GDPR Compliance For Your Squarespace Site
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Is your website GDPR compliant? This is an important question for anyone with customers, subscribers, or simply visitors from Switzerland, the United Kingdom, or the European Economic Area (EEA). In today’s blog, we’ll go over why it matters to you, and what you need to know to stay compliant with the GDPR.
As top-rated Squarespace SEO experts, we pay close attention to GDPR and other regulations that affect our clients’ websites. We want to provide you with information you can use to not only improve your search engine optimization, but also comply with existing regulations so you don’t get into legal trouble down the road.
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GDPR And Cookies
Gone are the days when you could take implied consent for granted. With GDPR in effect, you have to be extra careful when collecting, storing, and processing personal data from anybody based in Europe. This applies whether you’re selling something, providing a freebie, or conducting a survey.
How does this affect cookies? In general, cookies and similar technologies are used to help identify visitors to your site, personalize content, and allow for targeted ads. In order to comply with GDPR and Europe-specific cookie laws, your site must do the following with respect to non-essential cookies:
Offer clear information about your site’s cookie usage practices
Show this information in a way that visitors can see and access it easily
Get consent from the visitor before dropping any non-essential cookies
Make sure, then, that your Squarespace site doesn’t automatically drop non-essential cookies on visitors’ devices; clear, affirmative consent is needed first. Each visitor also gets to have a say in managing cookie preferences. These requirements are important and can’t be overlooked.
What Do Squarespace SEO Experts Advise?
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We take compliance very seriously, and we want to help our clients keep their Squarespace sites not only SEO-enhanced, but also privacy law-compliant. Be sure to speak with an attorney for any legal questions or concerns. For general guidelines on how to proceed with your site, keep the following in mind.
Get Explicit Consent
Make sure you don’t add subscribers automatically to your mailing list. Even if Squarespace offers you the option of adding a customer automatically at check-out, do not use it. Go to your commerce checkout settings and uncheck this option. Instead of adding customers or subscribers automatically, provide them with clear, double opt-in instructions.
Use A Compliant Cookies Banner
It’s not enough for your cookies banner to tell visitors about cookies used by your site. You have to get the visitor’s unambiguous consent before dropping cookies. You can accomplish these steps by adding a cookie banner that informs visitors about your cookies and allows them to accept or decline. Visitors need to have the ability to opt out of having cookies dropped into their device. You may even want to disable Squarespace’s SEO analytics and performance cookies.
Revise Your Site’s Terms Of Use And Privacy Policy
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It’s a good idea to consult with a knowledgeable lawyer when working on these sections of your website. Your terms of use documents need to include information your visitors will find essential, including your contact details, security measures, and policies about cookies.
Your privacy policy must clearly specify how your site collects, stores, and makes use of any information that’s gathered from people using your site. Such personal data can include names, dates, addresses, and credit card numbers. You have to let visitors know what types of data you’re gathering and why you’re collecting it.
Helpful Squarespace Features To Use
Whether you’re using Squarespace for blogging, selling, recruiting, or anything else that is helpful to your business, you’ve probably discovered that the platform offers a wide range of features for maximum flexibility. In terms of GDPR compliance, you can make use of the following.
Convert Documents To Pages
After you create revised documents for terms of use, privacy policies, and cookie notices, turn them into pages for your website. To do this, go to Squarespace Dashboard>Pages>Not Linked and add these updated pages. Afterwards, create links to your new pages and add them in your footer. Make sure they’re visible on every page of your website.
Add A Cookies Banner
To create and display a banner with your notice about cookies, follow these steps:
Go to the Home Menu, click Settings, and click Cookies & Visitor Data
Check Enable Cookie Banner
Turn the Cookie Banner toggle on
Select the Opt-In & Out type to enable your visitors to accept or decline cookies
After completing these steps, you’ll have the opportunity to format, preview, save, and customize your work.
Restrict Squarespace SEO Analytics Cookies
One great feature you might like is the ability to restrict analytics cookies until the visitor has given you express permission by accepting cookies (opting in) via your banner. This prevents Squarespace from sending analytics cookies to a visitor until that person clicks the confirmation message. To set this up, do the following:
Go to the Home Menu, click Settings, and click Cookies & Visitor Data
Add the banner by turning the toggle on next to Enable Cookie Banner
Turn the toggle on next to Disable Squarespace Analytics, and then click Save
Ready For More Squarespace SEO Tips And Compliance Help?
We strive to simplify your life by providing you with the latest developments in the world of compliance, as well as useful tips to boost your SEO rankings.
Our free SEO guides are written to help you get up to speed on current best practices and turn you into an SEO expert regardless of your background. From learning what to do to get people to read your blogs, to getting a behind-the-scenes look at Google’s search algorithms, you’ll gain insights that will help with your Squarespace search engine optimization.
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