Squarespace is a powerful tool that can help the average Joe or Jane build a website in a jiffy. That said, you’ll need to put some effort in if you expect anyone to find your site on Google, Bing, or one of the other tens of search engines out there. This quick guide should hopefully get you started on your path to internet success.
Improve User Metrics like Bounce Rate
If you have no idea what a bounce rate is or why it matters, don’t worry. Almost everyone who starts out with websites has no idea about the metric ton of data tracking Google and other companies do. Most are aware that there is some sort of data being gathered, but the specific terms and what they mean can be a mystery.
For example, bounce rate is a metric that matters greatly in a search engine’s eyes. It is often shown as a percentage and essentially measures what percent of people leave after viewing only one page. It’s a key metric used to measure how your visitors engage with your site.
This is why internal linking and having other articles in the sidebar is crucial. You want your visitors to view more pages. The more pages they view, the better your site in the eyes of a search engine—and the more ad revenue you get (if you display ads). Having a site that keeps visitors clicking or coming back as returning visitors is crucial. Your theme should be on point, and you should utilize flashy design trends like these scrolling logos Squarespace or a countdown timer for a clothing drop. All of these together will help improve your metrics.
And this is just one of perhaps a dozen key metrics that search engines use. Read more about them, implement strategies to improve them, and you’ll find yourself ranking in no time.
Make Sure Your Pages Are Indexing Properly
If your pages aren’t getting crawled, they won’t get indexed. If they’re not getting indexed, no one will be able to find them. Search engines all have their own rhyme and reason for indexing, and it can be frustrating as a new site trying to get your pages to rank. A good thing to do is keep best practices in mind. Use meta tags, images, alt tags on those images, headers, lists, etc.
Don’t be shy about the word count, either. Ever wonder why recipe blogs have that whole shpeal at the start about their nono’s favorite Italian dish to make in February? It’s to increase the length of the article, shove keywords in there, and display more ads. If they just posted the recipe, visitors would come and go like the wind. That would be bad in the eyes of search engines, so recipe blogs have to play a little game of anecdotes with every page they create.
There is a point where it’s too much, though. It depends on the content you’re writing. A good rule of thumb is to analyze the top ten articles ranking for the keyword you’re targeting and base your word count on the average.
Get Natural Backlinks
Backlinks are a great way to give your site some juice. The better the backlink, the more juice you get. A backlink is a link from one site to another. Let’s use the following as an example: A university posts an article about electronic waste, and they link to a statistic in an article you wrote about how often people throw out cell phones. That is a great backlink. Backlinks tell search engines crawling that page, “Hey, this site over here has some knowledge.”
In the above example, the backlink is even stronger because it’s from a reputable institution that is often already seen as highly authoritative by search engines. Now, that highly authoritative site is saying, “Look at this person’s website. They are also knowledgeable about this subject.” Search engines take that into account when determining your rankings, and it can be an absolutely massive boost.
Natural backlinks are difficult to get, but they’re often worth the most. Some people pay for backlinks, but it’s pretty much universally discouraged by search engines. To get natural backlinks, you have to put in the work on both your own site and others. You want to make sure your content is accurate and engaging. No one wants to link to uninteresting content riddled with mistakes.
Once you have your content made, share it. Shout it from the rooftops. Post it to social media. Try not to be a spammer with your content, though. You want it to be natural. The idea is that, hopefully, someone sees your article and mentions it on their own web page. You can also reach out to other websites and ask about backlink opportunities, just make sure the link is a Do Follow, as search engines ignore No Follow links.