Essential items to consider when starting a new site in terms of SEO?
-
I've just launched a new site and have undertaken the following:
- Keyword friendly page titles
- Meta description
- Not a great deal of content on the site yet - but have a blog which we're trying to update as much as we can
- Analytics and Webmaster tools set up
- Dmoz submission
- Facebook, Twitter and Google+ page
- Google places set-up - waiting for postal pin
I've signed up to here to help me to start building a link profile.
However, would like to hear any more hints, tips or help on items I should be doing for a new site looking to move up rankings.
Thanks
-
Agreed, agreed, agreed.
Best
-
this is why I love this community - we have each offered information that helps - and the combination of information is excellent!
-
You have some great points already from Alan, Robert and Phillip. I would identify your competition as well as understand your customer. See where your target audience is and where they are. Look at how your competition is presenting themselves and getting in the face of your customer. All that you need to do is to do a better job then them. It's easier said then done, but it's possible. Think how Startup companies get to become well known. They provide a better service then somebody else.
-
"What does the client wish to accomplish with this site?" and "The meta description MUST answer the query."
Excellent advice. But, as they say, common sense is not common practice. I hope your badgering (Oops... I mean encouraging) will change that
-
Savageseo
Alan has given you an excellent list and rather comprehensive as well. I will take another tact. When I look at a new site, I look at it from the POV of "What does the client wish to accomplish with this site?" Without answering that question, you may rank but not well for converting whatever you wish to convert.
Once that question is asked along with how much can they spend, etc. I want to know what are the queries around what they are wanting to accomplish. Notice I did not say Keywords, I said queries. What question(s) does the site purport to answer in order to give value? Let's take a drug store and an Ace bandage. What is the person asking about them? Maybe, how to wrap an ankle or what size tape to use, what size elastic bandage, etc.
Then, well armed, you have to do keyword analysis to determine what is going on around those queries. If the site is a local business, you must use whatever geolocation methodology you possess around keywords along with non geo located searches.
Then, the most overlooked item I see on sites we take over is this: The meta description. Most just want to stuff keywords or city names, etc. and that, IMO, is what makes my clients get more conversions. The meta description MUST answer the query. Seems so simple, most typically a total fail for people because "Google doesn't look at the meta description." (I've heard that a few times.)
So, once there, all the rest that you and Alan have are all over it. Remember content must be great and fresh and relevant to the query as well. Only then, will your client's customer have the greatest opportunity to buy from your client.
Hope this helps,
Robert
Quick Edit: Remember to insure they are optimized locally.
-
Breadcrumb navigation is always a good idea to have. It reinforces topical focus, and content relationships.
For a blog, Google authorship is good. As is either the "All-In-One SEO" plug-in or the Yoast SEO plug-in.
Sitemap.xml file and robots.txt file as well.
Then you can learn about canonical tags and get those set up on the site and in the blog.
Really anything in the SEOmoz "Learn SEO" section is worth learning.
Also, a handy reference is the "periodic table of SEO".
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
-
Having problem with multiple ccTLD sites, SERP showing different sites on different region
Hi everyone, We have more than 20 websites for different region and all the sites have their specific ccTLD. The thing is we are having conflict in SERP for our English sites and almost all the English sites have the same content I would say 70% of the content is duplicating. Despite having a proper hreflang, I see co.uk results in (Google US) and not only .co.uk but also other sites are showing up (xyz.in, xyz.ie, xyz.com.au)The tags I'm using are below, if the site is for the US I'm using canonical and hreflang tag :https://www.xyz.us/" />https://www.xyz.us/" hreflang="en-us" />and for the UK siteshttps://www.xyz.co.uk/" />https://www.xyz.co.uk/" hreflang="en-gb" />I know we have ccTLD so we don't have to use hreflang but since we have duplicate content so just to be safe we added hreflang and what I have heard/read that there is no harm if you have hreflang (of course If implemented properly).Am I doing something wrong here? Or is it conflicting due to canonicals for the same content on different regions and we are confusing Google so (Google showing the most authoritative and relevant results)Really need help with this.Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shahryar890 -
Huge organic drop following new site go live
Hi Guys, I am currently working on a site that's organic traffic suffered ( and is still suffering ) a huge drop in organic traffic. From a consistent 3-400 organic visits a day to almost zero. This happened as soon as the new site went live. I am now digging to find out why. 301s were put in place ( over 2, 500 over them ) and there are still over 1,100 outstanding after review search console this morning. Having looked at the redirect file that was put in place when the new site went live, it all look OK, apart from the redirects look like this... http://www.physiotherapystore.com/ to http://physiotherapystore.com/ Where the new URL is missing www. - I am concerned this is causing a large duplicate issue as both www. and non www. work fine. I am right to have concern or is this something not to worry about?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HappyJackJr0 -
How much SEO damage would it do having a subdomain site rather directory site?
Hi all! With a coleague we were arguing about what is better: Having a subdomain or a directory.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaston Riera
Let me explain some more, this is about the cases: Having a multi-language site: Where en.domain.com or es.domain.com rather than domain.com/en/ or domain.com/es/ Having a Mobile and desktop version: m.domain.com or domain.com rather than domain.com/m or just domain.com. Having multiple location websites, you might figure. The dicussion started with me saying: Its better to have a directory site.
And my coleague said: Its better to have a subdomain site. Some of the reasons that he said is that big companies (such as wordpress) are doing that. And that's better for the business.
My reasons are fully based on this post from Rand Fishkin: Subdomains vs. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO - Whiteboard Friday So, what does the community have to say about this?
Who should win this argue? GR.0 -
Links to my site still showing in Webmaster Tools from a non-existent site
We owned 2 sites, with the pages on Site A all linking over to similar pages on Site B. We wanted to remove the links from Site A to Site B, so we redirected all the links on Site A to the homepage on Site A, and took Site A down completely. Unfortunately we are still seeing the links from Site A coming through on Google Webmaster Tools for Site B. Does anybody know what else we can do to remove these links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pedstores0 -
Technical SEO
Hi Team, What are the points we are missing on our website from technical SEO front? http://www.giftxoxo.com/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Manual action penalty revoked, rankings still low, if we create a new site can we use the old content?
Scenario:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peteboyd
A website that we manage was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural incoming links (site-wide). The penalty was revoked in early March and we're still not seeing any of our main keywords rank high in Google (we are found on page 10 and beyond). Our traffic metrics from March 2014 (after the penalty was revoked) - July 2014 compared to November 2013 - March 2014 was very similar. Question: Since the website was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural links, is the content affected as well? If we were to take the current website and move it to a new domain name (without 301 redirecting the old pages), would Google see it as a brand new website? We think it would be best to use brand new content but the financial costs associated are a large factor in the decision. It would be preferred to reuse the old content but has it already been tarnished?0 -
Site navigation menu in head of page for SEO
We are considering expanding our site navigation menu (horizontal) at the top of our pages. However, once implemented, this would include around 30-40 links at the top of the page; before the content of the page. How much effect (good/bad) would this have on SEO? Are their any other options? (perhaps rendering the menu after the main content with CSS)? Any thoughts, suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
Can Anyone show me a site that has followed the seomoz seo rules
Hi i have been reading the seo information on here which is very interesting and i would like to know if anyone can point to any sites that have followed the rules and advice. It is great when you can read the info and rules but i feel it is also better to see a site that has followed the rules and to hear from people who have followed the information and put them into practice and explain what results they have got. I am currently building the following website http://www.womenlifestylemagazine.com so it would be great to see a site that has followed all the rules and who can explain if they work or not.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClaireH-1848860