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
-
How i can Reduce Spam score of my website
Hi everyone, I'm reaching out to the community for some advice on improving my website's spam score. I've been using the Moz Spam Score Checker and my website, sngplbill.pk, currently has a score of 7%. While this isn't exceptionally high, I'd like to take steps to bring it down as low as possible, ideally under 1%. One factor I've identified that might be contributing to this score is a number of backlinks pointing to my site has a much higher spam score (over 80%). (screenshot attached)sngplbillscore I'm wondering if the community has any recommendations for how to address this situation. Here are some specific questions I have: Does disavowing the backlinks from spamy site seem like the best course of action?
Link Building | | Faizali.786
Are there any other potential reasons why my website might have a spam score, even with these backlinks?
What general strategies can I implement to improve my website's overall SEO health and reduce its spam score?
Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!0 -
SEO for a Product Domain
Hello there, I wanted to thank you all in advance, you have been very helpful with your insights so far. One of our clients is starting a new domain for a specific product he has. The client is providing his products in canada/usa. (For exemple, let's stay "nike.com"(company) just launched "jordan.com"(line of product) and wanted to rank "jordan.com" higher. I was thinking about starting with citations for the new domain/product. The thing is, since its a product, it feels wierd to do citations as usual and start a GMB account. In your opinion, what is the best way to start SEO with a product specific domain? Is citation or GMB still a good idea?
Link Building | | H.M.N.0 -
Are SEO fundamentals accurate or real?
Hi I've been studying about seo for quite a good time. I have learned about linking building, on page optimization, and so on but I in the real word all these fundamentals seems not be followed but google's algorithm and here is an example. On google.com.br (brazilian google) I'm trying to rank for the main keyword "airsoft" and its variation for the website www.qgairsoft.com.br. But the the top 1 os SERP is: http://lojaairsoft.com.br/index.php But this website doesn't follow almost any seo advice: 1. It has almost no backlinks at all 2. It has no good content (both on pages and doesn't have a blog) 3. url's are not user friendly 4. It doesn't have a mobile website 5. It has almost no presence on social media, with almost no interaction 6. It doesn't have H1 7. I doesnt have any "canonical" set 8. It has a lower DA 9. It has a lower PA 10. Moz metrics are lower 11. It is not as old as my target website... 12. .. I think you got the point. And dispite all that the website do better than my website and also better then other websites with theoretically better 'seo'. What is wrong? What I am missing? Does all these principals really matter for ranking?
Link Building | | qgairsoft0 -
Website structure for SEO
Hi,Im working on Food Recipes website, i"m targeting "step by step recipes" how should i structure this website and what pages should i build my links to? If the whole website is about "step by step recipes" When you search for "step by step recipes" on Google, you'll see most of them are separate pages Should i create its own category call it "step by step recipes" and list all of my posts? but isn't it duplicated content ? ill be really appreciated with your help ! Thank you
Link Building | | KentR0 -
Fake SEO Site
What do you think of this site? This is the top, number ranking site in Halifax, UK. No authority, no backlinks and high keyword density considering the low amount of content. http://www.maknetic.co.uk/ Search term is SEO Halifax. How is it number 1? There's nothing in it and no user value at all!
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Ex-Googler: “To Please Google With Your SEO, Forget About SEO”
Lets discuss, Ex-Googler (Search Quality/Webspam team) talking about SEO. http://searchengineland.com/ex-googler-to-please-google-with-your-seo-forget-about-seo-136800 The bit that got me thinking was 'title tag over optimisation' so what we looking at, shorter title tags with a max of 2 keywords? And the PR quote, does relevance come above PR/DA/PA? Thoughts?
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Are Dealer Reciprocal Links Hurting My SEO?
We are a manufacturer of fireplaces that sells our product through a series of nationwide distributors. We have a link to each of our distributors, who also have links to us, on our website under a "Where to Buy" tab. If we were to remove these links and instead provide contact information, would this significantly help our SEO?
Link Building | | JBell0 -
How important are directory submissions to my off-page SEO?
Hi Guys, One area of my link building that I carry out is looking for online directories and social bookmarking websites to submit my website to. I do this in order to gain some backlinks to my website. What I want to know is are they really worth my time, and if so, which types would you say are the most important? I have obviously been through many directory lists, both on SEOmoz and on other websites, and also performed various searches to find relevant directories to my website. I just feel that posting up a link that lies deep in a directory online that, more often than not, have very low PA and lots of outbound links will offer very little in terms of SEO. If anything, this could really bring down the quality of my links and be detrimental to my website, right? This is a subject that I have been thinking about for a while and especially with the recent algorithm update from Google and the attack on many web directories that are, lets say, 'not playing by the rules', I'm worried that this will have a negative impact for my website. Let me know your thoughts guys and if you have any tips on how to get higher quality links from these kind of submission then I'm all ears! Matt.
Link Building | | MatthewBarby0