Local SEO for Squarespace: How to Rank in Your City
If Your Ideal Clients Are Searching "Near Me," Here's How to Make Sure They Find You
If you run a service-based business, you already know that most of your clients come from your local area. They're searching for "therapist in Denver," "real estate agent near me," or "best web designer in Colorado." The question is whether your website shows up when they do.
Local SEO is what makes that happen. It's the practice of optimizing your online presence so you appear in search results for location-specific queries. And if you're on Squarespace, you have everything you need to compete with businesses on any other platform. You just need to know how to use it.
Here's how to get your Squarespace site ranking in your city.
Start With Google Business Profile
Before you touch your website, make sure your Google Business Profile is set up and fully optimized. This is the single most important factor for local search visibility. When someone searches for a service in your area, Google pulls from Business Profiles to populate the map pack, those three listings that appear at the top of local search results.
If you don't have a Google Business Profile, create one at business.google.com. If you do have one, make sure it's complete:
Business name exactly as it appears elsewhere (consistency matters)
Accurate address and service area
Phone number that matches your website
Business hours
Categories that accurately describe what you do
A detailed business description with relevant keywords
Photos of your work, your team, or your location
Posts highlighting recent work, offers, or updates
Google rewards complete profiles with better visibility. A half-filled profile signals to Google that you might not be an active, legitimate business.
Get Your NAP Consistent Everywhere
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. Google cross-references your NAP across the web to verify your business information. If your address is listed one way on your website, another way on Google, and a third way on Yelp, Google loses confidence in your data.
Audit everywhere your business is listed: Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn, industry directories, local chamber of commerce sites, anywhere you've ever submitted your info. Make sure your NAP is identical across all of them. Even small differences like "Street" vs "St." can cause issues.
On your Squarespace site, put your full address in the footer so it appears on every page. This reinforces your location to search engines and makes it easy for potential clients to find you.
Optimize Your Homepage for Local Search
Your homepage is usually the most authoritative page on your site, which makes it the best place to signal your location to search engines.
Include your city and region naturally in:
Your page title (the SEO title in Squarespace's settings)
Your meta description
Your H1 heading or hero text
Your introductory copy
For example, if you're a web designer in Denver, your page title might be "Denver Squarespace Website Design | Agave Studio" rather than just "Agave Studio | Web Design." Your meta description should mention your location and service area. Your homepage copy should reference where you're based early on.
Don't stuff keywords awkwardly. Write for humans first, but make sure search engines can clearly identify where you operate.
Create Location-Specific Pages
If you serve multiple cities or neighborhoods, create dedicated pages for each one. A real estate agent serving the Denver metro area might have pages for Denver, Boulder, Arvada, Lakewood, and Aurora. A healthcare practice with multiple offices should have a page for each location.
Each location page should include:
A unique page title and meta description with the location name
Content specific to that area (not just the same copy with the city name swapped)
Your address if you have a physical presence there
Embedded Google Map
Local testimonials if you have them
Relevant local information that demonstrates you actually know the area
These pages help you rank for searches in each specific location and show potential clients that you understand their community.
Use Schema Markup
Schema markup is code that helps search engines understand your content. For local businesses, LocalBusiness schema tells Google exactly what your business is, where it's located, and how to contact you.
Squarespace automatically generates some structured data, but it's limited. To add LocalBusiness schema, you can use Squarespace's code injection feature (Settings > Advanced > Code Injection) to add JSON-LD markup to your site header.
At minimum, your LocalBusiness schema should include:
Business name
Address
Phone number
Business type
Opening hours
Geographic coordinates
URL
If you're not comfortable with code, this is something a Squarespace developer can set up for you in about an hour. It's a one-time task that pays dividends for your local search visibility.
Build Local Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They're one of Google's strongest ranking signals, and local backlinks are especially valuable for local SEO.
Look for opportunities to get listed or mentioned on:
Local business directories
Chamber of commerce websites
Industry association sites
Local news outlets or blogs
Partner businesses that might link to you
Local event sponsorships
Community organization websites
The key is relevance. A link from your city's business journal is worth more for local SEO than a link from a random blog across the country. Focus on building relationships in your community and the links will follow.
If you're local in the Arvada area, I recommend checking out Neighbors of Northwest Arvada and Neighbors of Standley Lake. They're local community magazines that offer advertising, local business listings, and sponsorship opportunities that can boost both your visibility and your local SEO. Just mention that Agave Studio sent you!
Collect and Respond to Reviews
Google Reviews directly impact your local search rankings. Businesses with more positive reviews tend to rank higher in the map pack, and reviews also influence whether someone clicks through to your site.
Make it easy for happy clients to leave reviews. Send a follow-up email after a project wraps with a direct link to your Google review page. You can create this link by searching for your business on Google, clicking "Write a review," and copying the URL.
Respond to every review, positive or negative. Thank people for positive feedback. Address negative reviews professionally and offer to resolve issues offline. Google sees your responsiveness as a signal of an active, engaged business.
Optimize for Mobile
More than half of local searches happen on mobile devices, and Google uses mobile-first indexing. If your site doesn't work well on phones, your local rankings will suffer.
Squarespace templates are mobile-responsive by default, but that doesn't mean your site is optimized. Check your site on your phone and look for:
Text that's easy to read without zooming
Buttons and links that are easy to tap
Forms that are simple to fill out on a small screen
Fast load times (large images are a common culprit)
Click-to-call phone numbers
Your phone number should be tappable on mobile so potential clients can call you with one touch. In Squarespace, link your phone number using "tel:5551234567" format.
Add an Embedded Google Map
An embedded Google Map on your contact page or footer reinforces your location to both visitors and search engines. It also makes it easy for potential clients to get directions.
In Squarespace, you can add a map block to any page. Go to your Google Business Profile, click "Share" on your listing, choose "Embed a map," and paste the code into a Squarespace embed block. Place it on your contact page at minimum, and consider adding it to your footer so it appears site-wide.
Monitor Your Local Rankings
You can't improve what you don't measure. Track your rankings for local keywords so you know what's working and where you need to improve.
Tools like SEOSpace (built specifically for Squarespace) include rank tracking features that let you monitor how you're showing up for specific keywords over time. Google Search Console is free and shows you which queries are driving traffic to your site, including local searches.
Check your rankings monthly. Look for trends rather than day-to-day fluctuations. If you're consistently moving up for your target keywords, your strategy is working. If not, revisit the fundamentals: Google Business Profile, NAP consistency, on-page optimization, and reviews.
Local SEO Takes Time
Here's the honest truth: local SEO isn't a quick fix. It takes months of consistent effort to see meaningful results. Google needs time to crawl your site, verify your business information across the web, and evaluate your authority in your local market.
But the payoff is worth it. Once you're ranking well for local searches, you're getting visibility in front of people who are actively looking for what you offer, in the place where you offer it. That's high-intent traffic that converts into clients.
Start with the fundamentals: Google Business Profile, NAP consistency, and on-page optimization. Then build from there with location pages, reviews, and local backlinks. Give it six months of consistent effort and you'll see the difference.
Agave Studio is a Denver-based Squarespace website design agency and Squarespace Circle Member with over 10 years of platform expertise and 100+ websites launched. We offer SEO and AIO services for healthcare practices, real estate professionals, service-based businesses, and more across the Mountain West and beyond. Get a free SEO audit or explore our SEO/AIO packages.
