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If you’ve ever owned a WordPress website, you may be familiar with the Yoast Plugin.

Yoast SEO is the top most-downloaded search engine optimization (SEO) plugin for WordPress website owners. Over 20 million websites currently rely on it to use the right search terms and get recognized by search engines, primarily Google (the world's top search engine).

This free plugin (with an optional paid version) helps to make SEO a little easier for users by automatically recognizing potential issues and suggesting improvements to WordPress content so that search engines give it a higher ranking.

For example, Yoast SEO might tell you to change your title tags or meta descriptions or to incorporate more of your chosen keywords on a particular page of your site.

Because it’s so popular, many Squarespace users wonder if there’s a Yoast alternative for Squarespace websites. The short answer is no — however, that’s only because Squarespace websites really don’t need Yoast or any other SEO plugins!

In this blog, we’ll look specifically at why you don’t need the Yoast SEO plugin for your Squarespace website. You’ll also learn some alternate solutions you can use if you’re looking to use the right keywords and enhance your website’s search engine ranking.

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Squarespace Native Features

A Squarespace website provides users with numerous benefits that a WordPress site doesn’t, including several benefits that help it rank higher on the search engine results page.

For example, with Squarespace, you won’t need SEO plugins like Yoast to create an XML sitemap or robots.txt file. Unlike WordPress, it will also automatically give you the ability to edit the metadata for your web pages.

Below is an explanation of some specific features that WordPress does not offer out of the box that Squarespace does offer natively. These features will help you enhance your on-page SEO and improve your site's ranking on Google.

After we review this list, we will look at alternatives for the additional SEO improvements you might want to optimize for your Squarespace website.

WordPress does not automatically create an XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file to which you add information about various elements of your website (web pages, videos, etc.) and the relationships between them. Search engines read this file so they can crawl your site more efficiently.

There are a lot of advantages to having a sitemap for your website (whether it's a WordPress site or Squarespace site).

Not only does a sitemap make your website much more accessible for search engines, but it also helps deliver more accurate search results to its users.

Sitemaps essentially send a signal to search engines that you want your website crawled and indexed by them — a fundamental piece of your SEO strategy if you want to rank highly.

WordPress websites do not automatically create a sitemap for their users— unless they’re using the Yoast SEO plugin.

Squarespace, on the other hand, does automatically create sitemaps for its users.

Squarespace includes the URLs for all pages on your site as well as the page title and image tags/metadata for SEO-friendly indexing. It also automatically updates your sitemap with any other relevant pages you add or remove.

WordPress doesn’t automatically create a robots.txt file

A robots. txt  file is crucial to your SEO strategy because it tells search engine crawlers which web pages (or files) the crawler can or cannot request from your site.

This information is extremely useful when it comes to telling search engines about a page (or pages) you do not wish to index, such as duplicate or broken pages (these can hurt your website’s search engine ranking and make it less visible to Google users).

For owners of WordPress websites to create or edit a robots.txt file, they have to go through the Yoast SEO plugin. However, for Squarespace users — you guessed it — this isn’t necessary.

Squarespace also automatically tells the Google search console not to crawl this list of pages. This list is editable, too, so you can add or remove pages from it as you wish.

WordPress doesn’t automatically give you easy access to edit Metadata

Metadata is the HTML code that tells Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and anywhere else you share your blog content what’s on that particular page.

Having clear and accurate metadata and meta descriptions that use your chosen focus keyword is a huge part of assuring great SEO for your website.

If you’re trying to locate or edit your meta descriptions in WordPress, you won’t find an option to do so. To have access or control of the metadata for your WordPress site, you have to install an SEO plugin — like Yoast— that will help you manage it.

Not only does Squarespace give you access to your meta descriptions, but it also makes it extremely simple to edit them (without relying on SEO plugins).

Users can add or edit meta descriptions in collection item editors, such as the blog post editor or product editor. They can also design and style the way their meta descriptions and other metadata appears, which can help with branding and increase their ranking on Google results pages.

WordPress isn’t out-of-the-box SEO-friendly

In order to get your WordPress website optimized for SEO, a lot of work is required within the Yoast plugin.

Yoast is useful, certainly. However, it also asks a lot of you, the website creator, to see significant SEO results.

Unlike WordPress, Squarespace is SEO-friendly from the jump. It gives you a leg up on WordPress users (and those who use other website builders that rely on plugins to boost their Google ranking).

Squarespace SEO Benefits

Squarespace offers all of the search engine optimization benefits we discussed above right out of the box. It also includes several other SEO features that can help you get your site noticed by Google, including the following:

Free SSL Sertificates

Clean HTML Markup
Automatic Tagging
Clean URLs
Automatic Redirects
Page Descriptions

AMP
Built-in Mobile Optimization
Search Engine Analytics
And much more…

After reading through that list, it should be pretty clear why you don’t need an SEO plugin like Yoast for a Squarespace website (and why Squarespace is a superior all-in-one solution to help you get noticed by the Google search console)!

However, let's say you want to do more than what’s automatically offered by Squarespace to ramp up your SEO. In that case, you don't need to rely on an SEO plugin.

Instead, there are a few other alternatives that will help you make your site more appealing to search engines.

Alternatives to the Yoast Plugin for Squarespace

1. Hire an Expert

Some aspects of Squarespace SEO take quite a bit of time and knowledge to master, such as technical SEO issues related to cleaning up the code on the backend of a page.

For these advanced features, it makes sense to hire a Squarespace SEO expert to help you navigate and implement the changes.

By partnering with a professional, you don't have to spend valuable time learning how to edit code for a web page. You can also focus on other things, such as keyword research and reviewing Google Analytics to learn about our audience and find ways you can improve your content.

A Squarespace SEO expert will review your website, identify issues that could be negatively affecting your search engine ranking, and offer suggestions to help you improve, from updating your title tags to adding more internal links.

When looking for a Squarespace SEO expert to hire for help with your site, consider the following:

Expertise: Find out how long they’ve worked with Squarespace websites and what kind of training they’ve received regarding things like on-page SEO, technical SEO, Google, website design, and content creation.
Experience: Consider the number of other sites they’ve worked on and if they’ve collaborated with clients in your industry before. What kind of Google search results have they produced for those clients?
Transparent pricing: Choose an SEO expert who clearly explains their different packages and pricing options, so you can decide if their services are within your budget.
Positive reviews: Look for someone who has a testimonials page with plenty of positive reviews from past clients.

Detailed portfolio: They should have plenty of samples of their past work (including their own website) that they can show you to solidify their SEO expertise.

If someone checks these boxes and can show that they're familiar with various SEO best practices, they're likely a good fit for you and your needs.

2. Use this Squarespace SEO Plugin to See Where You Can Make Improvements [Free]

If you don't want to hire an SEO professional, you can also utilize free tools (not just plugins) that can help you navigate the ins and outs of the Google search console and enhance your Squarespace website.

This easy, all-in-one SEO tool helps you identify and resolve 15 common website issues that impact your search engine rankings for every web page on your site.

All you have to do is add your URL and your email to generate your (free) results instantly. Then, you can take immediate, actionable steps to fix issues like on-page SEO, broken links, duplicates of other pages, and more.

This analyzer tool can identify various technical SEO issues on your site, including these:

Broken Links
SEO Page Title Tag Optimization
SEO Page Description Optimization

Fonts
Custom Code Issues
Broken Links
Logo
Social Sharing

Word Count
And more!!!

If you want a list of issues you can address immediately to start ranking highly in search results, this tool will make an excellent addition to your SEO pack.

3. Take an Online Squarespace SEO Course

As you are probably aware, SEO can have a huge impact on the success of your business online.

A solid SEO strategy can help you show up at the top of the Google search results pages, meaning more people will click pages, learn more about your business, and eventually invest in what you're offering.

With this in mind, it makes sense to invest in making your website’s SEO the best it can possibly be, from using more relevant keywords in your page titles and content to enhancing your meta tags.

If you want to learn more about SEO for your Squarespace website, consider taking one of our courses. They can help you optimize your content, settings, design, files, and more to make a noticeable and positive impact on your SEO.

We also have our course hosted on Udemy for a special price.

An online course is an excellent middle ground between hiring an SEO professional and working on your website independently.

Our courses provide guidance to improve your keyword research, technical SEO, formatting issues, navigate Google Analytics, and more. They also allow you to learn the basics of Squarespace website SEO features at your own pace.

Need More Squarespace Help?

Do you want to take your Squarespace SEO to the next level? Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date with all the best practices, get an alert when we publish a new blog post, learn about the latest updates to search engines and Google Analytics, and more.

We help Squarespace website owners grow their organic traffic and boost their search result position without relying on plugins like Yoast SEO. Whether they just launched their website or have 250k/m visitors, we have worked to improve organic traffic for hundreds of customers from around the globe.

Contact us today to learn more.

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