Integration · Squarespace

Squarespace SEO: What runs automatically and what you set.

Squarespace handles the technical side for you: sitemap, static URLs, SSL, mobile layouts and structured data for blog posts. You can’t edit much of it; robots.txt and the sitemap are fixed. What you control are SEO titles, descriptions, redirects and your content. Claire doesn’t publish into Squarespace itself, because Squarespace offers no interface for creating blog posts. She runs your blog on a subdomain like blog.your-domain.com.

Book a demo
No credit cardSet up in 15 minutesCancel monthly
Consultant and colleague discussing a draft on a laptop at a standing desk
Publishing to blog.your-domain.com …
Rendered on the server, full text in the HTMLdone
Sitemap, RSS feed and Article schemadone
What does a product photo shoot cost?Approve

Companies whose blogs grow with Claire

TrustypostPlanimolREA CardTomorrow UniversityKUGUPaforySybilionNubibase

Squarespace SEO basics

What Squarespace already does. And what you set yourself.

A lot is built into Squarespace. These seven points are still yours to handle.

01

What Squarespace does automatically

Squarespace creates and updates your sitemap at /sitemap.xml, gives every page a static URL, includes free SSL certificates and optimizes every site for mobile. Structured data is generated automatically, including for blog posts, products and events.

The flip side: you can’t edit the sitemap, the robots.txt or a page’s source code.

02

SEO titles and descriptions

Every page and every blog post has an SEO tab in its settings with an SEO title and an SEO description. Squarespace recommends titles of 70 characters or fewer and descriptions between 50 and 300, though search engines usually cut off around 160.

In the SEO settings you also define how titles are put together; by default it’s the page title plus your site title. Put what people search for in the title, not just the page name.

03

Search crawlers and AI crawlers

Under Settings > Crawlers there are two switches: one that blocks search engines and “Block known artificial intelligence crawlers”. If the second is checked, Squarespace keeps known AI crawlers out. If you want to show up in ChatGPT and other AI search, uncheck it.

You can hide single pages from search results in their SEO tab. Single blog posts can’t be excluded, only the whole blog page.

Run the AI crawler checker
04

URLs and redirects

Blog post URLs always begin with the blog page’s slug, for example /blog/post-title. You change the rest in the post’s Post URL field, and you can set a default post URL format for the whole blog.

When a URL changes, you add the redirect yourself: in Developer tools under URL mappings, one line per redirect in the format /old-url -> /new-url 301.

05

Images

Without alt text of its own, an image uses its file name as alt text. So add descriptive alt text and keep images small; Squarespace recommends 500 KB or less and a width of 2,500 pixels.

06

Google Search Console

You connect Search Console in the Analytics panel under Search keywords. Squarespace doesn’t submit your sitemap for you; add it in Search Console under the sitemaps section yourself.

07

llms.txt and AI visibility

You can create an llms.txt file in the SEO settings. Squarespace also offers its own AI Visibility tool that shows how often AI search mentions your website, so far in English only and for version 7.1 sites.

Squarespace blog

The Squarespace blog: easy to set up, hard to keep going.

Squarespace ships a solid blog. Where most sites stall is the steady supply of articles.

01

How to add a blog on Squarespace

You add a blog page like any other page:

  1. Open the Pages panel and click the + icon.
  2. Choose Blog as the page type.
  3. Write posts with categories, tags, an excerpt and a featured image.
  4. Switch comments on or off in the blog settings. An RSS feed with your 20 most recent posts comes built in.
02

AI and limits

Squarespace’s AI can create a first draft of a blog post. Which topics people actually search for, whether the facts are right and whether something comes out regularly is still up to you.

Squarespace offers no public API for creating blog posts; its developer APIs cover commerce. So outside tools can’t write into a Squarespace blog.

03

What a good article needs

What gets found and cited is what answers a question clearly:

  • A real question people search for as the topic.
  • The answer in the first paragraph, then details, examples and numbers.
  • Links to two or three matching services or products, not twenty.
  • Its own cover image, page title and meta description.
  • Upkeep: prices, rules and numbers go out of date.

Claire and Squarespace

How Claire adds a blog to your Squarespace site. On a subdomain, without touching your site.

Claire finds topics your customers search for, writes the articles in your voice and serves them herself: on a subdomain of your domain, every page rendered on the server. Your Squarespace site stays exactly as it is.

Connect in three steps

1

Enter your blog address

In Claire, open the “Site builder without a blog?” tile under Integrations, enter an address like blog.your-domain.com and click “Create blog”. Claire reads your website and suggests your brand color, logo and links to your legal pages.

2

Add one DNS record

Wherever your domain is managed, add a CNAME record: name “blog”, target blogs.byclaire.co. If your domain is managed by Squarespace, add it in the domains dashboard under DNS settings as a custom record. “Check connection” shows whether everything is in place. It can take up to an hour; the HTTPS certificate is issued automatically.

3

Style it and approve

Set color, font, logo, name and tagline in a live preview that works even before the DNS record is in place. Read every finished article in Claire and publish it with “Publish to blog”.

What Claire’s blog delivers

Server-side rendering
Every page is built on the server. Headings, text, images and links are in the HTML, including for crawlers that don’t run JavaScript.
URLs
blog.your-domain.com for the overview, every article at a readable URL built from its headline. If you withdraw an article and publish it again later, it keeps its URL.
Page title, description, previews
From Claire’s page title and meta description, plus a canonical link and Open Graph tags for previews in messengers and social networks.
Structured data
Article schema for every article with headline, date, image and publisher, Blog schema on the overview.
Sitemap, robots.txt, RSS
/sitemap.xml with every article, /robots.txt pointing to it, /feed.xml with the latest 50 articles. All of it grows with every published article.
Visibility
One switch: “Visible to Google and AI search”. While it’s off, the blog stays closed to search engines, which is handy while you prepare.
Design
Color, font, logo, name and tagline, links to your main site and your legal pages. For developers: custom CSS plus your own header and footer, for example with your main site’s menu. Claire strips out scripts.
Languages
Your main language sits directly under the blog address, every other one under a prefix like /de/, with a language switcher and hreflang links.
Your Squarespace site
Stays untouched; Claire needs no access to it. You add the “Blog” menu item once yourself, as a link to the blog address.

When an article goes live

Approve with one click

Every finished article waits in Claire. You read it, change whatever you like and publish it with “Publish to blog”. Only then does it appear at your blog address.

Take it back any time

With “Not published after all” you remove an article from the blog, the sitemap and the feed. It stays in Claire, and so does its URL.

Already running a Squarespace blog?

Then you can also use “Copy HTML” to take Claire’s articles as HTML code and add them yourself. Mark them as published in Claire afterwards; with a link, Claire also shows you clicks and impressions from Search Console.

How Claire finds gaps, writes articles and publishes them is shown on the homepage.

See how Claire works

What you need

Included from Starter. €199 a month.

Free trial, no credit card. Cancel monthly, no setup fee. An additional language and the full SEO strategy come with Growth (€299).

Compare all plans

Starter

cancel monthly

€199/ month

  • Up to 30 articles a month
  • Hosted blog on your subdomain
  • Sitemap, RSS feed and structured data
  • One-click approval for every article

Questions

Good to know.

Is Squarespace good for SEO?

For the basics, yes: sitemap, static URLs, SSL, mobile layouts and structured data run automatically. You have less room on the technical side, since robots.txt and the sitemap can’t be edited. Whether you get found comes down to titles, descriptions and content.

How do I do SEO with Squarespace?

Fill in the SEO title and description for every page and post, check your title format, add alt text, set up redirects under URL mappings, connect Search Console and submit your sitemap. After that, regular articles on questions people search for are what counts.

Is Squarespace good for blogging?

For a good-looking blog with categories, tags, comments and RSS, yes. What it lacks is a way for outside tools to publish into it, and blog posts can’t be hidden from search one by one. The bigger hurdle for most businesses is time, not features.

Can Claire publish straight to my Squarespace blog?

No. Squarespace offers no interface for creating blog posts. So Claire runs the blog herself on a subdomain of your domain, or you copy the articles as HTML and add them yourself.

Subdomain or subfolder for the blog?

A subfolder like /blog has to live in your own system or be routed in through a reverse proxy; a subdomain needs one DNS record. That’s why Claire uses a subdomain. Link blog and main site both ways so visitors and search engines see they belong together.

More integrations

Using a different system? Claire works with that too.

What else Claire does for you besides the blog is on the homepage.

Try it on your own website. Set up in 15 minutes.

Enter your website, connect your blog, read the first draft. Claire takes care of the rest.

No credit cardSet up in 15 minutesCancel monthly