There are so, so many reviews out there that say Squarespace is bad for SEO. 

I don’t necessarily think this is deserved. I’ve been in this industry for more than 5 years and I’ve seen websites that rank and websites that don’t. In not one of those instances has the determining factor been the website builder or platform.

It’s really not that simple. Some people think you can “buy” SEO in the form of a website platform or builder, and that just isn’t the case. 

Let me lay it out for you. Squarespace really isn’t as bad for SEO as you might think – and here’s why. 

The Cold, Hard Truth: What Really Matters

I can’t condense it more than this. It’s really not the platform that influences SEO. 

In truth, there are things that the platform can do (or features it can have) that will make it easier or harder for you to optimize it. But a skilled SEO expert can get around these, even with a truly bad platform. 

Here’s what SEO really comes down to: content and backlinks. 

And, if you’re wondering, the answer is, “no, these things are not related to the platform.” 

You could have excellent content on an authoritative backlinks to a website built on BigCommerce or WordPress just as easily as Squarespace. Hell, you could have them on a platform you coded and launched yourself. It would just be harder. 

Now, as for the platform itself, how easily it integrates with tools, how fast it is, how secure it is – those things all influence technical SEO, but again, it’s not something that an SEO expert can’t correct. 

And, as I’m going to illustrate, Squarespace is actually pretty good out of the box anyway. 

What Squarespace Has Going for It

Actually, the truth is that Squarespace is natively configured with some pretty powerful features that are SEO-friendly. In fact, some of these may even put it (in my estimation) at an advantage compared to other platforms. 

Some of the most salient of these are as follows: 

• Page titles and descriptions are set by default but you can change them as needed. 
• Hiding pages from search engines can be done in a few clicks, which can potentially boost your visibility by hiding pages on which you don’t want to waste your crawl budget. 
• Squarespace automatically generates an XML sitemap for each website built using it.
• Squarespace URLs are auto-generated and are static and easily indexable. You can change the URL slugs if you want, too.
• All Squarespace domains can be protected by a free SSL certificate. 
• There’s nothing inherently slow about Squarespace; keeping it updating and keeping your images small go a long way towards keeping speeds up.
• Most Squarespace templates are inherently mobile-friendly (some are better than others, though).
• Squarespace automatically generates structured data. 
• Squarespace actually has analytical tools for keyword research built right into the platform, simplifying that aspect of marketing. 
• And, on top of all of this, Squarespace was actually the first website builder that was designed to integrate directly with Google Search Console. Not that that makes it “good” for SEO, but it does make it easy to trace and analyze some results. It also integrates with Google Analytics.

This pretty much covers the technical side of things, but as I stated, there’s much more to SEO than that. 

The catch here is that these things, namely links and content, are not governed by the platform, no matter what the platform’s promotional material tells you, or for that matter, whatever any “digital marketing expert” tells you (myself obviously excluded!).

With that said, here are two very important points I need you to come away with, and a summary. 

The first is that you need quality content to have a website that competes effectively for organic listings. There is no way around this, and there are no shortcuts, even with AI.

But before you can even create quality content, you need to perform keyword research and uncover search terms and queries that it’s worth your while to go after. Ideally, these keywords and search terms will be highly relevant to your industry or products, will be aligned with search intent to purchase (commercial or transactional), and on top of that, should have decent volume and relatively low difficulty. 

From there, you can insert these keywords into headers, page titles, image alt text, meta descriptions, URL slugs, and in page copy. You can also write CMS and blog pages with several of your target keywords in them. 

The other component is link building. You can take internal linking into your own hands, directly, but for backlinking, you will have to get creative. 

Traditionally, eCommerce entrepreneurs asked for links or traded for them. One technique is to trade links with your distributors or manufacturers so that you can both benefit. 

In the modern era, many eCommerce businesses work with SEO agencies to build links for them. It can be expensive, but the turnaround time is much faster than doing it the old fashioned way, and often the results are as good if not better. 

In summary, and as promised: Squarespace is not bad for SEO, but like all platforms, it will not do the work for you. 

You still need to do your own keyword research, pick target keywords, optimize key pages with content, and seek opportunities for backlinks. 

Is Squarespace Good for SEO?: The Verdict 

As you can see, there is a lot that Squarespace doesn’t do with respect to SEO, but the cold hard truth is that other websites are in the same boat. WordPress doesn’t optimize itself for you. No platform does that. It’s on you to find the keywords and make sure your website is fast, secure, and has quality content. 

That’s what it takes to rank organically. No one said it would be easy. I certainly didn’t. 

But you can rank effectively on Squarespace if you are willing to put in the time and effort. End of story.

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