Pre Launch New Website SEO Best Practices

[Krackle]

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!

[Krackle]

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!

[JVRudnick]

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!!!!

[Beckistar]

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.

[donford]

Thanks Andy,

I didn't directly elude to the importance of Quality Traffic vs Traffic. Very nice job bringing that to light.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

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

[donford]

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**

[itpseo]

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!