Back in March, an article released by Moz highlighted ways to prepare your SEO strategy for your new website. According to Moz, there are ten steps to consider when launching a new website, while considering SEO strategies as well.
Let’s take a deeper look at the ten steps and what they all entail.
1. Select A Good Domain Name
First, once you decide on a domain name for your site, it can be difficult to change it later, so it’s essential from the very beginning to align your company and brand with your domain name.
You can find available domain names on websites such as Godaddy.com, Bluehost.com, and Domain.com. Be sure to check out these tips from Google as well when it comes to choosing a name!
2. Pick A High-Quality Hosting Provider
Next, you’ll want to make sure to pick a high-speed website host provider to ensure a fast page load time and reliability.
Let’s be honest, the hosting provider you choose for your site greatly impacts your website’s overall performance! Many users won’t want to wait for your site to load if it’s longer than three seconds, so it’s important to invest in a hosting server that responds quickly.
Pro-tip: Our agency loves SiteGround! They have excellent customer service and provide a variety of helpful tools to have a healthy site.
3. Implement Google Search Console & Analytics
Once your site is launched, make sure to verify your website in Google Search Console to ensure you are collecting all your site’s data. Google Search Console helps check page speed issues, page performance, the average click-through rate, and much more!
And while you are signing up for Search Console, be sure to also add Google Analytics to your site to get more valuable data to compare to in the future.
After this step, you’re ready to start focusing on implementing your SEO strategy.
4. Conduct Content-Based Competitor Research
Once you’ve completed the first three steps, it’s time to scope out the competition. You’ll want to analyze different competitor websites similar to yours and see what type of content they have and the different keywords their site is ranking for. This way, you can compare it to your own and make strategic decisions.
This type of research also can help you analyze what types of terms you may also want to include on your website to expand your SEO efforts.
5. Research Keywords and Make A Plan
Search engines like Google use specific keywords that are being searched to then present the most valuable information to users, which is also known as search intent. Creating valuable content that can be matched to search intent is a great example of using SEO for new websites.
Try creating a keyword map, where related keywords are put into groups to know which pages to create in connection with product or service pages, and even blog posts. This process also shows which keywords are most efficient to try and rank for.
6. Create a Content Calendar
Creating a strategic content calendar for your website will help naturally attract customers and help with keyword ranking. This way, you are continuously updating your website, which can show search engines that you are maintaining your website.
Things to consider when creating a content calendar for your site are posting blogs consistently, optimizing your content, analyzing keyword rankings, and prioritizing keyword maps.
7. Follow A Clean URL Structure
When choosing the URL structure to follow, it’s essential to choose a URL-friendly guideline and continue with it to avoid any decline in traffic or ranking on search engines.
For example, www.sixthcitymarketing.com is our site’s official domain and www.sixthcitymarketing.com/blog is our website’s blog page.
We also have all of our services housed under our services page, such as this:
www.sixthcitymarketing.com/services/search-engine-optimization/.
8. Review Core Web Vitals and Page Experience
SEO has continuously been growing over the years and along with that Google has had many more websites to include in search result rankings. Core web vitals and page experience are key ways to break down your site’s metrics and analyze what you are doing right on your site, but also areas for improvement.
With that being said, PageSpeed Insights is an efficient way to identify any errors in your site’s work and find ways to improve those errors.
9. Observe Accessibility
To have an accessible site for users you will want to make sure your site includes various elements that make it easier for those who need additional help reading it to use. This can be done by optimizing alt text in images, using colors with good contrast, labeling elements correctly, and making sure your font is easy to understand and that the size is legible.
10. Promote on Various Channels
Once your site is launched, don’t forget to put in the effort of promoting your site on social and paid search channels to help drive in even more traffic to your new website as you continue to improve your SEO!
