AIO & Squarespace: What Business Owners Need to Know

More and more, potential clients are landing in my inbox asking about “AIO.” They maybe aren’t even quite sure what that term means (it stands for “Artificial Intelligence Optimization,” by the way), but they’ve heard they might need it. Unfortunately, there are far too many people out there sharing information that is perhaps well-intended, but isn’t quite accurate when we consider the facts and data.

Even worse, Squarespace website users in particular tend to be busy business owners who worry that their easy, turnkey website platform may not quite be up to snuff when it comes to both SEO (search engine optimization) and AIO. Rest assured, those worries are completely unfounded—many, many Squarespace websites are being cited by AI. In fact, I get leads from Claude all the time, as the software’s algorithm understands what kind of problems I can solve—and this website is on the very same Squarespace infrastructure as yours.

Squarespace AIO Frequently Asked Questions

What is AIO for SEO?

“AIO” stands for “Artificial Intelligence Optimization.” It refers to techniques used to help a website be cited by software such as Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. The recommended techniques are not new to SEO, however—a key point. Instead, these are tried and true techniques such as building topical authority, leveraging topic clusters, and using conversational, natural language to help AI crawlers understand your website.

Is AI replacing SEO on websites?

Contrary to what influencers on Threads, LinkedIn, or Instagram may claim, there is no reputable data to claim AI search has made traditional Google searches irrelevant.

Think of the modern search landscape as an ecosystem. AI software will often be located at the beginning of a user’s journey, and Google (or Bing, DuckDuckGo etc) will be later on. Additionally, brand mentions in AI appear to heavily influence searches in traditional search engines. Which means that brand building, propriety frameworks such as those we develop in my Alignthority® Strategy Sprint, and owning your intellectual property is more important than ever.

As a result, old school dictionary matching type SEO is far less effective than in 2018. We are decidedly in what I’ve dubbed the Post-Keyword SEO Era.

Do ChatGPT, Claude, or other AI software have rankings like Google?

LLMs or AI chatbots do not have rankings.

If an agency or consultants claims they do, that’s an SEO red flag. They do, however, cite content. There are currently no reliable methodologies for tracking specific AI citations, though your analytics program (either Squarespace’s own, or Google Analytics, or my favorite, Fathom) can tell you if you’re receiving clicks from AI software. I imagine that in the future there will be better technology for this type of tracking.

Google Search Console recently rolled out the ability to see what pages their AI tools cite, but, again, this does not include the prompts used to gain those citations.

Do Squarespace websites need an LLMs.txt file to be cited by AI software like ChatGPT & Claude?

No. Squarespace, nor any other platform, does not need an LLMs.txt file to be cited by Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or other bots. This is merely a proposed format, but it is not used by any major player in the AI software space and I do not currently recommend creating an LLMs.txt file and adding it to your site.

Does the AI visibility tracking inside Squarespace work?

Unfortunately, this is merely a smoke and mirrors feature that has no meaningful relevance to actual citations.

I do not recommend using this information for any marketing decision-making. I suspect it was a “feature” that Squarespace added to their system to appear “AI forward,” so to speak.

How can I optimize my Squarespace website for AI software or AIO?

Always build your AIO with solid SEO foundations first.

This means creating a website with breadth, depth, and interconnectedness; having solid metas implemented on every indexable page; having well-structured headlines that read naturally and logically; and demonstrating topical authority. I also recommend integrating an image SEO strategy if you want to further target AI crawlers.

Does Squarespace have AI SEO features?

There’s no need for special AI SEO (AIO) features on your Squarespace—the existing tools built right into your website will be just fine. I want to encourage you to lean into a holistic SEO/AIO strategy that encompasses topical authority for the Post-Keyword Era.

The key Squarespace features that support AI SEO include:

• Headings structure that can be implemented to make Google and AI crawlers understand your Squarespace site

• Backend SEO metas, which allows for clear, humans-first titles and descriptions of your pages

• Image alt-text so your imagery is clearly readable to people and crawlers alike

• Easy to structure, visible FAQ content

Do I need an FAQ on my homepage to optimize my Squarespace site for AI tools?

This is a bizarre recommendation that Squarespace’s integrated SEO tools makes and I am perplexed as to why they’ve pushed this feature.

FAQs (such as this one) can be tremendously helpful for both traditional SEO and AIO, but placement on a homepage is not essential and can erode your brand—remember that brand visibility and clarity is essential to AIO. Use FAQs where they help the reader understand your expertise and topical authority more—not just for SEO or AIO purposes, as that will be considered commodity content.