and emotional sides of Squarespace SEO!

Related:

SQUARESPACE SEO SERIES

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.

Blending the technical & creative sides of Squarespace SEO

Attitude is everything when it comes to Squarespace SEO

When you think of Squarespace SEO, what comes to mind? I’m going to guess that you automatically think of things like fixing the correct settings on the back end of your Squarespace website, creating long-form keyword rich content, or getting backlinks.

My friend, you’re on the right track - but there’s more to it than that!

As a Squarespace SEO expert who has worked with hundreds of one-on-one consulting clients, taught countless students in my group program and online course, let alone all the free content I create here on my blog/youtube channel, I know for a fact that the people who get the best SEO results on their Squarespace website (growth, increase traffic, get in front of their ideal audiences online) are the ones who come at their work with a certain mindset & energy on top of the technical implementations.

I know that sounds crazy but hear me out on this, I promise it’s how you’ll get the best results!

Creativity. Energy. effort. Co-creation. You might think that these buzzwords are more applicable to a manifestation program than Squarespace SEO but the truth is, the energy with which you do something will have a direct impact on the results you get.

So, if you come at your Squarespace SEO work with the energy of “wow this is so cool that I’m learning new skills, how fun, I’m building my confidence with every click and I’m so excited to reach all my dream clients/customers online!”, you’re going to see a very different result than if your attitude is “ugh I don’t know if I’m doing this right, it’s so tough, I have major resistance to this, I doubt myself & my skills, I don’t know if people should be checking out my website let alone trying to grow it, I don’t know if my services are of value or my products are worth what I’m charging”.

Like, DUH, right?

Not to get all Abraham Hicks on you, I don’t make the rules about deliberate creation it’s just facts LOL

Let’s go through a few examples together so you can see what I mean when I talk about the technical vs creative side of Squarespace SEO

Technical Squarespace SEO - examples

1. Filling out the SEO Settings on the back end of your Squarespace website

In most cases, this is people’s Step 1 in their Squarespace SEO journey.

If you’d like a refresher on this, please read/watch Squarespace SEO 101: Beginner's guide to the 3 most important website settings. But in summary, this includes:

connecting and verifying your Squarespace website with Google Search Console
filling out the SEO site description
filling out the SEO descriptions for all the pages/posts/products/galleries/etc. on your Squarespace website

This also includes creating and connecting a Google My Business profile with your Squarespace website.

2. On-site SEO factors

On-site SEO factors are another big aspect of the “technical” side of Squarespace SEO.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read/watch The most important on-site factors for Squarespace SEO for a really solid overview.

On-site SEO factors includes:

titles
headers (H1, H2, H3)
text formatting (bullet points, numbered lists, short paragraphs and content that is generally easy to read/skim)
images that are correctly named, formatted & sized
links (internal, external)
URL slug
keywords

Remember that Google prioritizes and rewards web content that is high value and optimized, so if you’re including these on-site SEO factors across your pages/posts/products then you’re on the right track.

3. Images

Images deserve their own special mention here because there’s SO much involved and it’s definitely something that people mess up all the time LOL!

When it comes to the technical side of optimizing images on your Squarespace website, we’re talking about proper:

image format
image file size (do you need to compress it?)
image aspect ration
image name & description

This applies to custom photography as well as stock photography - doesn’t matter, it all works the same way whether you’re including images on a web page, in a blog post, in a product description, or in a photo gallery.

4. Long form, keyword rich content

you’ve done your keyword brainstorming exercises as well as your keyword research, you know the type of keywords & keyphrases & questions that your ideal audience is typing into google, and you understand the search intent behind those queries. Yay! The next step is to create long form keyword rich content to help you rank in those target online searches.

It goes without saying that this involves strategy and a certain level of analysis.

There are many different factors that fall under the user experience umbrella. First off, we’ve got responsive design and making sure this is set up on our websites. Note: if your website is set up on Squarespace then you’re all set here because it’s functionality that’s built directly into the platform. BUT you still want to check out how your website displays on mobile to make sure there isn’t any funky formatting going on!

Next up you want to look at the navigation and how easy it is for site visitors to access the content they’re looking for or the different parts of your website.

Also important is scanability to make sure page content is set up to be easy to read and digest.

Now let’s move on to the creative aspects of Squarespace SEO.

Creative Squarespace SEO - examples

When it comes to the creative side of Squarespace SEO, I have a sneaky feeling that you’re already doing many parts of it whether you realize it or not!

First off, I always remind people that it’s so important to put yourself in your ideal audience’s shoes and imagine what they’re looking for online. What search queries are they doing? What questions are they asking? What type of content doe they expect to get in their search results? How can you create content on your website that suits their needs?

If you haven’t already, PLEASE read/watch this to learn Why search intent is the secret weapon of Squarespace SEO. This is SO IMPORTANT.

You also want to create the RIGHT kind of long-form content that satisfies what people actually want to read, not just writing a massive blog post that makes google happy haha

Another way this shows up is when it comes to backlinks. People often really enjoy the backlink part of Squarespace SEO because they think it’s FUN to come up with a list of websites to pitch to, new content ideas, ways to get in front of new audiences/online communities, and do outreach to other publications and people in their niche/industry. This is 100% creative and an area that you can be really playful!

User experience: again, putting yourself in your ideal audience’s mind so that you can make google happy when they crawl your pages/posts/products but also meet the needs of the real people who actually read it haha!

You can do both!

Great news if you already feel strong & confident on either the technical or creative side. That’s great, play to your strengths!

But don’t forget you can still find ways to fill in the gaps in your knowledge or develop your skills in other areas to make sure you get the best results :)

It’s all about balance and blending the two sides together. Like I always say, Squarespace SEO is an art not a science so you must use both sides of the brain if you want to see real & lasting success from your efforts. You’ve got this!

Final Thoughts

See, that wasn’t so bad now was it? ;)

Personally, I LOVE the fact that Squarespace SEO has so many moving parts and that everyone can find areas to really shine. Play to your strengths and rest assured that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, there are always ways to improve if something is challenging to you.

My best advice is to have fun, stick with it, be bold with your efforts and don’t shy away from Squarespace SEO just cause it might seem “hard” at first glance.

Now it's your turn to tell me, do you find the technical or creative side of Squarespace SEO easier? Do you have to work harder at one over the other? Have you ever thought about your mindset or the energetic work if you want results?

Leave me your questions down in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them. As people are spending more time online than ever before, it’s SO important that your website shows up properly in search results so that you can reach your ideal audience online - but you can’t do this without SEO!

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

My signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO, will be opening for enrollment again soon - sign up for the TSS waiting list here!

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 Wednesday, mostly focused on Squarespace websites and SEO, and I can guarantee that you’ll find the newsletter topics interesting, entertaining and worth your time. #humblebrag

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 Squarespace 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.