Pre Launch New Website SEO Best Practices
-
Hi All,
I am currently mid development of a website (no testing page yet) and want to make sure I am doing my due diligence in regards to SEO. Are there best practices to always complete while a website is being built? If so what are they? I've gotten to the stage where I've read every blog on the planet and now maybe too much info.
I am also focusing my Keyword Analysis around competitor research to write great copy from, but seem to be falling down a rabbit hole of way too many keywords. Is there agencies/services that would just be hired to do Keyword Research for my needs?
Thanks a lot!
-
Thank you so much for all your responses. I think I am on the right track and have culled many down!
I appreciate you time very much!
-
As Andy put it "...Remember, you are aiming to get the right traffic to your page - not just any traffic..."
and what he means is traffic that converts!!!!
-
Hi there, it's good that you're thinking about SEO at this stage. Too often, agencies have to work with what they already have once a website has been built, so you've got the right approach. I agree with the others with regards to Google Keyword Planner - it's a great piece of kit that will help a lot. What you need more than anything is clear and logical information architecture as well. If your navigation and sub navigations are logical and the flow of "link juice" follows that structure then you will have a good start. Consider planning in high quality landing pages for each high priority product as well. If everything is clearly marked in a site map before build, you have a bird's eye view on what is needed. Also, as another poster mentioned, don't neglect your metadata, tags, markup and content.
-
Thanks Andy,
I didn't directly elude to the importance of Quality Traffic vs Traffic. Very nice job bringing that to light.
-
I've read every blog on the planet and now maybe too much info
You would be surprised how easy it is to actually fall into that trap. Because there are so many 'experts', everyone has an opinion on how best to SEO a website. It is actually easier that you might realise if you pull yourself back to basics and follow some best practice guidelines on both SEO and user experience (something often overlooked).
The reason you need to consider user experience (UX) is because what is the point in getting traffic to your site if all it does it bounce back off again? There are often reasons for this that include:
- Lack of descriptive page title
- Lack of descriptive Meta Description
- Primary information buried away in too much content
- Call to action not clear
- Uninteresting pages filled with 'waffle'
- Content not broken up into usable paragraphs on pertinent information
- Badly written content
The list goes on...
Remember, you are aiming to get the right traffic to your page - not just any traffic...
For the keyword research, that is a very important aspect because it allows you to not only focus on primary keywords, but also look at alternative related words and phrases that will support the page. For this, Google's keyword planner is pretty basic.
Remember that with content, you are competing amongst billions of other pages for a decent rank, so you have to make sure your content is as good as it can be. Look at what is winning for your desired phrases and see if you can spot why Google is giving this more prominence and then aim to make yours even better - but remember not to copy. Plagiarism will be dealt with by a slap from Google.
I hope this helps a little.
-Andy
-
Hi Krackle,
I have found after numerous site launches and re-works it is always a good idea to have the targeted keywords in mind. As well as have a firm understanding of SEO basics. (see itpseo #3).
When I first start a page analysis I look at the products or services I have to offer, the competitors sites and the best keywords. Thinking logically I decide if I was looking for X how would I do it? Then I ask others how would you find X; what would you type into the search engine? Then compare what I think and what I was told with what Google shows as the highest volume keywords. In some cases you'll find that Google's "best" keywords are not applicable to your industry. This is usually broad stroke keywords that can potentially have many meanings.
For example my company makes customer rubber caps. Broad stroke caps is not going to lead you to our site or any of our competitors site because caps has many meanings and Google has since figured out when somebody types caps they are likely looking for sports team hats.
At this point I would refine my keyword to be a little more industry specific, rubber caps. Still pretty good search volume and now I am seeing rubber companies coming up in the search results. Now I ask my self do I want to be listed among these companies, do they do what we do? The answer here would be no. These companies offer standard lines of rubber caps in many sizes shapes and colors, we do not. We only make custom parts and don't have any standard lines of rubber caps.
Once again I refine my search to be precise with what I am trying to achieve page 1 ranking (hopefully #1) . My keyword now becomes custom rubber caps. When I search I find some of our competitors offering our types of services. This is exactly where we want to be!
Now I have my main keyword. I will then research longer-tail keywords and variations to find the most applicable again following my process laid out as before. Once I have my best 3 keywords I start work on the design.
Incorporate best keywords in Title, H1,H2, H3 tags. Use (
So in short:
*** Find Best Match Keywords
- Refine Best Match Keywords
- Make a Top 3 list
- Follow basic SEO rules
- Create compelling, informative content
I hope this helps you,
Don**
-
Hi Kracle,
You can use Google Keyword Planner and MOZ tools to analyse the most suitable keywords for your website.
List of Tools:
1. Google Keyword Planner
2. Keyword Difficulty tool (MOZ).
3. Read the pdf guides for begineers by MOZ.( http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo)
Just download the pdf and go through it, then after another guide is also available there.
4. You can checkout the Matt Cutts (Google) -Video on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=matt+cutts+seo+tips).
Follow them regularly and be updated with the latest blogs and tutorials.
Regards!
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
-
What To Focus On SEO / Link Building for this campaign to rank again..
Hi All; I recently joined Moz and I am really starting to learn a lot here. I am still finding it difficult to figure out what to focus on the most to improve my rankings (although I do have some page 1 ranks) I have one strong competitor who has a SOLID spot in the top 5 of google for the past few years for the keyword I would like to be ranked for again. (as they have always been a competitor of mine either 1 spot above or 1 spot below). then i fell off google in January and finally made it back to page 1. But their links are thousands higher than mine. What parts of my SEO Link Building should I focus on the MOST to improve my ranking to move up a few spots? Followed links vs No Followed Links Followed Linking Root Domains vs NoFollowed Linking Root Domain Any help would so greatly be appreciated; also please explain why you would focus on that part of my campaign so I can better understand as well. Thanks again
Competitive Research | | Circa
(there are 3 images total) t4klvWZ,I9R9BsC,fbDoF3L#20 -
How to track competitor who uses another website on the url?
Hi everyone, The thing is pretty simple: I have a competitor who uses a different format of url, very similar to this: www.example.com - but he started to use a thing like this: example.mtv.com The problem is that every analysis that I make tell me something about mtv.com instead of the site I want. The url is redirected. Sorry about my english, but I think it is very clear. I want to know how to track something like this, because even in competitor analysis I'm getting info about the big site, and not the one I need. Thank you very much.
Competitive Research | | bluehelmet0 -
Help with website
Hello, I've been trying to get our website on 1st place (or at least 1st page to start) on several keywords, on google in all English speaking countries. In most of them I managed, but in USA I'm on 5th page. By Domain Analysis we are better than competition. Keywords are glass nail files, crystals nail files (some long tail keywords are ok, we are somewhere on top). Website: http://www.czech-glass-nail-files.com/ We worked on code, design (notice issues is just recent, because of server migration), on-page, blog. Can someone help me out with an advise? The goal is to be #1. We definitely doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what. Thank you.
Competitive Research | | divan0 -
How do I find the best converting keywords
I rank decently on local search for some of my keywords but find that the traffic coming to my site is not from those keywords. I also find that they never convert to sales queries. Is someone able to help me out with that? Thanks My domain is www.hykano.com
Competitive Research | | Skwtayler0 -
Can i have chance to rank higher than official website in google local domains ?
Q : can i have chance to rank higher than official website in google local domains ? for example : rank higher than microsoft,kaspersky,nokia etc... in google italy or google germany or any other local domain for google
Competitive Research | | activeacts0 -
Pre-Launch SEO?
We are currently building a brand new site that should launch in the next 6 to 8 months. Obviously we have zero backlinks, zero mentions anywhere, etc. My plan is to set up a landing page with contact info, links to social network, mailing list signup, the usual. I'll be doing keyword research and gathering leads for potential links but should i start and active linkbuilding campaign? What kind of SEO work would you recommend while the site is in development?
Competitive Research | | AaronParrish0 -
Backlinks: Majestic SEO vs. OSE
My apologies if this noob question has already been answered somewhere, but what's the difference between the backlinks reported by Majestic SEO vs. the links reported by OSE. Just curious why the former might report 2,360 external backlinks to a page and the latter might report 949 total links to the same page. Just curious. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | SmartDraw0