Squarespace SEO: a practical checklist

Site-wide settings

1. In the SEO settings panel, set the site's search appearance: the homepage title and description and the title format for pages and items.
2. Connect a custom domain and set it as the primary domain.
3. Squarespace generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml automatically. Submit it in Google Search Console, which you can connect from Squarespace's analytics or SEO settings.
4. Make sure the site isn't password-protected or hidden from search engines after launch.

Every page and post

• Open the page settings and fill in the SEO title, SEO description and URL slug.
• Use one Heading 1 per page and Heading 2 and 3 for sections.
• Add alt text to images (in the image block's settings or the image's description field, depending on the block).
• Write blog post excerpts; some templates use them in listings.
• Use URL mappings to redirect old URLs when you change them.

Speed

Large images, video backgrounds and many third-party code blocks slow Squarespace sites. Resize images before upload and keep custom code to a minimum.

Squarespace and AI search

• Check robots.txt allows the AI search crawlers you want: OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot. See the AI crawler list and the robots.txt generator.
• Check your host's or CDN's bot protection doesn't block them even when robots.txt allows them.
• Make sure the main text is in the HTML the server sends. AI crawlers don't run JavaScript.
• Avoid nosnippet and tiny max-snippet values on pages you want quoted; they also keep pages out of Google's AI Overviews.