Building a new website is an exciting endeavor - and a daunting task. The process often serves as the nexus of a great business project, such as launching a new company, introducing a rebrand, or going public with a merger, expansion, or acquisition. Despite the problems that may arise at your upcoming website launch, SEO strategy should never be an afterthought. It should be the driving force behind your content and design decisions. Even before you start, you should implement an SEO strategy.
A comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) campaign will allow you to hit the ground running and avoid the trouble and expense of correcting outdated or inadvertently incorrect content as your site expands.
A new site is a blank slate with no backlinks, indexed pages, or domain authority. But a strong start and a well-defined SEO roadmap can propel it to a high ranking and help you compete with heavy hitters in your competitor segment. Here, we will share our best SEO tips for successful website optimization.
Here are some tips on ways to boost search engine optimization (SEO), including the right way to establish a website.
Select strong domain names and URL structures.
Your website address is a long-term investment, and the stakes are high. Having it correct demonstrates the importance of planning before building. Frequently, your domain name will be a reference to your business or brand name, and that is the best long-term option for brand building.
Tools such as GoDaddy make it easy to check for the availability of your preferred domains. And if your desired domain isn't available, you can select a domain name that relates to your most important search term, and this is the very first step in the process. Your SEO strategy comes into play when your selection isn't available.
The name should be short, unique, and pronounceable, without trademarks. The URL should be simple to type and able to be recalled easily during interviews and networking meetings. Website names that are difficult to pronounce or sound out phonetically can make it hard to find your website, especially if new viewers have not come across the name in a written format.
The same rules apply to all subsequent pages. Your URLs should remain unchanged; changing one will require you to rebuild the SEO associated with that URL from scratch (or use complex redirection techniques). The most beneficial thing you can do is keep things clear, memorable, and keyword-friendly. For instance, a page such as /marketing-tips/5-seo-tips is better than /thoughts/seo.
Find a high-speed website hosting provider.
A slow page-load speed is inexcusable for most users. In fact, an independent study found that nearly half of people will leave a site that takes more than four seconds to load. Proper website optimization requires site loading times not to exceed two or three seconds.
Poor site speed may leave customers searching for your website only to discover that it is down or doesn't load correctly - resulting in more bounces and lower site views.
Uptime (the percentage of your website's availability to users over a given period) is also important. The higher your hosting provider's uptime is, the better your Google ranking will be.
Bring your website design plan to life - without templates.
Websites like Webflow, Weebly, Squarespace, and Wix make it very easy and inexpensive (in the longer term, at least) to get online. However, that low price and ease of access come with a host of problems web designers complain about: poorly-designed sites, errors or sloppy code, and insufficient browser compatibility.
These features harm your SEO ranking - and they are extremely difficult to correct later. If you believe that you have a point of difference that your target audience will find interesting, then it's better to begin with, a custom website - one that embodies your brand's identity and is built with an effective search engine optimization strategy. It is a great investment in the long-term success of your organization and the site itself and provides a more customized user experience for your brand.
Set up your Google tools.
Google Search Console is a handy way to track key performance indicators for your search engine optimization strategy. It checks for problems with page speed, crawl, and indexing. The "tooltips" feature can also reveal natural keyword phrases to benefit website clicks, track your CTR, and assess the status of your sitemap and page performance.
Google Analytics must be installed at no site should supply public information without this useful (and free!) tool. It is the primary platform for collecting your web-informed marketing data.
You can also build out your online profile by using Google Local Search. To do this, create an exact, detailed page and keep it up to date. Complete information will boost visibility and help your local listing improve over time, helping features such as updated location data, business hours, photos, and actively-managed customer reviews, which are all essential.
Check your SEO competition.
To begin beating your SEO competitors, you must first identify who they are and what they're ranking for. To find out what your competition is doing, list your top search result competitors and be truthful. Your competitor list may change as your site evolves. This should never be made known, which is why being honest with yourself is of the utmost importance.
This list of competitors may not reflect your company's top rivals. You may have, for example, a large product competitor whose site performance is subpar. Instead of focusing on raising traffic to sites that are not similar to yours and featuring less relevant content, focus on promoting your competitor's sites on similar topics and stealing traffic from them.
Tools such as AHref and SpyFu are valuable for conducting a keyword gap analysis and identifying what your competitors are doing that you are not. These tools can help you to identify the most profitable search terms in your competitors' paid and organic search campaigns and employ those terms in your SEO strategy.
The second part of this lesson focuses on search engine optimization (SEO) for filling your website with content that is sure to pack a punch.
Create a keyword road map.
Once your content has been configured, it will be the fuel for continued website optimization. Research keywords and create a keyword map to connect such terms to the right internal pages.
Google's primary goal is to deliver users with the most pertinent information for the keywords in their queries. To accomplish this goal, it is vital that you understand your intended user's search intent. The more highly you match your search intent to your key phrases, the higher you'll rank for these terms.
This content roadmap should guide you on your way to improved rankings. It must be well-researched and carefully curated for accuracy and periodically checked for accuracy. The sales promotion process is a complicated process that requires professional advice to distinguish the relevant groupings of keywords. This is where the expertise of a curator becomes essential by grouping the keywords into accurate wireframes to build the foundation for your content marketing plan.
Create consistent content topics.
Create a content calendar for your priority keywords and paginate the source code. Many organizations post new articles on their website weekly. Frequent updates can encourage the credibility of your website to Google and establish a steady schedule for publishing new content.
It's best to prioritize your highest-ROI pages first, emphasizing core product and service offerings and business information. By including relevant keywords on these pages, you can increase their ability to perform well for your CRO. This enhanced potential will be reflected in the traffic they attract and how that traffic converts to sales. Remember to tag your articles with H1 tags, optimized URLs, and metadata.
From here, branch out to other styles of content. Create blogs, podcasts, case studies, and landing pages that continuously strengthen your keyword strategy. (Remember to annotate your videos with SEO best practices, as this is what will optimize your content.) In this phase, you'll see the benefits of Google Search Console and Analytics as you post content; as you post content, closely monitor page ranking and overall performance, and adjust your content accordingly.
Build a network of strategic landing pages.
To take your SEO to the next level, build out more specialized landing pages for your key terms. Strategic landing pages generate dedicated traffic and target customers' needs, ultimately improving your click rate optimization.
When properly developed, a landing page can also indicate that your website is respected by search engines. Therefore, be sure to follow valuable content practices that will ultimately benefit your readers. This means on-page content as well as your meta tags, URLs, and images.
Enhance your web page's content and run health tests.
Monitoring your Core Web Vitals is crucial for long-term website optimization. Google's guidelines change frequently, so you should incorporate regular data checks so you can pivot accordingly.
Due to the abundance of content available on the web, Google's rankings have become exceedingly selective. In addition to its click count, its evaluation criteria include the number of new words a web page contains. Thus, you must make the reader want to keep reading the article and on the first page. Tools such as PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console offer metrics for time on page and bounce rates.
Enhance your website's accessibility.
Accessibility is a work in progress. Its influence on on-site experience cannot be overstated. Following certain best practices makes the information on your web page clear and easy for users and search engines to understand.
To augment Google's accessibility, check your metrics to be sure each page is indexed and crawled properly. To improve usability, optimize alt text in images for screen readers, and be sure to provide enough color and clarity to make images and text easy to read. Functional components, such as buttons and hyperlinks, must be labeled accurately and double-checked.
How SEM, Social, SEO, email, and other brand name strategies can work together to build your funnel.
An excellent website is an important foundation for all future marketing activities. It allows you to rank well on search engines, resulting in more WordStream traffic. It displays key product benefits to consumers, driving discussions. This is what journalists see when you send out a press release and what sellers will see when evaluating whether to work with you. And perhaps, more importantly, it's what contestants, candidates, and participants see.
With an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in place, you'll have the foundation from which to consider other opportunities in advanced SEO and search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing to drive more site conversion, email marketing to get in touch with customers, and advertising tools to expand your audience. In today's digital landscape, all paths lead to your website, and increased visibility requires a multi-faceted approach to marketing.
