What is SEO?
When people use Google, Bing, or other search engines to look for things or services on the internet, search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing your website’s exposure.
The Main Components of SEO
• On-page SEO — Blogs, product copy, and online copy are all examples of on-page SEO.
• Off-page SEO — Anything that takes place outside of your website that aids your SEO strategy, such as backlinks.
• Technical SEO — Any technical work done to improve search rankings, such as site indexing to aid bot crawling and site speed.
What is On-Page SEO?
All of the material on your web pages that helps you rank is referred to as on-page SEO. Internal links between relevant material, for example, SEO-optimized blog content, title tags, and picture alt-tags.
Google continues to look for keywords on your website that match the search queries it is running.
What is Off-Page SEO?
Off-Page SEO operations includes work to improve your search engine ranking which is conducted outside your website and doesn’t require changing your website content.
When you think of Off-Page SEO, you think of backlinks. Taken a step further, high quality backlinks are websites with High Page Authority related to your business that provide links to point back to your website. Some of that Page Authority gets transferred to your website, boosting your ranking. Google transfers some of its Page Authority to your website as a result of this procedure, which boosts your ranking in Google’s SERP.
Examples of Off-Page SEO:
• Growing your Social Media presence.
• Listing in the local area.
• Developing your brand.
If you have fantastic content but no rank, you risk losing out to pages that are comparable to yours but have rank.
What is Technical SEO?
Indexing your website as part of technical SEO makes it easier for Google’s web crawlers to crawl and index it.
Do you want to discover how Google indexes your website?
Technical SEO also can include lowering the number of picture files on your website (technically on-page SEO) to make your page load faster.
Because so many people use mobile devices to search and navigate the web, Google places a high value on optimizing your website for mobile use, and uses this statistic for page rankings.
SEO Checklist for new Websites
- Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process responsible for determining the best search words and phrases important to improving your SEO and marketing. The procedure can reveal which words and phrases your target audience uses to seek for websites and answers to inquiries on search engines, find queries to target, determine their popularity, ranking difficulty, and more. These keywords can consist of one or more words, a whole phrase, or a question.
- Choose an Effective Domain Name
One of the important components used to rank your websites is your choice of domain name. As time goes on and more domain names become unavailable, it can be a bit of an art to choosing the best available domain name. Try to pick a domain name that includes a core term or keyword if possible, is easy to remember, but also is still relevant to your business and will be recognizable by your existing customers. All of these aspects are crucial because, for example, when picking an appropriate domain name, clients who already know your business name may be confused if they can’t discover it because you choose a completely different domain name. As time goes on, a lot of domain names are not available, but there are a some tools that can help with domain name ideas based on what’s still available.
- Choose fast and reliable Web Hosting
Google said it clearly that site speed is an important ranking factor in SEO. Because visitors are impatient and expect webpages to load in seconds (or less), Google strives to deliver only those results that meet this requirement.
While you can try a variety of ways to make your site faster over time, one of the best actions you can take right away is to choose a web hosting service that can consistently deliver fast speeds.
- Plan Site Structure/ Decide URL Structure
It’s critical to build your website in such a way that it’s easy to navigate for both readers and search engines.
When you plan the structure of your website, you’re constructing a roadmap. You may increase your site’s placement in SERPs by incorporating a logical hierarchy of pages and employing keyword-rich titles and descriptions.
The URL is one of the first places a search engine algorithm examines when determining what a web page is about. The URL is the primary web address for each page of your website. Every URL on your site begins with your primary domain name, which is followed by additional unique characters for each page (other than your home page).
The URL you choose for each page on your site should always be tailored to the keywords you want that page to rank for in terms of SEO. You’ll want to build a bigger SEO-friendly URL structure for how to name URLs on your website in addition to generating specific URLs for each page.
- Create and Outline Content for Your Site
Before launching, finish your SEO-optimized landing pages, homepage, and any more permanent sites with information that won’t change regularly, such as the “Services” or “About Me” pages. You should undertake rigorous keyword research before publishing this material because it should be prepared with certain keywords in mind.
- Use a Responsive and Mobile-Friendly Design
Your site’s responsiveness must be considered from the start. Because the amount of people using mobile phones and tablets to access the internet is growing all the time, you don’t want to miss out on any prospective customers by having a website that doesn’t look nice on smaller displays.
- Optimize Site Speed
Website loading speed is so important to your SEO ranking. Several factors can impact the time it takes your website to load and much of it can be tied back to the choices made at the website design stage. Your choice of web hosting service and plug-ins can also impact the loading speed and ultimately, whatever the reason, it can negatively impact the user experience and your ranking. Some things to consider:
- Minimizing http requests
- Try to reduce the JS and CSS elements used
- Avoid overuse of external scripts
- Find alternatives to content that bogs down performance
Sometimes a design that appears to be really cool, can sometimes bog down your website, resulting in slower load times and a poor user experience. Think ahead about everything you include on the site and determine how its effect on loading times balances against whatever value it may offer.
- Perform On-Page Optimization
You must do more than develop amazing content when it comes to SEO steps for new websites. Choosing keywords, writing title tags, writing good meta descriptions, and optimizing pictures for analytics should all be on your on-page SEO checklist for new websites. Incorporating outward connections to higher authority sites, establishing a thorough internal linking strategy, and incorporating social media sharing buttons are all important aspects of basic SEO for new websites. Every page must be built with off-site and on-site SEO in mind (also called off-page and on-page SEO). On-page SEO is the technique of optimizing individual pages to improve your site’s rankings and user experience. Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is concerned with optimizing for factors outside of your website, such as backlinks and social media activity.
Components for On-Page SEO include:
- Title tags
- Internal links
- HTML code
- URL optimization
- On-page content
- Images
- User experience (UX)
- Create XML and HTML Sitemap
For search engines, sitemaps are similar to a road map. They include all of your site’s pages, ensuring that search engine bots don’t miss anything.
The distinction between XML and HTML sitemaps is that XML sitemaps are written for search engines, whereas HTML sitemaps are created for humans.
An XML sitemap is constructed with search engine spiders in mind. By looking at the XML file, a search engine crawler may quickly and efficiently extract all of the crucial pieces of information about your site.
An HTML sitemap helps lost human users discover the page they’re seeking for on your website. Remember that easy-to-use sites are rewarded by search engines, and that you can often increase your site’s rating by improving its user experience. It may be possible to provide a better user experience by providing an HTML sitemap.
- Setup and submit your website to Google Search Console
Google must crawl your website before your web pages can appear in the search engine results page.
Even if you don’t do anything, Google’s crawlers will eventually find your website, but you can speed things up by submitting your sitemap using Google Search Console. You may notify Google that your website exists and that all of the individual pages on it exist.
- Setup Google Analytics
With Google Analytics you can see where your traffic is coming from, if it is increasing, and how visitors are engaging with your website. You can determine if there are other sites that provide you traffic and dive into details like your average bounce rate, average time on site, page views, and other information that can help you put together a plan to increase your traffic.
• Identify other sites and search engines that offer you traffic
• Your typical bounce rate, page views, and time spent on the site
• Determine which pages on your site receive the most traffic.
• See if your traffic is increasing (and by how much)
• Your average bounce rate, page views, and time on site
- Set up the Bing Webmaster Tool.
Bing’s Webmaster Tool is Bings’s version of Google Search Console.
- Signup for Business Directories
Local SEO strategies should include business directories such as Yelp and Google My Business, which can assist increase your SEO. However, before you can benefit from such company directories, you must first ensure that you have local citations. Then you must verify that those citations are performing at their best for you.
- Improve your local citations
Obtaining local citations is quite beneficial. However, you must ensure that they are working for you (and, more crucially, are not working against you).
• Double-check that all of your data is accurate.
• Try to include as much useful information as possible in the citation.
• Determine which citations need to be pursued first.
- Be Visible and Active on Social Media
When it comes to SEO, social media is crucial and can have a significant impact, especially on new websites.
Interacting with consumers and posting regular material on social media will aid in the development of online brand trust (which helps with SEO). By collecting natural links from social media, you may improve your SEO.
- Going Forward With Your SEO Plans
Doesn’t everything on this list seem like a lot already? Well….a successful SEO strategy is a continuous, long-term effort. However, it is well worth the effort.
It all comes down to providing value. If Google identifies your website as a place that visitors are going to find useful content, your business will rank higher. You will be discovered more easily in search results for the key terms important to your business, you will get more visitors to your website, and Google will recognize that more visitors find your content useful, and it becomes un upward spiral. SEO optimization is a process, it’s a skill that takes a lot of time and effort, but it’s a skill that can be learned. Either raise your SEO skills or look for an outside SEO Optimization service.
Q: When is the best time for your business to get started with SEO?
A: YESTERDAY.
Get started today.