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
-
Will these pages harm the SEO of my blog?
Hi there, If I put download pages and thank you pages on my blog, will it harm the SEO rankings? As these pages will be pretty thin and will have no links to them internally for obvious reasons, it has me concerned about the effect it could have on my blog. I want to build my blog up to drive traffic, so it's not just a case of throwing the pages up. What is the best solution? No index the pages -- will that be enough? Warm regards Colin
Link Building | | username670 -
SEO SEA strategy
Hi, At this time i encounter the next problem as SEO at a retailer. They increased there SEA budget on branded and non branded keywords the generate more traffic on the Adwords campaign. But Now the SEO traffic is decreasing and the SEA traffic is getting bigger and bigger. Especialy on mobile devices where you only see the adwords link and no organic link without scrolling. It's also good for the conversion rate, so we have to do this. But i am curious how other SEO's deal with this thing. What will you do to find new sources of organic traffic? Are you using more longtail keywords or low volume or other things. Like to hear from you. Grtz, Leonie
Link Building | | Leonie-Kramer0 -
Hiring for SEO Outreach
Hope everyone is having a nice Labor Day! We're a family owned wine club startup and have been handling SEO in house since things didn't go well with a previous SEO company (and sure we've done plenty of bad stuff along the way as well). In any case, we're writing a blog, including video entries etc. I've been handling basic email outreach about posts (ie if I write a winery profile, asking the winery to link to it) but don't really have time to handle more significant outreach than that. Can anyone make some suggestions about where to hire someone for an outreach job like this? It would undoubtedly be part time and Elance didn't give us anyone we were comfortable with. Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | MarkAse0 -
How Useful is this website for Linkbuilding
I've been looking at A to Z of materials trying to determine how much time it is worth spending on building a company profile and adding additional information http://www.azom.com/suppliers.aspx?SupplierID=2343 DA is 50+ and PA for a new listing seems to be 17 of so. My site currently has a DA of about 20. Once of my competitors seems to have put a lot of time into it Other than a profile you can also write articles and post news. It's worth pointing out that as a whole the sector has no useful blogs and most linkbuilding is done via directory listings. And Most companies have back links from less than 20 other root domains. Thoughts would be gratefully received
Link Building | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
How to do SEO for a social networking site?
Howdy SEOmoz fans, We are about to launch an educational social networking site. We have planned a lot of good strategies for offline and online marketing. Coming to SEO, how we can do search engine optimization effectively for our social networking site. The home page will be sign up page and there wont be any content in it. It would be great if you can suggest us prefect SEO tactics for our site. Thank you.
Link Building | | jjv0 -
Can anyone suggest a good SEO company ?
Hi we are hurt by many seo companies in the past who build bad quality links, and we got hit with a link penalty. Can someone refer me to a good decent SEO firm please ? nick
Link Building | | orion680 -
Utilizing Print Media for SEO
Hey SEO MOZ, We have a client that holds the license to a famous Australian designer. The Designer and our client both get mentioned a lot in the print world. They get coverage in publications like the New York Times, Home and Garden Magazine and other top print media publications. Sometimes it's our clients business name mentioned and sometimes it's the designer's name who they hold the rights too. I'm wondering how we can utilize this exposure for their SEO? It already drives traffic to their website but it also be great to harness this exposure to increase their rankings. I know one way is to see if the article is also printed online and see if you can get a link on their. But I'm wondering if there are other ways to use this? Also do you have experience contacting major publications to see if they can put a link in an online published article and if they ever respond to these requests? Really appreciate this!
Link Building | | TWSOM0 -
SEO Triage - What matters most?
If you only had 8 hours to work on an SEO project... How would you spend your time to get the fastest results? On-page optimization, or link-building? Context: On-Page Optimization: "A" grade (SEOMOZ On-Page Report Card) Keywords: "moderately competitive" (SEOMOZ Keyword Difficulty Tool) Domain Authority: 33 (SEOMOZ Competitive Link Analysis)
Link Building | | JessicaCox0