5 Reasons Your Squarespace Website Isn't Showing Up on Google
85% of Squarespace websites don't rank on Google.
Not because they're badly built. Not because Squarespace isn't a good platform. But because they weren't set up with search in mind from the start.
Before we dive deeper, if you want to understand the foundational principles that make organic search so powerful, download my free guide: ‘5 Google Search Secrets No SEO Agency Will Tell You’. These are the technical essentials that underpin everything we're discussing today.
Contents
Google Doesn't Know Your Site Exists
Your Site Looks Flat to Google
You're Breaking Google's Rules (Without Knowing It)
Google Is Wasting Time on Pages That Don't Matter
Your Site Is Cluttered and Confused
The Difference Between a Site That Ranks and One That Doesn't
Here's what catches most people out: Squarespace gives you all the SEO tools you need, but it doesn't teach you how to use them strategically. It'll flag a missing meta description, sure. But it won't tell you what makes a good one, which keywords actually matter, or how everything fits together to get you found.
If you're a nutritional therapist or women's health practitioner who's built a beautiful site but still feels like the world's best-kept secret, this is probably why.
1. Google Doesn't Know Your Site Exists
Most people assume Google automatically finds and indexes new websites. It doesn't work like that.
Yes, Squarespace automatically generates a sitemap. But if you haven't actually submitted it to Google Search Console, Google has no idea your site exists. You could have the most perfectly optimised website in the world, but if Google hasn't been told to look at it, you're invisible.
This is the single biggest reason new Squarespace sites don't appear in search results. Not because they're poorly built, but because no one told Google they were there.
2. Your Site Looks Flat to Google
When Google crawls your site, it's trying to understand which pages matter most and how they relate to each other. Internal links are how it figures this out.
If you've got a beautiful site with clear navigation but no links between your blog posts, service pages, and other content, Google sees a flat structure with no hierarchy. It can't tell what's important. And if Google can't tell what matters, it won't prioritise your pages in search results.
Most Squarespace sites have great navigation but zero strategic internal linking in the actual content. Which means Google treats every page as equally unimportant.
3. You're Breaking Google's Rules (Without Knowing It)
Google has character limits for titles, descriptions, and URLs. Go over them and your carefully crafted copy gets cut off mid-sentence in search results. Make them too vague and you're invisible for the searches that matter.
But here's where it gets really interesting: people also try to be clever.
Blog titles like ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ or ‘The Road Less Travelled’ or ‘You Can't Pour from an Empty Cup’. Catchy phrases, song lyrics, well-known sayings. They look great in an Instagram post. They'd work brilliantly as book titles in a shop window.
But that's not how search works.
Someone searching for help with PCOS isn't typing ‘a spoonful of sugar’ into Google. They're typing ‘PCOS nutrition advice’ or ‘how to manage PCOS naturally’. If your blog title is trying to be witty instead of searchable, you've just made yourself invisible to the exact people you want to reach.
It's as if people think they're competing for the catchiest book title in a window display, when the reality couldn't be further from this. You're not catching someone's eye as they browse past. You're trying to show up when someone actively searches for what you offer.
Most people write their page titles thinking about their site visitors, not about what fits in Google's display or what people actually search for. So they end up with titles like ‘Welcome to My Practice - Helping Women with Hormones, Fertility, and Perimenopause Through Personalised Nutrition’ which Google truncates to ‘Welcome to My Practice - Helping Women...’ Or they go the other direction with something poetic that no one would ever type into a search bar.
Same with URLs. Instead of clean, keyword-rich slugs like /pcos-nutrition, people end up with /blog-post-march-2024-final-version-2. Google hates this. Visitors don't love it either.
There are specific character counts and formats that work. Most Squarespace sites ignore them.
If you’d like to hire me as your marketing department, I can create a retainer tailored to your business goals - content creation, on‑page SEO, and monthly optimisation handled for you. [Get in touch to chat about a personalised retainer].
4. Google Is Wasting Time on Pages That Don't Matter
Your privacy policy doesn't need to rank on Google. Neither does your thank-you page, terms and conditions, or that page you use for personalised links.
But if you haven't explicitly hidden these pages from search engines, Google is crawling and trying to index them. Which means it's spending less time on the pages that actually matter - your services, your blog, your about page.
Every page Google crawls costs you something. Make it count by hiding the ones that serve no purpose in search results.
5. Your Site Is Cluttered and Confused
Old promotional pages from a workshop you ran two years ago. Duplicate content. Blog posts you started but never finished. Services you don't offer anymore.
All of this clutter does two things: it confuses Google about what you actually do, and it dilutes your SEO authority by spreading it thin across pages that don't matter.
Google wants clarity. What do you do? Who do you help? What should it rank you for? If your site is full of mixed messages and outdated content, Google can't answer those questions. So it doesn't rank you for much of anything.
The Difference Between a Site That Ranks and One That Doesn't
These aren't advanced SEO tactics. They're foundational basics that every high-performing website has in place.
Will fixing these five things guarantee you'll rank on page one tomorrow? No. SEO doesn't work like that.
But here's what they will do: they remove the barriers that are currently stopping Google from even considering your site. They give you a fighting chance. They mean that when you do create good content, publish helpful blog posts, and build authority in your field, Google can actually find it, understand it, and show it to people searching for what you offer.
Right now, if these five things aren't in place, you're making it much harder for Google to find and rank your content, no matter how good it is.
Let's be honest about something else too: becoming visible online and positioning yourself as an authority takes time and effort. If you're here looking for quick fixes or magic hacks, we probably have nothing further to discuss. The truth is, all marketing strategies take time and work. The difference with SEO is that once you've done the work, it keeps working for you. Social media disappears in 24 hours. A well-optimised blog post can bring you clients for years.
Fix these foundations first, then everything else you do for SEO actually has a chance of working.
I've put together a free guide that walks you through exactly how to fix all five of these issues in your Squarespace site. It includes screenshots showing you exactly where to find the settings, what to change, and why it matters.
Grab it here: 5 Google Search Secrets No SEO Agency Will Tell You (And You Can't Afford to Ignore)
The top organic search result gets nearly 40% of all clicks. Paid Google ads? Just 2.1%.
If you're relying on social media and hoping people find you, you're working ten times harder than you need to. Fix these five things first, then build from there.
If you’ve found this blog helpful, you might like to read these popular titles:
How to Increase Your Website Traffic Without Being a Slave to Social Media
Why Your Excellent Qualifications Aren’t Reaching the Right People Online
Sam Ferguson is a website designer and SEO specialist for nutritionists, functional medicine practitioners, and women in wellness. With a unique blend of industry insight and technical expertise, Sam helps clients create impactful websites that attract, engage, and convert. When she’s not designing, you’ll find her sharing practical digital marketing tips to help wellness professionals grow their online presence with confidence.