Can I start SEO before finishing my website?
-
Hi, I'm new to SEO and websites.
I'm slowly building a website at the moment.
I was wondering if I could set up a blog at the domain name I will use for my final website and begin doing SEO. Eg. I set up a blog using a CMS like Squarespace and begin blogging at domain.com/blog (with links to the domain.com/blog from the domain.com home page) and inbound links point to the domain.com 'front page'.
And then add the design of the 'front page' of the website using Squarespace at a later stage eg. domain.com.
Is this a good idea? Will it work?
I'm anxious to get started on SEO.
Thanks!
-
I have to agree with Heather SEO begins waaaay before the SEO phase. Here's a link to a post that we wrote on our blog, that might help you out. http://www.theedesign.com/blog/2012/web-design-for-seo.
Basically like Heather said, you need to be thinking about SEO every step of the way. I have no problem building a a blog before hand to help build your audience, but make sure that they are aware that you have a website and you are building towards it. It sounds like that you're going to be using the blog of "Blog.com" as a blog until it turns into the ecommerce site you want it too, if so make sure you let your audience know what's going on. Maybe create an email newsletter, so they can get updates every step of the way.
Remember if you get links to your website, to pages and articles that arn't going to be there in the final design you can 301 them to keep the link juice, BUT YOU WILL NEED TO 301 THEM.
Maybe for the time being also consider directing your fans to a Facebook page or a Twitter account to help build your community.
Hope these thoughts help.
-
Hi, yes it's a good idea to think about SEO throughout the development stage. There are lots of things to think about during the build which may affect SEO, inlcuding:
- Has the website got more elements than it needs (multiple CSS files that can be reduced, lots of small images when one sprite would be better, redundant java files etc.)?
- Have you thought about the content of the site (one relevant H1tag per page, clean simple URL structure, all images have appropriate alt tags, appropriate navigation etc.)?
- How should search engines see the site (relevant use of rel="nofollow", relevant use of canonical links, 301 redirects on old links etc.)?
Adding quality, SEO optimised content on your blog is a good starting point. If you do link to the homepage before the site is complete, I would consider creating a holding page to explain what the site will be about and when full functionality will be launched.
-
As long as the pages are there it should not be a problem, especially if your just keeping the blog updated, i personally would not link to any page unless its finished.
But to keep a blog updated may not be a bad thing and just add the pages when your ready
It may be a good idea to start the site small with like a home page , contact page and you blog and then add the new directory as you go as not to confuse the search engines
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Would a link from an unrelated website, that is popular, help me ?
I have a website that gets 200,000 visitors a month. It is a very popular financial tool. I have another website that sells widgets, but honestly, not really related to the financial tool. I would like to help out the unpopular website by giving it a link. What's the professional opinion?
Link Building | | sonic220 -
Website Ranking well in Mobile but not in Desktop
Hello guys, Recently we are experiencing good rankings for our targeted keywords in mobile but in desktop the rankings are not progressing. For example, in Mobile, our main targetted keyword ranks in 7th position but in Desktop we are stuck in 11th position. In desktop the website have been stuck in 11th position for quite some time now, any suggestion will help.
Link Building | | NkZagreus0 -
Website not appearing anywhere on google
Hello, we launched www.comparetravel.ie in June but it is not showing up on google search, we have submitted it to google twice but still no sign of our site. I thought it would at least show up for the "Compare Travel" search term, it only shows up when you type the full website address into google. Any ideas on what we are doing wrong? Alll advice greatly appreciated. (The website is Irish based) Thanks P
Link Building | | CompareTravel0 -
Your recommendation for a SEO friendly bulletin board software?
Hi there, if you set up a public bulletin board in the context of a SEO project, what product can you recommend? phpBB? A great plugin for Wordpress? ...? My requirements are complete configuration options of the relevant onsite elements, editing/moderation capability of all posts, authentication. Thanks!
Link Building | | kqkq0 -
Can I get your expert opinion?
Hello fellow Mozzers! I've been brainstorming about getting links for my site and thought of the following scenario, let me know if its a good idea or not. Who we are: an IT consulting firm. There are many tech support forums and groups on the internet including Google, Yahoo and a few other big dogs... I thought it would be a good idea to browse them on daily basis and find questions/topics that haven't been answered or don't have any real clear good answers, or are very popular. Then create an article in the blog on our site describing the same exact problem with a solution. Then would post a response under that question/topic with a link back to the solution that is located on our site. Hoping that this will bring in more traffic, links, and authority... However I also thought about the possibility of getting spammed, since there are many spam sites that scrape forums and groups for web site addresses, email addresses, phones, etc... So what do you guys think, is it a good idea or should I stay away? Thank you!
Link Building | | igor.pinchevskiy0 -
How quickly can I add links?
I have a site that is about 1-2 years old but I haven't worked on any backlinks yet. How many links is too many too quickly? I am looking to hire a firm to do my seo and I've received a lot of positive feedback from their customers and other seo experts in the area.
Link Building | | Webmaster1230 -
Ever Get disillusioned with SEO
Many times now we have pushed certain keywords for homepage listings but we have found the traffic levels to be very poor and many cases first page listings turn out to be vanity. The frustrating thing is that sometimes we have to tell some of our SEO customers that in order to get a good market share for there industry they will always have to do google adwords. What are your thoughts on this . Thanks
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect0 -
Maintaining a Network of Websites
Hello, My question is regarding networks of websites. Right now I have over 150 websites that I bought of the auction houses. They are all sitting on the same GoDaddy account. Most of them have different C-Class IP's. I think I have around 55 different ones. So my question is, does it matter if they are all under one GoDaddy account? Does this have any negative impact on my rankings. And also, how can I upload content to all of the websites quickly, instead of having to login constantly to every single on of them. I use these websites of course to rank a few main websites, I have a client, and I began first using blogrolls to send links to him, and recently I started using actualy content links since I've read here that is a lot more powerful.
Link Building | | grommeman0