Hello hello beloved SEOs, coming at you with another blog post & video tutorial that aims to demystify the often-confusing rabbit hole that is Squarespace SEO.

Today, we’re talking all about nimble pages.

If you have ever spent time looking up SEO online, or at Squarespace’s knowledgebase going over their articles about SEO (which you have, haven’t you? like, duhhh isn’t that how everyone spends their time?), then you have probably seen the term “nimble pages” come up.

But what the heck are nimble pages? Are they “good” aka something you should aim for on your own Squarespace website? Or are they “bad”, something to be avoided or fixed? Can any type of web page be a nimble page, or is it only for regular web pages (what about blog posts, product pages, galleries, event pages, etc)? How do you know if you have one? If you don’t have one, what can you do to get one?

Fantastic questions and you know I’m going to answer them all here with you today hehe :)

This is the kind of insider info that I give to my Squarespace SEO consulting clients and students in my signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO. But since I’m not one for secrets and truly want the best for anyone with a website, I’m giving you the goods here totally for free - no gatekeeping here!

Oh, and I’ve even recorded a video tutorial for you to watch in case that’s more your vibe.

Ready to get started? Let’s take a look!

SQUARESPACE SEO SERIES

I have so many tips to share on the subject that it would have been crazy to put it all in one article! There are many misconceptions about Squarespace SEO which is why I've dedicate so many posts & videos to this topic. Enjoy!

Work with Charlotte - explore my Squarespace SEO services & programs

Nimble pages and squarespace seo

Note: At the time of recording, this video shows my website on Squarespace version 7.0 . Your own website might look slightly different if your website is on Squarespace version 7.1 or uses a different 7.0 template, but the tips are still the same!

nimble pages and what they mean for squarespace seo

Simply put, a nimble page means that the page is quick to load.

This applies to all web pages, blog posts, product pages, event pages, galleries, etc. on your Squarespace website - all page types can be nimble pages if they are quick to load.

A nimble page that is quick to load means that there is nothing on the page that is lagging the load speed, or causing the page to load and properly display correctly at a slow speed.

A fast page load speed is extremely important for two main reasons:

Better user experience (because the page visitor doesn’t have to wait around for the content to load or display correctly)
SEO (Google won’t penalize you for slow load speed by putting you lower in search result rankings)

If a page is slow to load, that is a negative user experience and it’s something Google will penalize you for - meaning you won’t show up as high or at the top of online search results, meaning less traffic to your website, less hits to your business or brand, and less opportunities to get exposure and grow online.

So, to recap, nimble pages are GOOD and they are something you should aim to have.

Nimble pages are something you should consider for both:

New pages that you are going to create, design and build
Existing pages that you already have on your website

Now that we know WHAT a nimble page is, let’s take a look at some of the factors that can contribute to a nimble page. Or else, what could take away from a nimble page or slow it down.

Common issue: lots of images with large image file sizes

Without a doubt, this is the most likely reason that a page might not be nimble -because it has a lot of images on the page, and those images are all large file size.

Squarespace recommends for image and page sizes:

At the time of recording and writing this post (April ‘23), Squarespace recommends that you keep the images on the page:

Under/below/smaller than 500kb (kilobytes)
The overall page should be less than 5mb (megabytes)

So, think about the pages that you have on your own website - again, whether that’s a regular page, a blog post, a product page, an event page, a gallery, whatever - and evaluate HOW MANY images it includes, what SIZE those images are, and what the OVERALL SIZE of the page is.

If you have a regular page with one or two images and the rest is a lot of text, then you are probably fine (unless the images are massive image file sizes) - the page will not exceed the recommended total size, and will be considered a nimble page - all good here!

However, if you have a page/post/etc. with a dozen or more images, all of which are very large image file sizes, then it’s safe to say that you will be exceeding the recommended page size and therefore the page will not be considered a nimble page.

Don’t panic if you have a lot of images with large file sizes currently on your website - that is something we can fix! There’s still hope to have a nimble, SEO-friendly page on your Squarespace website :)

Compress a large image file to reduce the size

let’s say you have an image with a large file size and you want to reduce the image size so that is loads faster and makes for a more nimble page.

Yay! This is great news and it’s super easy to do.

TinyPNG - free tool

There are many ways you can compress images so do the way that works best for you - I’m going to show one one way to do it!

TinyPNG.com is a free tool that I personally use all the time. It’s a super easy way to compress an image, or make the image a smaller image file size. You can compress the image without reducing or compromising the quality, which is obviously what we’re trying to do.

NOTE: I have zero affiliation with TinyPNG

All you do is drag or upload your image (with the large file size) into TinyPNG and it will compress the image for you. Then you can re-download that newly compressed image onto your computer and you will see it now has a much smaller image file size. yay!

TIP: Don’t forget to correctly name your image file so that you get all the best SEO benefits!

Image Guidelines and Best Practices for Squarespace SEO

Existing vs new pages

Once you have evaluated the image file size and compressed if need be, then you can see if further action should be taken.

If we are talking about fixing or updating large images on existing pages, NOW you can go back to your web page and replace the old/large image file with your newly compressed/smaller image file (that is correctly named for SEO).

Or, if you are looking at a brand new page, then you can rest assured that the images that you are uploading are a good size and will contribute to a nimble page (which is what you want!).

This is especially important if you have lots of images on particular pages or in blog posts, or if you have a lot of galleries on your website (e.g., for portfolio pages, case studies, etc.), or for products with many product photos and specs.

Text and nimble pages

When it comes to creating nimble pages, images will be your main concern becuase they are what’s most likely to slow the page load speed.

When it comes to the text on the page, you will probably be fine even if you have long-form content. That’s because text just doesn’t take up as much of the content size! But still good to know about and consider :)

Final Thoughts

And there you have it - everything you ever wanted to know about nimble pages and how they impact SEO on your Squarespace website!

I hope this post and video tutorial answered all your questions about nimble pages, and you see how important they are from an SEO perspective as well as the value they have for a positive user experience.

Think about the pages on your own Squarespace website, and take a look at each one to see if they might be considered a nimble page (good thing, what you should be aiming for), OR if there are some tweaks you can make to reduce the image file sizes and improve the page load speed. Go through each page one at a time, and you will see a bump or boost once you’ve made those fixes!

Let me know how it goes :)

xoxo

Charlotte

Exciting news : my signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO, is now open for enrollment and I’d love to have you join us inside the program! Learn all about it here.

If 1-on-1 is more your style, then I encourage you to sign up for my Squarespace SEO Audit & Consulting Sessions! We’ll hop on Zoom, make changes to your Squarespace website in real time, and you’ll get a totally personalized Squarespace SEO strategy to follow moving forward.

You can also sign up for my newsletter (right here or below), where I often share Squarespace SEO tips, tricks and high-quality exclusive content. I send out emails to my list a few days a week, mostly focused on Squarespace SEO, business and online marketing tips, and a behind the scenes look at what’s going on in my corner of the internet, and I can guarantee that you’ll find the newsletter topics interesting, entertaining and worth your time. #humblebrag

Finally, shameless plug: hit me up with any specific questions you have about Squarespace SEO and your website because I’m your girl. You can reach out to me directly if you’re interested in working together on your website and we can talk about whether or not you would be a good fit for my consulting and ongoing services. I can’t take on every request to do Squarespace SEO consulting but I do pick a few websites and businesses to work with every month and I’d love for you to be one of them.