7 simple yet vital SEO first steps for a new website
There’s no question that getting a new site live and into
the search index is a daunting task. And what if you don’t know the search
engine optimisation (SEO) tips and tricks that will get your site to the top?
Not understanding the best SEO practices can leave your site in the dark which
means no one will know you even exist. No clicks, no visitors, no sales. The
reality is – SEO isn’t rocket science. Sure, mastering the subtle nuances takes
time and effort, but the truth is you don’t need to spend years learning the
fundamentals to optimise your site properly, especially if you’re using the
right tool. The 123-reg Search Engine Optimiser was created specifically for
webmasters looking to get their site higher in Google, but who don’t yet have
the required SEO expertise. The tool takes you through all the aspects of a
website and not only gives you actionable SEO advice, but also explains the
importance of all the elements found on a website. Start your 30 day free trial
of Search Engine Optimiser and see how easy it is to get started with SEO when
you have a little help from 123-reg. So if you’re just getting started with a
new website, this post provides the basic guidelines to getting a solid SEO
start and shows you where you can get the help you need to implement everything
that needs to be done.
At the end of the article, you’ll be able to download our
checklist to guide you as you optimise your site.
But before we get started, let’s answer this vital question:
What are search engines looking for?
Search
engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing want to direct users to websites and
content that are relevant to what they’re searching for. But how is
relevancy determined?
There
are four main elements that search engines look at when determining which site
is more relevant and should show up higher in search engine results pages
(SERPs):
1. Content: Is the content relevant to what the
user is searching for?
2. Performance: Does the site load fast and does it
work properly?
3. Authority: Is the content useful enough to link to
or do other authoritative sites use that website as a reference or
cite the information that’s available?
4. User
experience: How
does the site look and behave? Is it easy to navigate around? Does it look
safe? Does it have a high bounce rate?
These
are the most important elements you need to focus on when optimising your site.
Here are the vital SEO steps you need to follow to make sure your site has what
search engines are looking for.
Step 1: Choose a great
domain name
Choose the best possible domain name
for your site. When selecting this important piece of digital real estate,
think about:
- Spelling: If your
company name can be easily misspelled, then it can be easily missed too.
While many people will look online and probably find you if your SEO is
right, many others will find out about you through word of mouth so if
your domain name sounds a bit too much like something else, they could end
up missing you. So make sure your domain name is short, easy to spell and
easy to remember.
- Branding potential. It’s easier
to build credibility and links to branded domains as people will take a
yourcompany.uk more seriously than keyword-keyword.uk which looks spammy
and isn’t fooling anyone. A branded domain can help build trust online and
also increase the value of your content. When searching for your domain,
use a domain search tool
like the one we have at 123-reg that
allows you to check if your desired name is available.
- Keywords. Having
keywords you’re trying to rank for in your domain isn’t as important as it
used to be. In September 2012, Google released the Exact Match Domain (EMD) update to prevent those poor quality
keyword-keyword-keyword.com sites from ranking well simply because they
had their main keywords in their domain names. So while it can’t hurt to
register a domain with a keyword in it, you shouldn’t stress over it.
·
Make sure you also read our 6 top tips for choosing a business name to find out what you should be focusing
on when selecting the perfect name.
·
What
if you decide to buy an old domain instead of a new one? That’s cool too but if you’re buying a
domain that has been owned by someone else, make sure that its previous owner
hasn’t done anything shady to cause the domain to get penalised. Find out more
about buying
pre-owned domains and
how to make sure there aren’t any issues
you might inherit.
·
Now that you have a domain, start building your site.
Step 2: Research the right keywords
Before
you start adding content to your new site, you need to do keyword research to
find out which words your audience is using when they’re searching for your
products or services.
The
biggest mistakes people make with keyword research are:
- Choosing keywords that are too broad
or generic such as “boots”. Going with short, generic terms is not
recommended when you’re just starting out, especially if you’re in an
industry where there’s a lot of competition.
- Keywords without enough traffic. A
long keyword like “cheap flat pink leather rain boots women”
might be too specific and you might lose potential traffic.
- Keywords that don’t convert or that
aren’t relevant to your business.
- Trying to rank for one keyword at a
time.
Only
by doing proper keyword research can you uncover keywords that:
- Have a high search volume – these
are the keywords or keyword phrases that your audience often uses to
search for your type of business.
- Have low competition. Instead of
going with generic search terms like “boots”, choose long-tail keywords that are more specific such as
“women’s rain leather boots” or “women’s black leather boots”. A smaller amount
of results means you are more likely to rank higher in SERPs.
- Are relevant to the content on your
site.
Use Moz’s in-depth guide to learn how to do proper keyword research
that can help you uncover the keywords you should be targeting. You can also do SEO competitor analysis to see what your competitors are doing
in terms of optimising their sites.
You
can also try the Search Engine Optimiser tool from 123-reg and see how it can
help you by showing you missed keyword opportunities and by guiding you through
keyword research from scratch for new pages.
Step 3: Craft your content
High
quality content is the cornerstone of your interactions with customers and how
sites achieve top rankings. By content we’re referring to anything you publish
on your site that educates, attracts and delights customers, such as:
- Web page content
- Blog posts
- Ebooks, white papers, and reports
- Brochures, tips sheets, and
frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- Sales pages
- Videos
- Pictures, infographics and more
So
now you have your list of keywords, you need to start writing your content and
optimise it. Search engines will crawl your website and try to figure out what
it’s about and then decide which keywords each of your web pages should rank
for.
However,
while keywords are important, make sure you write
for your visitors first, and then for search engines. Your content
needs to be fresh and enticing, otherwise you won’t stand a chance converting
visitors into customers. Don’t ever sacrifice the usefulness and persuasiveness
of your content for SEO-friendly content.
When
writing your content for both users and search engines, pay extra attention to:
- Titles. Write
catchy titles that grab your visitors’ attention.
- Keywords. Include
relevant keywords that will bring people to your site.
- Quality. Your content needs to be
unique and purposeful. The reason people come to your site is because
they’re searching for information, for a solution to a problem so make
sure you can provide it to them so they don’t go elsewhere. Find out what Google sees as high quality content.
- Freshness. Add new
content on a regular basis. You can create a blog where you constantly
share information your visitors might find useful, or you can share ebooks
or whitepapers.
- Length. According
to a Moz post by John Doherty, there is a
strong correlation between longer content and the number of links a post
gained. So if you want to get more people to link to your content, it
should have more than 500 words.
The
123-reg Search Engine Optimiser will help you understand if your content is
long enough, updated often enough and where you should be using keywords on
each page. This will help ensure your webpages are relevant to the terms
customers will be searching for.
Step 4: Optimise your code
While
writing content for people is very important, you need to pay attention to how
you optimise your website’s code so search engines can read your content too.
Let’s
look at how you can properly optimise your site’s code and help your site rank
higher in search engines:
SEO-friendly URL structure
URLs
are another important element but often overlooked. If your URLs have gibbering
numbers and punctuation marks or if they’re not accessible, search engines will
have a hard time crawling them. As a result, search engines won’t be able to
index those pages which means they won’t rank in search engines.
Here
are a few things to keep in mind if you want to achieve an SEO-friendly site
URL structure:
- Consolidate your www and the
non-www domain versions. If you type
in www.example.co.uk into your browser and then you type in just
example.co.uk and the “non-www” version does not redirect to
www.example.co.uk, that means that search engines are seeing two different
sites which is considered duplicate content. This isn’t effective for your
overall SEO efforts as it will dilute your inbound links, as external
sites will be linking to www.example.co.uk and example.co.uk. So what you
need to do is to set your preferred domain, whether with or without www,
and implement 301 redirects for all other versions of your
URL which will redirect visitors to your preferred domain. It doesn’t
matter which URL version you choose as long as you are consistent with it. Here’s how to do a 301 redirect on any platform.
- Avoid dynamic URLs. Dynamic URLs are ugly and
don’t say anything about what’s on your page. So instead of a
www.example.co.uk/?p=3355474 you might want to use static URLs like
www.example.co.uk/topic-name. Not only will visitors be able to figure out
what the page is about just by looking at the URL but you can also include
your keyword there.
- Use canonical tags. These tags tell search engine
bots which pieces of content are the original and which are duplicates.
This way the bot will pass over the duplicates and only index and give
link credit to the primary piece. To specify the canonical URL, you need
to add the rel=”canonical” tag into your URL. Find out how to add canonical tags.
- Create an XML sitemap. Sitemaps are like a roadmap
for search engines. They include every page on your site, making sure
search engine bots don’t miss anything. You can use tools like the XML Sitemap Creator to automatically create a sitemap
for you. Once your XML sitemap is created, you should submit it to Google Webmaster Central and Bing so that search engines can crawl
and index your website more easily.
The title tag
Each
of your web pages needs to have a unique title tag that describes what that
page is about. Pay attention to the
title tag because it’s
what people see in search engine results when they’re searching for your
products or service. In addition, the title tag also shows up in posts shared
on social media sites like Facebook, for example. So you not only need to
include your main keyword in the title but you also have to make it enticing
enough to convince people to click.
So,
when you write your title tags, make sure you:
- Have a unique title tag for each
page
- Add your keyword in the title
- Keep your title tag between 42 and
60 characters, including spaces. This is just an estimate because it’s no
longer about the number of characters but about the number of pixels the characters occupy.
To make sure your title isn’t cut off, try not to go over 60 characters.
The meta description tag
The
meta description needs to summarise the content on your page because this too
will show up in search engine results together with the title tag. While it
won’t help you rank higher, a well-written meta description can have a big
impact on whether users decide to click through or not so it should be written
to “sell”.
When
writing your meta description, make sure:
- You create a different one for each
page
- It includes your keyword
- It’s between 100 and 150 characters,
including spaces
- It includes a call-to-action that
entices people to click.
Here
is how the title tag looks like in the source code:
<title>.UK domain registration | Order your own .uk from
123-reg</title>
And
this is the source code for the meta description:
<metaname=”description”content=”Get a shorter and memorable
web address for your UK based business with the new .uk domain name
extension.”>
Now,
if we run a search for “register .uk domain” on Google, this is what we find:
And if we share this
page on Facebook, this is how it looks:
Headings
Heading
tags are used to visually break up the content into sections (from a usability
point of view) and to tell search engine spiders what that page is about.
In
HTML coding the header tags from h1 to h6 form a hierarchy. This means that if
you skip any of the tag numbers (ie. jump from 1 to 3) the heading structure
will be broken, which is not good for on-page SEO.
The
coding should be something like this:
<h1>Main Heading</h1>
<h2>Secondary Heading 1</h2>
<h3>Sub-section of the secondary heading 1</h3>
<h2>Secondary Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Sub-section of the secondary heading 2</h3>
For
example, looking at the source code for our .uk domain page, this is how the
headings are organised:
<h1>.UK domain names</h1>
<h2>Why is .uk ideal for you and your business?</h2>
<h2>Who can register .ukdomains?</h2>
<h2>Why register .uk domain names?</h2>
When
it comes to headings, make sure you:
- Always have a h1 tag on each page but never more than one h1 tag
- Add relevant keywords in all your
heading tags
Alt tags
Search
engine bots can’t see images so you need to help them by adding an
alt tag for each image. This alt tag acts as a short description of an image
and it can also be a great place to use your keywords and help increase your
chances of showing up in image search results.
However,
make sure the alt text is relevant to the image. For example, you shouldn’t
label an image of a dog with the alt text “affordable online marketing services
in London” as it doesn’t make any sense. Don’t try to trick search engines this
way, as it could hurt your SEO.
rel=”publisher” markup
This
is a markup I recommend using to protect your content. I have friends who have
discovered that the entire content of their website, word-by-word, has been
stolen and copied and pasted on other sites. A good way to tackle this issue
and prevent your content being attributed to other sites is to implement the
rel=”publisher” markup on your site. Find out how to implement the
rel=”publisher” Google authorship markup.
With
so many elements that need to be optimised on every single page of your
website, you’ll find it saves time if you use a tool like Search Engine
Optimiser. The tool will alert you to any issues the site has, such as missing
or duplicate titles and descriptions, more than one h1 tag, missing ALT tags
and so on, so you won’t have to check these elements manually across every page
on your site.
Interlinking
Interlinking
refers to linking on certain phrases or words within the body text of your pages,
to other pages, where relevant.
If you take a look at this blog post or any other post entry on the 123-reg
blog, you’ll see that we often link to another one of our posts or to a
specific page on the 123-reg website. Basically, we’re linking to other
resources that are relevant to a specific topic and that we believe you might
find useful.
Why is internal linking important?
- It helps guide users around your
website, to other content they might be interested in.
- It helps search engines better
understand the relevance of the content on that page.
- It can lower bounce rate. If a user
lands on a page on your site and quickly finds a link to something they’re
interested in, the chances are they will click on it rather than exit the
site.
Here
are a few interlinking mistakes you should avoid making:
- Always linking on the same keyword or keyword
phrase in hopes that it will increase rankings for that keyword. This is
over-optimisation and can harm your SEO. Instead, try to use variations of
your keyword.
- Over linking. Don’t link
every third word on every page to another page. Only add a link if it’s
useful and relevant.
- Broken links. Make sure
you always check the pages you’re linking to so that they’re functional.
Step 5: Technical setup
Set up and verify Google Analytics
You
need to measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and see how your website
is performing. How many visitors a month is your site attracting? Which pages
are the most popular? How much time are they spending on your site? These are
just a few of the things you can uncover by using an analytics tool so make
sure you set up your analytics software now so you can start collecting data
right away.
Set up Google and Bing Webmaster Tools
The
webmaster tools products from Google and Bing allow you to go more in depth and
see things like:Who is linking to your site, what search terms are sending
visitors to your site, whether your site has any issues that need to be fixed
quickly, and more. Check out the beginner’s guide to
Webmaster Tools to
find out how to set it up and what valuable information you can find and use to
improve your site.
Install an SEO plugin
If
you have a WordPress website, make sure you install an SEO plugin to help you
optimise your content. One of our favourites is Yoast. Why?
Because it’s free, easy to use and packed with powerful features. Having an SEO
plugin like this installed will help you meet all of the recommended SEO
criteria while you become comfortable writing keyword-optimised content for
your site.
Robots.txt
The
robotx.txt file contains instructions for search engines as to which pages of
your site to ignore during the crawl. Basically, this file includes a list of
commands, such as allow and disallow, that tells web crawlers which web pages
they can or cannot retrieve. So, if a URL is disallowed in your robots.txt
files, that URL and its contents won’t appear in Google search results.
Make
sure you’re not stopping search engines from indexing your site. While some
prefer to use the “disallow: /” command while their site is under construction,
it’s important to remember to remove it once the site is ready to receive
visitors.
Step 6: Build links
Links
are an important ranking factor and continue to be a great indicator of what
content is relevant and important.
- Creating purposeful content (for
example, guest posts or infographics) that is so useful and engaging that
people want to link to it and share it with others.
- Promoting your content so that it
reaches the right people who will be motivated to link to your content and
share it online.
- Building relationships with
influencers and convincing them that your content is of a high enough
quality to share.
If
you’re using our Search Engine Optimiser, make sure to check the “Increase
Popularity” tab. It will not only tell you where your links are coming from but
will also show you where competitors are getting links from so you can get a
good idea about what other websites might be interested in linking to your site
too.
Step 7: Things to check post-launch
Test usability
Usability
is super-important for SEO and it also helps keep your visitors happy. Great
user experience refers to a site that is easy to navigate through, with
information that’s easy to find and useful.
Test your site’s
usability yourself (or
ask your friends), as if you were a customer. Check to make sure there aren’t
more steps than necessary in the checkout process and that it’s easy to
visitors to navigate through your site, to buy a product and to contact you.
Test your site speed
Site
speed is an increasingly important ranking factor, so don’t forget to test your
site’s speed and improve loading times if necessary. You can check the loading
time for each of your web pages by using Google’s PageSpeed
insights tool. If the speed is less than 90, you will need to make
some changes such as optimising and compressing images, and eliminating white
space in your site’s code and CSS files. At this time having a web developer is
useful as you can send them a link to the site speed report and ask them to
follow instructions supplied by Google in order to increase your pages’ loading
time.
Check your mobile website
Having
a website that works properly on all devices – desktops, tablets and
smartphones – is extremely important. As mobile traffic is
set to overtake desktop traffic, you need to make sure your site is
mobile-ready and that there aren’t any issues. If by looking at your analytics
you discover that a high percentage of your traffic comes from mobile or
tablets, then you should make fixing mobile issues a priority. With Google updating
their algorithm to better rank mobile friendly websites in mobile search from April 21st 2015, looking into
this issue now is vital.
Some extra resources you might find useful:
The
“Review your site” tab in Search Engine Optimiser will let you know if your
website is fast enough and it will also analyse if you have any broken links
which interrupt the user journey and create a bad overall experience on your
website. You can also visit the “Adopt mobile” tab to get help with making your
site mobile friendly.
Conclusion If you follow these steps, you will see your
traffic from search engines increase. But remember to be patient as it takes
time for search engines to index your site and start ranking it. Also, when it
comes to SEO there aren’t any shortcuts. If you do anything shady to speed
things up, you might get caught and get penalised, and it’s not worth it. The
only thing you should focus on is creating a site that gives users what they’re
looking for and optimising it for search engines so people can find it easier
online. The bottom line: It takes time and it’s a lot of hard work but if you
stick with it and do it right, it does pay off. What would you say is the most
difficult task when optimising a new website? We’d love to hear from you so
share your comments below.
Source www.123-reg.co.uk
