Get Your Squarespace Blog Posts Indexed by Google
Getting Google to index Squarespace blog posts has been challenging for many Squarespace bloggers.
While it seems like itβs a βSquarespace thing,β there is actually a lot more to getting your blog posts indexed than you might think.
First off, you should absolutely be using the SEO Space plugin to help you optimize your blog posts for SEO. Even when you think youβve dotted all your iβs and crossed all your tβs, this plugin will call you out!
Can you tell Iβm speaking from experience?
In this post, I hope to provide you with some strategies that will (hopefully) get your blog posts indexed every time.
Shorten Your SEO Title
Your SEO Title is different from your blog post title.
Squarespace automatically adds your Site Title at the tail end of your blog post title and it is this entire string of words that makes your SEO Title.
If you want to see how long your SEO title is, head into the blog post settings and select the SEO tab.
Unless you have manually removed your Site Title from all your blog posts, your SEO Title will look something like this:
This is My Blog Post TitleβThis is My Site Title
Eliminate the Site Title From Your Blog Posts
Google is all about the user experience, so visitors need to be able to find what theyβre looking for fast.
If your Site Title, which is typically your business name, appears in every single one of your blog posts, it makes your SEO title way too long and it also doesnβt relate to the content people are searching for.
For example: you may have searched, βHow to get Google to index Squarespace blog postsβ when you found this post. Adding my Site Title βJen-X Website Design and Strategyβ has nothing to do with your search, so having it in my SEO title would negatively affect my ranking. Does that make sense?
Also, with SEO titles this long, Google will cut it off or truncate it.
How to Remove the Site Title From All Blog Posts
First off, donβt worry about this negatively affecting your SEOβit wonβt.
Remember that people who land on your blog posts are not looking for your business, theyβre looking for answers to the query they typed into Google.
To remove your site title from all your blog posts, go into:
Marketing > Marketing Tools > SEO Appearance > Items
Where you see βSEO Title Format,β Delete the ββ%s.β
Be aware that your Site Title will be eliminated from all βItems,β which include events, products, collections, and galleries.
Optimize URL Slugs
What is a URL Slug?
The URL Slug is what comes after your blog collection title, is separated by hyphens, and comprises the link to your blog post.
For example, the collection title of my blog is /blog and the URL Slug for this blog post is /google-index-squarespace-blog-posts.
And before we go any further, letβs have a little chat about your blog collection title.
Be Mindful of Your Blog Collection Title
I see this a lot. People want to call their blog something other than βBlog.β
They give it a cute title that is too long, isnβt searchable, and doesnβt make sense to website visitors.
Give your blog the name, βBlog.β If you want to stretch this a bit, βNews,β βArticles,β maybe βStoriesβ if your blog is actually stories, is probably fine. But I have found that just plain old βBlogβ makes the most sense.
How to Optimize URL Slugs
This is not complicated, so I wonβt complicate it:
Keep it between 4-6 words
Use your main keyword
Donβt just copy and paste your blog post title into the URL Slug fieldβit will be too long
Manually Request Indexing with Google Search Console
This is the thing that is having the biggest impact for me.
Every single time I publish a blog post, I request indexing with Google Search Console. I donβt sit around waiting for GSC to index it for me.
Connect Your Squarespace Website to Google Search Console
Be sure youβre logged into the Google account you want associated with your website
Login to your website and go to Settings
Scroll down to βConnected Accountsβ
Select βConnect Accountβ
Choose βGoogle Search Consoleβ
Select the Google account you want associated with your website
Manually Request Indexing with Google Search Console
Open up the live blog post in your browser
Log into Google Search Console
Copy the blog post URL out of your browser
Paste it where it says βInspect any URL in βhttp://www.yourwebsite.com/β and hit enter
Itβs going to tell you the page is not on Google
Select βTest Live URLβ
Youβll probably get all green checks but it might tell you the page has βissuesβ and that itβs not mobile-friendly, because this also seems to be a thing. You can certainly check it for mobile usability, but usually, this warning is bogus and you can move on to the next step.
Select βRequest Indexingβ
Every time Iβve done this either for myself or a client, my blog post has been indexed the very next day.
Check it the Next Day
Itβs easy to check to see if your blog post is indexed by Google in the Google Chrome browser.
If you arenβt using the Google Chrome browser, you can do this directly in Google.
In your browser (or in Google search), simply type βsiteβ followed by a colon and your postβs URL, like this:
site:http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog/your-url-slug
If your blog post is indexed, it will show up in the search results. If itβs not, youβll get a cute little graphic telling you βSorryβ¦that page isnβt on Google.β
Was this helpful?
Have you tried this with success? Have you tried this and youβre still having issues? Pop your thoughts in the comments below and letβs keep working on this! π
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