Meredith's husband: 0:24

We already recorded this episode.

Meredith: 0:26

Yes.

Meredith's husband: 0:26

But at the end I decided to do a little something extra because of something we discovered while making the episode. I added a little tidbit at the end. It's a little gift To, I hope, help you make the most of this tool. Excellent, so enjoy the episode. You sent me something recently.

Meredith: 0:44

Yes, I did.

Meredith's husband: 0:45

That was interesting. You know what I'm talking about.

Meredith: 0:47

Squarespace.

Meredith's husband: 0:48

Oh my gosh, yes there's a squares, there's a new squarespace, seo tool there is guess what? It's a squarespace, ai seo yes, there is so I have not seen it. I'm what I'm, I'm thinking. I'm going to take a look at it right now and give you my thoughts live yeah, live.

Meredith: 1:05

oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I will say that you're optimistic, that they're doing the right thing.

Meredith's husband: 1:12

No, I'm not optimistic. I know I'm very pessimistic.

Meredith: 1:15

Well, we may be pleasantly surprised, yeah.

Meredith's husband: 1:18

Okay, so you know, as I've said before, in these episodes there have been I've seen many, many, many, many many tools like this claiming to boost your SEO. Yeah, easy, many many, many, many tools like this, claiming to boost your SEO, and be easy one-click wonders. Yep and I have been 100%, consistently disappointed.

Meredith: 1:35

Okay, but let's see.

Meredith's husband: 1:37

Let's see, because one thing I will say the people who join SEIQ yeah, when you do that, there's a little quiz in the beginning to help get you started and get you off on the right foot. Yeah, one of the questions is what platform are you using? Squarespace, wordpress, showit, et cetera. The majority of people there are using Squarespace. Okay, so a lot of people are using Squarespace.

Meredith: 1:57

Let's see.

Meredith's husband: 1:58

Okay.

Meredith: 1:59

Very exciting.

Meredith's husband: 2:00

I need to open up a new window, do I?

Meredith: 2:01

need to open anything.

Meredith's husband: 2:03

No.

Meredith: 2:03

Presents A package of cookies, a package of cookies.

Meredith's husband: 2:06

Okay, are you ready?

Meredith: 2:07

I am ready. Are you going to share your screen?

Meredith's husband: 2:11

On a podcast, it won't be helpful.

Meredith: 2:13

Never mind.

Meredith's husband: 2:14

I'm opening the email that you received from Squarespace about this new AI SEO tool and I'm going to just first read what I see. Yes, and I'm going to follow the link.

Meredith: 2:24

Wonderful.

Meredith's husband: 2:24

I'm going to read what I see there and tell you what.

Meredith: 2:26

I think this is so exciting folks.

Meredith's husband: 2:27

Okay, headline smarter SEO, effortless site optimization. So right away to me that screams like that's a problem, like that sounds very familiar to me.

Meredith: 2:36

And to me, the consumer. I think great.

Meredith's husband: 2:39

Yes, okay, and I'll get to that in a second Subheading or byline or whatever. This is Next sentence Our AI-powered tool helps boost search engine rankings and attract more visitors with just a few clicks. Oh my gosh, that is just perfectly garbage. That sounds so awful To me. How that reads is our AI-powered tool will make sure that you have shit SEO, but it's only going to take two clicks. That's how I read that and then there's a button that says boost your SEO. Now I'm going to follow that in a second, but I'm going to finish reading the email. The email says getting noticed online just got easier. Our new AI SEO tool provides simple, effective ways to improve search visibility.

Meredith: 3:24

Simple and effective, they say.

Meredith's husband: 3:26

Okay, ai powered metadata recommendations for better search rankings and click-through. Okay, that's going to be garbage. I pretty much know that.

Meredith: 3:36

I still want to see it.

Meredith's husband: 3:37

Metadata is going to be your meta descriptions.

Meredith: 3:39

Yeah, which for those who are first listening mean.

Meredith's husband: 3:42

Those are meta tags and your meta descriptions do not factor into your rankings at all. Zero percent, effectively Zero. They used Meta descriptions. Do not factor into your rankings at all. Zero percent, effectively zero. They used to Right Years ago.

Meredith's husband: 3:51

They used to Back in the day, I will say if your meta descriptions are blank, if you don't have them, that's bad Right. So I'm thinking, well, okay, this. I'm looking at this tool thinking, okay, well, it's probably going to be better than absolutely nothing. But if you have written meta description tags, uh, this is not going to make them any any better. It doesn't matter for us. Yet, like Google has literally said, it doesn't matter what you put in your meta description tags. You can put your keywords in there a trillion times. It makes zero difference. That's exactly what Google said.

Meredith: 4:25

And and and. Squarespace just said we have something just for this one thing that is not needed.

Meredith's husband: 4:30

Yes, that is what that is, and so it's going to make recommendations about your metadata for better search rankings and click through.

Meredith: 4:38

It might help click through to be honest. Might help Click through.

Meredith's husband: 4:41

Click through is if so, look. So let's say, your website is displayed in search results. Somebody does a search for something. Your website is up there. Yeah, website is displayed in search results. Somebody does a search for something, your website is up there. A click-through would be if somebody clicks on your website. So if they don't click on it, you don't get a click. So your click-through rate would be the number of people who see your website in search results and actually click on it. So you want a high click-through. So a meta description tag can affect your click-through information. So this statement is 50% maybe and 50% garbage.

Meredith's husband: 5:15

The next statement there's only two points here automatically generate alt text for images, improving accessibility and SEO. I have a pretty strong feeling that is going to be bad SEO because you're going to give it your keywords, it's going to and it's going to stuff that into your alt text for images. And that is going to be bad SEO, because you're going to give it your keywords and it's going to stuff that into your alt text for images. And that is very specifically what Google calls spam. They literally say that almost word for word, like do not do that. Now, I don't know, maybe it does accurately. Try to you know, look at an image and describe what it is. I don't know, could be, could be okay.

Meredith: 5:47

I don't know.

Meredith's husband: 5:48

Okay, and then finally optimize just a few clicks in your dashboard, no expertise required. More visibility could translate to more visitors, more customers and more growth for your business.

Meredith: 5:58

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 5:59

Now, well, it would. Yeah, more visibility would definitely translate to more visitors and more customers and more growth for your business. Now the problem with statements like this optimize with just a few clicks in your dashboard, no SEO expertise required. The problem that I see with a statement like that is remember I said, lots of people are using Squarespace. Yes, and Squarespace is rolling out this tool to all of their subscribers, all of their users, and so this tool is going to be used by a lot of people, a lot of people using Squarespace. A lot of people are going to be doing it. So how would it set you apart from other websites if everybody's doing the same thing? Conceptually, that's one of the problems to me. That's, you know how do you rise above if you do the same thing. That conceptually, that's one. One of the problems to me, that's you know how do you rise above if you do the same thing literally right okay, so now let's follow this.

Meredith's husband: 6:50

Yes, because actually I'm actually curious, because your website is on squarespace right now right now and I know I have dealt with the seo and it's not awesome, uh. So I'm curious to see what more about this, so let's, let's go. So I'm curious to see what more about this, so let's. It took me to the login page, so I need to log in.

Meredith: 7:07

As me.

Meredith's husband: 7:08

No, I'm a. I'm a manager of your website.

Meredith: 7:11

So I have.

Meredith's husband: 7:12

I have my own account, okay, okay. So this takes me to something that called the search engine optimization appearance, and it has an SEO report and says all pages have metadata and one image is missing alt text. Okay, I can improve this with it. I'm going to see what it does. So, I've clicked this and it comes up and it says an image. It is a headshot image and the alt text reads smiling woman with curly hair and earrings outdoors. That's actually a good alt text.

Meredith's husband: 7:45

I hate to say it, that's actually not bad. Not bad, that's not bad. Okay, I would think you could make it better, definitely, but this is a pretty good starting point Okay.

Meredith: 7:57

So one point yeah, yeah, okay, not bad, that's not bad.

Meredith's husband: 8:00

Okay, so that's all for the search engine optimization appearance. Next, here is SEO checklist, and this has been here for a long time to be honest, this is nothing new. Okay, so I'm going to take a look at another site that I manage, also on Squarespace. Do the same thing.

Meredith's husband: 8:18

See if it comes back with different, different results. Okay, so I'm in the same place. The search engine optimization appearance. So I'm in the same place. The search engine optimization appearance. It says all the things have metadata, great. It says there are several hundred images without alt text, and so I'm going to pull up some of these.

Meredith's husband: 8:34

Now, there's a bunch of images here. One of them. I'm going to tell you what it presents as image alt text. It says modern hallway interior with two pendant lights, wooden flooring and a framed photo of a child jumping on a street. A small round table with a decorative vase is also present. Now I would say, okay, that's not bad, but that's awfully long. Yeah, you want it to be like I would say there's no character limit here, but I would say you want this to be a handful of words or so, because think about when image alt text would display. It's when the image doesn't load Right, or when somebody can't view an image clearly for some reason, so it's vision impaired or a slow connection. So the text is going to display where that image would be. So often, images are not big, so you don't have a lot of room.

Meredith: 9:23

Right.

Meredith's husband: 9:25

So two complete sentences like those are not complete sentences, but a long alt tag like that is not going to be displayed, nor are people going to want to read it, right. So I would definitely try to shorten that, but it's kind of along the right lines. So the next one I'm going to do another one framed black and white family portrait on a wall in a modern living room with a chair and decor. Again, it's a long list, but that's too long. Like I would shorten that to something like framed family portrait in modern living room. That's going to get the idea across. And as I just scan through the rest of these, it's the same thing. Some of them are very long. There's one that says woman in a red dress sitting on a bench in a garden smiling. It's not bad.

Meredith: 10:07

Now is a description that's too long. Better than no description.

Meredith's husband: 10:12

Yes.

Meredith: 10:12

Just reinforcing.

Meredith's husband: 10:14

Yeah. And so again I'm going to say the same thing If you're starting from scratch and you have done no SEO, that's a good place to start. Okay, okay, great, better than nothing. Yeah, even those alt tags that are too long, yeah, definitely better than having nothing. So, if you come, if you use this, I recommend you actually do use it If you want to see if your images are missing alt text yes.

Meredith: 10:35

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 10:35

Begin with what they suggest and then try to improve them, like this is not going to. It's not going to hurt unless you already have written alt text and you go through and use this to rewrite it, which I don't see as an option here. So I would say, yeah, feel free to use this. Don't expect that your website is going to appear on page one because you're doing something different than everybody else, because you are literally going to be doing the same thing as everybody else. But so the way I would think about this, if this can help bring you up into the pack, okay. If you're behind the pack, like you're just starting SEO, you haven't done anything. This is going to get you kind of up to speed so that you're not far behind, but it's not going to get you ahead. You're not going to be the leader of the pack.

Meredith: 11:19

You are not going to get you ahead, right, you're not going to be the leader of the pack.

Meredith's husband: 11:22

You are not going to be the leader of the pack.

Meredith: 11:24

Wait, is that all that Squarespace is doing? Just that? That's supposed to make a big difference? Supposedly, yeah, no, that is that's it. It's just that.

Meredith's husband: 11:33

It's just that I know I have the same response Like that's pretty minor, I mean I don't know, maybe, maybe there's something that if your site needs something else, it does something else.

Meredith: 11:43

Am I missing something?

Meredith's husband: 11:44

Yeah, well, that has been my general response to all of what Squarespace offers is really. Now I will say Squarespace has its. Your site is on Squarespace. There are reasons to have it. There is no easier way to get a website online than with Squarespace. It's super cheap, it's really easy. It's really easy, it's pretty quick. The problem is the quality. But if you're just beginning and you need to get a website up tomorrow, squarespace is great. There's nothing that I know of where you can do that, so it has its place. But if you're going to use Squarespace as a business solution, know that it's not a long-term solution. It is a stepping stone. Yeah, okay. So keep in your mind that somewhere on the horizon is going to be moving to Wix. Wordpress. Show it something more robust, got it, but in the meantime, yeah.

Meredith's husband: 12:35

Yeah, this sort of gets my stamp of approval.

Meredith: 12:39

Wow, surprising, see.

Meredith's husband: 12:40

Oh, by the way, I should mention where you can find this tool. If you don't get the email because I followed your email which had a link you'll need to go log into your admin, go to your website settings and it's under the tab or the side navigation called marketing. So click on marketing and the first thing you will see will be SEO appearance.

Meredith: 12:59

Okay, the SEO appearance Okay. So I would say this is good for people just beginning and isn't going to hurt your website, but is definitely not going to throttle it forward and up and you will see.

Meredith's husband: 13:14

I should note, if you go to this page, you will see the SEO appearance thing that I just described, which is the new AI. Beneath that, they have like what they call an SEO checklist and a couple of other SEO tips. You can follow that that's going to give you a whole bunch of recommended things to do. They are mostly garbage. They're not going to help. It's just not good. This thing has been here for a long time and it's basically useless.

Meredith: 13:36

Okay, but the one thing that's not entirely useless.

Meredith's husband: 13:39

That new thing yeah, not entirely useless. That new thing yeah, run it. If you have images that don't have alt text, yeah, just begin with those and then like yeah, if you can I don't know if you can copy and paste those into a spreadsheet or something I realized that it was an okay tool.

Meredith's husband: 13:55

It was super, super limited in scope and what it did, but it was actually not bad as a tool. Actually, I kind of wish other tools did the same thing. The function is good. However, it's just one little tiny piece of SEO that it does, but I decided, since your site is on Squarespace, I'm just going to go ahead, I'm going to use it for your site and I created a little lesson from it.

Meredith: 14:17

Oh, okay, thank you.

Meredith's husband: 14:18

The link below will take you to that lesson. If you want to see how I recommend you use the SEO tool from Squarespace that we just