How to prepare for your Squarespace website launch
It’s that time you’ve been waiting for - the week of your website launch!
If you work with us, we do all the heavy lifting for you but there are practical steps you can take to optimise your website further. These are optional but we recommend you do them to help reach your audience better!
01 / Set up (or update) Google My Business profile
If you haven’t already set up a Google My Business profile, now would be a good time to do so. Google My Business is a free tool for managing information that appears within Google search / maps. Setting up your profile will help you build trust as a reputable business as well as increase your search visibility. We’ve put together a quick start guide in a separate post to help get you set up.
02 / Verify your website with Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free service that helps you manage how your website displays in search results. Once your website is finished, you have a paid hosting plan and connected your domain you can submit a request to Google to index your site. A google account is required - if you don’t already have one you can make one for free here.
Before you index your website make sure you have removed any site-wide or page passwords on your homepage (If you have a password protected coming soon page you can do this on your launch day once the password is removed). Any password protected pages will not be indexed. Your domain will also need to be connected. Sometimes domains can take up to 72hrs to transfer so hold off until the connection is confirmed.
Connecting your account
The Search Keywords panel shows how visitors locate your website. Connect and verify your site in this panel and return later to review the data:
Go to the Home Menu > Analytics
Click Search Keywords
Click Connect in the panel’s pop-up
Login to the Google account you want to connect to your site. If you have multiple Google accounts, make sure you select the right one.
Review the permissions, then click Allow.
Wait 72 hours for the data to populate.
If you have any trouble connecting, try authorising through the Connected Accounts panel.
Indexing your website
One of the main uses for Google Search Console is for indexing your site. This asks Google bots to review your site and helps Google update search results with your new content. There are multiple ways to request Google to index your site. Google needs time to process the request, then crawl and index the page so it may not show up immediately.
Go to your Google Search Console Dashboard, select the site you’d like to index from the property menu in the top left corner.
Click Sitemaps.
Under Add new sitemap, enter your sitemap URL. Your sitemap URL will be http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml - change out the ‘yourdomain’ for your domain and hit submit.
03 / Squarespace Analytics
If you want to learn more about your audience, where they are from and what content is popular on your website - download the Squarespace Analytics app on your phone. This will give you digestible access to metrics and insights - a perfect way to monitor launch traffic. You can use these insights to more strategically post content and update your blog in the future.
If you’d like to exclude your own activity from the analytics you can create a filter to hide your IP address.
04 / Add Google Analytics to your website
To connect Google Analytics to your Squarespace website:
Go to the Home Menu > Settings > Advanced in your Squarespace account.
Click on External API Keys.
In the Google Analytics Account Number field, enter your tracking IP for the site. For help on finding this please see this article here.
Click Save.
05 / Embed Facebook pixel
The Facebook Pixel tool tracks visitor activity on a website to help Facebook understand and target users for ads. This means, if a visitor views a product or service, Pixel can read that information so you can target ads to that same visitor. The integration is not only useful for product based businesses but for services too if you are looking to drive more traffic to your website.
Follow Facebook’s steps to create a Facebook Pixel here. Then copy the pixel ID that you want to add to your website.
Go back onto your Squarespace website and click on the Home Menu > Marketing > Facebook Pixel & Ads.
Click Save and you’re all set if you want to start targeting your audience.
Happy launch week!
Don’t forget to reach out on Instagram if you need any help. We offer 14 days free support for clients!
