How to Connect Google Search Console to Your Squarespace Website

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Table of Contents:

• What is Google Search Console?

• Why is a Google Search Console account important?

• How do you create a Google Search Console account?

• The most important actions in Google Search Console

• Why aren't pages being indexed?

• The SEOSpace plugin

Everyone wants to rank well on Google—and ideally, appear at the top of the first page. But you don’t get there overnight. If you’ve just launched a new website, made major changes to your site (such as a redesign), published a new sales page, or posted a lot of blog posts, it’s a good idea to let Google Search Console (GSC) know.

What is Google Search Console?

GSC is a free tool from Google that helps you monitor your website's performance in Google search results. It provides valuable data and insights that you can use to optimize your website's visibility and performance in search results.

Why is a Google Search Console account important?

There are millions of websites online, and Google is constantly indexing them all. This happens automatically, but since there are so many, it can’t be done all at once. It’s entirely possible that Google won’t visit your website and index it until three months later. That’s a shame, of course—especially when you know you can help the process along yourself using Google Search Console.

How to Create a Google Search Console Account

There are three different ways to link your website to GSC. For option 1, you'll need access to your DNS records from your hosting provider.

Option 1:

1. Go to Google Search Console and click " Get Started"

2. Sign in with your Google Account (or create an account)

3. Select " Domain " and enter your website URL. Click " Continue."

4. A pop-up will appear containing the information about the TXT record that needs to be added to your DNS settings. (See step 5)

5. In a separate tab, go to your hosting provider's website, log in, and locate your DNS settings. 

6. Add a new record. In this case, it's a TXT record.
   - Record type: TXT
   - Record name: @
   - Value: what you copied from the Google Search Console pop-up. Save the record.

7. Next, click " Verify" in the Google Search Console pop-up. Verification may take a moment.

Option 2:

1. Go to Google Search Console and click " Get Started"

2. Sign in with your Google Account (or create an account)

3. Select " URL prefix " and enter your website URL. Click " Continue."

4. In the pop-up, select the HTML tag and copy the code.

5. In the settings of your Squarespace website, go to Code Injection (via Pages > Website Tools > Code Injection) (or use the / key and type " Code Injection ")

6. Paste the code into the Header field and click Save.

7. Next, click " Verify" in the Google Search Console pop-up. Verification may take a moment.

Option 3:

1. Go to squarespace.com and log in to your website

2. In the dashboard, click on your website

3. In the left-hand menu, go to Analytics (see screenshot below)

4. Click on " Search Keywords " at the top ( see screenshot below)

5. Click Connect ( see screenshot below)

6. Select your Google Account in the Google pop-up and click " Allow"

7. You can then use this link to log in to your Google Search Console

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The most important actions in Google Search Console

1. Uploading a sitemap

A sitemap is a small file for search engines that includes, among other things, the website structure—that is, the URLs that make up your website. 

You can upload a sitemap once verification is complete. Here's how:

1. Log in to your Google Search Console account.

2. In the menu on the left, click Sitemaps.

3. Here you'll see your domain name, followed by a field where you can enter the sitemap. Type the following into this field: sitemap.xml

4. Click Send.

Be sure to do this every time you make major changes to your website (a redesign, changes to multiple pages).

2. Indexing new pages

You can also have a single page indexed. For example, if you've written a new blog post or created a sales page. 

Here's how to index a page:

1. Log in to your Google Search Console account.

2. In the menu on the left, click Pages.

3. Enter the full URL of the new page in the search bar at the very top.

4. Once the URL has been inspected, the tool shows whether or not this page has been indexed. 

5. If this is not the case (for a new page), you'll see the message "URL is not indexed by Google." In that case, click "Request indexing."

Note: Even if you've uploaded your sitemap, not all of your website's pages may be indexed. That's why it's a good idea to check existing URLs.

Why aren't pages being indexed?

Sometimes, pages aren't indexed by Google after you upload your sitemap. There can be several reasons for this.

1. It's possible that Google doesn't consider them important enough because they don't contain enough valuable content. So make sure to address that first, in any case.

2. You may have configured your page to be hidden from search engines (via the page settings (gear icon) > SEO tab).

3. A page has too few internal or external backlinks. So be sure to link to other pages on your website from that page. And even better, encourage people to include your URL on their websites.

4. If your website has a lot of pages, there may be too many for Google to index all at once, which means Google might skip some pages.

5. Your website has multiple pages with identical content.

Last but not least, it is and always will be Google. And Google calls the shots. So all you can do is your best and try to meet Google’s requirements as much as possible.

The SEOSpace plugin

One tool that can help you improve your Squarespace website and optimize it for search engines is the SEOSpace plugin. Once you’ve created an account and run a website scan, you’ll see exactly what’s missing from your website. You can then address each of these issues step by step.

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