Creating High-Value Content for Your Squarespace Website
Introduction
In today's digital landscape, your website is often the first interaction that potential customers have with your business. Whether your website is hosted by Squarespace or on another website, crafting high-value and effective website content is essential to capture attention and drive organic traffic. SEO is a crucial aspect of this process, as it ensures that your website ranks well in search engines. Whether you're an experienced Squarespace user or just getting started, this guide helps explore the value of creating high-quality website content for Squarespace and provide a step-by-step approach to help you create content that resonates with your audience while optimizing for Squarespace SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing your website content through technical updates, strategic content implementation, and authority-establishing measures to increase your search engine ranking and overall website traffic.
The Value of High-Quality Website Content
Boosts Search Engine Ranking: High-quality content that incorporates Squarespace SEO practices can significantly improve your website's search engine ranking. When your content is optimized for relevant keywords and provides value, it's more likely to be favored by search engines like Google.
Attracts and Retains Visitors: Engaging and informative content draws visitors to your Squarespace website and keeps them engaged. Quality content not only helps to capture their interest but also encourages them to explore more of your website.
Establishes Credibility and Trust: When your website offers valuable information, it builds trust with your audience. Visitors are more likely to trust a website that provides well-researched and insightful content, positioning your brand as an authority in your niche.
Encourages Conversions: Effective website content guides visitors through the buyer's journey. It can inform, persuade, and ultimately lead to conversions, whether that's making a purchase, filling out a contact form, or subscribing to your newsletter.
Now, let's dive into the steps to create high-value website content for Squarespace while optimizing for Squarespace SEO:
Step 1: Define Your Purpose and Audience
Before you start crafting content, identify the purpose of your Squarespace website and your target audience. What are the specific problems are you solving or what information are you sharing? Understand your audience's needs and pain points to tailor your content accordingly, including Squarespace SEO keywords that match their search intent.
Step 2: Research Reference Websites
Research is the cornerstone of valuable content. If you aren't sure where to begin, we recommend looking at reference websites in your industry. Start local and browse websites of similar businesses in your city or region. Keep an eye on what types of pages and what kinds of information are being highlighted on their websites. Then, think bigger. Search for industry leaders - businesses with significant online followers, wider service areas, or national or international brand awareness. Do you notice any differences in how and what kind of content is displayed on their websites? Now consider the value you want your own website to offer.
Step 3: Outline Your Pages
Now that you have a better understanding of what kind of content is usually offered to website visitors looking at businesses in your niche, create a rough outline of the pages your website needs.
From a functional perspective, your pages can be divided roughly as follows:
Upper Navigation: We recommend sticking to 5 main links for your upper navigation, along with an optional call-to-action (CTA) button. On Squarespace websites, the logo will always link to the Home page, freeing up one of the possible 5 links, if needed. What if you have more than 5 links? You can use navigation folders to neatly organize your pages under a shared title. For example, an About folder might include pages for Our Story, Meet the Team, Our Values. Similarly, a Services folder could include individual pages for unique offerings. Sometimes, particularly in websites that have a large amount of pages, it can be difficult to create a navigation that is streamlined and easy for visitors to navigate. A strategy session can be a useful tool to get expert insight and advice on how to best organize your pages.
Footer Navigation: The footer can be a great place to include a copy of high value pages, neatly organized categories of pages, or lower priority pages that need to be easily referenced. For example, the footer is commonly used to share legal pages such as a Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, and any e-commerce related policy pages. However, it's important to be mindful of what other key content will be included in the footer - the more you add, the more it can overwhelm your website visitors. This is a helpful location to cross-reference to ensure that you are sharing the right type and quantity of content.
Not Linked Pages: On Squarespace websites, any pages not included in the Main Navigation section are, by default, found in the Not Linked section. This includes links that are manually added to the footer section of the website editor. But the Not Linked section can also be used to strategically create and organize other valuable pages that are linked internally across the website, shared via marketing efforts, accessed via a member area, or are currently under development. For websites with a large volume of pages, we recommend implementing a folder system in this section.
Step 4: Keyword Research and Optimization for Squarespace SEO
Identify relevant keywords related to your Squarespace website's content and your target audience's queries. Use keyword research tools such as SEOSpace, Google Trends, or Searchvolume.io to find valuable Squarespace SEO keywords and phrases. Integrate these keywords strategically within your content, including in titles, headers, and the body text. The goal is not to "stuff" your content with keywords, but rather, use them in a natural, valuable way that entices your website readers to want to learn more about your offerings. Headers specifically play a vital role in Squarespace SEO. Craft compelling and attention-grabbing headlines that incorporate your chosen Squarespace SEO keywords while maintaining readability. Avoid clickbait and ensure your headlines accurately represent the content.
Step 5: Engaging + Well-Structured Content
Hook your website visitors with engaging copy. Share a story, ask a thought-provoking question, or present an interesting fact that relates to your content. This will encourage visitors to continue reading. And while content will obviously differ between different page types, we recommend aiming for a minimum of 300 words for standard webpages and 1500-3000+ for blogs. It's also vitally important to divide your content into clear sections with subheadings. In fact, the h1 heading should be used just once on each page. The next time you use a heading, it should be h2. Other headings of equal importance would also be h2. If you were to further breakdown content under h2, you would use h3, and so on. There are many other ways to effectively divide your content and make it more easy to read including: bullet points, numbered lists, and visuals like images, infographics, and videos.
Step 6: High-Quality Writing
Ensure that your Squarespace website content is well-written, free of grammatical errors, and easy to understand. Write in a clear, concise, and conversational style. Keep sentences and paragraphs short, use active voice, and avoid unnecessary jargon. However we understand that writing doesn't come easily to everyone and that's okay! Consider using free software to assist you in your content creation and refinement. Here are some of our favourite tools with helpful recommendations:
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is a free AI tool that can be extremely effective at preparing a first draft of content. Simply type in a prompt with helpful parameters including key details, requested tone of voice, length of content, etc. and watch as it quickly generates text content to work with. Oftentimes this content is a little awkward, and for lack of a better word, robotic, when compared to human-created copy, so we do strongly encourage you to review generated copy and edit it to ensure it sounds authentic.
Grammarly
Grammarly, and similar software, are wonderful tools to help you with the refinement stage of your content creation. Whether you are someone who struggles with spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, or even voice, Grammarly can be used to scan your content and implement recommended updates with the click of a button. While Grammarly does have paid tiers, their free tool is well worth a download!
Don't be afraid to be generous with sharing your expertise with your audience. Using a Blog-type page can be a great way to draw in new visitors that convert to paying customers, both in the short and long-term. A Blog-type page can be used to share case studies, tutorials, and other in-depth information that answers common questions and concerns your audience might have. Some website owners worry about giving away too much, and sure, there is a balance to be mindful of. But just as there will always be people who prefer a DIY approach, there will always be people that prefer to pay an expert to guide or implement what they are looking for assistance with. And establishing your authority by sharing your knowledge with both groups of people has immeasurable long term benefits. You never know when a DIY'er will refer a paying customer your way!
Step 7: Visual Appeal
Incorporate relevant visuals to enhance your website content. High-quality images and video not only make your content more engaging and easier to comprehend, improving overall user experience, they also improve the shareability of your content. This has the potential to greatly increasing the reach and long-term impact of your content, particularly when combined with marketing strategies that highlight visuals, with or without excerpts of your written content, on platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok.
Step 8: Link to Reliable Sources
Where applicable, back up your website content with data and references from authoritative sources. This not only adds credibility to your content but also allows readers to explore further if they wish.
Step 9: Conclusion and Call to Action
Summarize the main points in your conclusion and include a clear call to action. Encourage visitors to engage with your content, share it, or take the next step on your Squarespace website, whether that's signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
Step 10: Promotion and Distribution
Too often we have seen excited business owners launch their websites to crickets, not realizing that having a website is only one (very important piece) of a marketing strategy. After your content is published, be sure to promote your Squarespace website content on social media, in newsletters, and through other marketing channels to reach a wider audience. There's something to be said with starting small and on a platform or two that you resonate with most. You can always expand to others as your brand grows. And if you aren't sure where to start and are interested in additional support, we do offer strategic marketing packages and referrals for services outside our areas of expertise.
Conclusion
Creating high-value and effective website content for Squarespace is an ongoing process that requires dedication, research, and creativity. By following these steps and continually refining your approach, you can create content that not only engages your audience but also enhances your Squarespace SEO, improving your website's visibility and authority. Consistency is key, so keep honing your skills and adapting to your audience's evolving needs. Your Squarespace website can truly stand out with well-optimized, high-quality content!
