Congratulations, you’ve launched your new website. There is nothing more beautiful than seeing your ideas come to life. Unfortunately, when it comes to getting your website up and running, the launch is merely the first step of the process.
To make the website a successful venture, you need to think of SEO steps for a new website. No matter how brilliant your ideas are, they don’t mean anything if they can’t be seen.
But why implement SEO website techniques in the beginning? It’s all about “shouldering the load.” The sooner you make sure your website is fit to rank on Google, the less effort you will have to invest later.
Every hour counts when you’ve launched a new website and you want to rank as highly as possible from the get-go. Use these 8 tips to reinforce your website and get that elusive Google featured snippets position.
1. Make sure your domain name is recognizable
We know that picking a domain name is something you should do before the website launch, but you have to think about it post-launch as well.
A right domain name that represents your brand and alludes to your niche is the staple of every SEO website tune-up. All the other SEO steps for the new website are pointless if you don’t invest effort into picking the right domain name.
You don’t want anything general. Instead, go for a personal approach and make sure you will be able to use the name as your main short-tail keyword. Keyword use correlates significantly with your domain name. If you pick the right domain name, using keyword building techniques and content creation will be much easier.
2. Pick the best hosting package
While a myriad of website owners focus on content and gimmicks, they fail to address one of the most important SEO steps for a new website – loading time. Google and other search engines effectively rank websites according to their loading time.
If you’re asking yourself “How to start SEO for a new website?”, you probably want to start right at the source – your web hosting provider.
Think of an idea first and visualize all the elements you want to add to your website in the future. Then, pick a premium web hosting package that will ensure stability. If your website never crashes and your media content loads fast, both Google and potential customers will adore the fact. Everyone needs efficiency, especially for SEO purposes.
3. Do your keyword homework
As advanced keyword research has gotten, website owners take one of these two routes:
- They don’t care about keywords. Instead, they take on a sales-only mentality, with aggressive PPC and social media campaigns. Oftentimes, this leads to a successful honeymoon period (one month or so after launch), but results become scarce later on.
- They oversaturate every bit of content with keywords. Not only does this affect your rankings negatively, but also makes your website unattractive to people. What’s the point of trying to rank high when the content is borderline unreadable?
Find the middle ground. Do extensive keyword research, but focus on the readability of the content. The ranking is the proverbial bait, while the content is the hook that use to attract customers and readers.
4. Be patient and meticulous when it comes to picking keywords
- Chinese restaurant
- East New York premium Chinese food
When you take a look at these two examples of keywords, which one do you think is a better option for a new website?
The latter, of course. Too many website owners are eager to focus on popular keywords, in an attempt to perform SEO for a new website. While an ambitious plan, aiming too high will bring nothing but disappointment.
After you’ve done with keyword research, you should pick the less-popular, long-tail keywords. If you manage to launch a successful content campaign, there is a high chance that more websites start to fight for the keyword.
Think realistic – look for attainable keywords that don’t get a lot of search volume across a longer period of time. Keywords also contribute to your site is optimized for voice search.
5. Plan an effective architecture
Google loves organized websites and you should take note. So, what makes an effective architecture and how does it impact SEO for your new website venture?
- Less is more. In recent years, you see a lot of websites with just a single home page, plus maybe a landing page. Google favors websites with simple architecture, so sites with a million subpages linking to each other have fallen out of favor.
- The fewer pages you have, the faster your loading time will be. Less content will be included and your website could improve its loading time by a significant margin.
- Organic visits do in fact affect SEO for a new website. People will find your website easy to navigate and will be able to get all the information they need by just scrolling for a certain period of time.
Compress your content. Think about what you can fit on one page and how to present it effectively. People generally don’t like clicking a lot so you will make your website much more readable and pleasant, both to visitors and search engines.
6. Be consistent with your content plan
If there is one thing search engines adore, it’s a constant influx of content. Website activity and engagement are both important metrics that determine whether your website is SEO-friendly or not. The principle is relatively simple – the more you post, the more people will read every individual blog post or watch a video.
Google ranks visits as one of the most crucial metrics in terms of determining rankings. Firstly, content greatly affects time on site, which is essential in boosting your ranking. If you have a lot of content, your pages per session numbers will be extraordinary, leading to a rise in ranking.
Content length is also important. Don’t worry if you can’t post intricate research or analysis every day. Think about outsourcing written content from EduBirdie or similar writing tools. All you have to do is present an idea and you will have custom-made content just for your website.
Outsourcing is becoming an important facet of website management. Small brands and website owners don’t often have the resources to run a full-time content creation team. You will get there one day, so you should just focus on getting through the honeymoon period and ticking all the important SEO checkboxes.
7. Being Mobile-friendly is the key
Google is notorious for always changing algorithms. However, if you look at the last few changes, you will see an emerging pattern. Everything is mostly about mobile browsing. Therefore, it’s safe to conclude that one of the key elements of SEO for a new website is a mobile-friendly design.
A big chunk of website visitors come from smartphones and tablets. This means you have to optimize your website’s UI and make it easier for people with phones to browse. Wide designs are out of the questions, along with over-complicated instances of media content on one page. Test it meticulously. If you already have a website, you can check whether it’s mobile-friendly or not to proceed further accordingly.
8. Optimize URLs
Is it annoying when someone sends you a link and it’s multiple rows long, with a lot of numbers? It sure is. Having long, unintelligible links is detrimental for your overall ranking. Create a sustainable structure that will include the following things:
- A keyword
- Position on the site (subsections and categories)
- As few words as possible
Work with your team on these problems and you will see a quick jump in ranking after just a few days. This is one of the most underrated SEO-related secrets out there. Use it wisely.
Conclusion
New websites are often difficult to promote because they’re not a part of an established brand yet. Instead, you have to focus on these 8 first SEO steps and execute them to perfection. You won’t have a lot of funds to perform PPC campaigns and attract organic customers. Instead, you have to rely on optimizing your entire set of pages to rank higher.
The more people find you, the more customers you will have. SEO is a cycle that becomes self-sustainable once you break these barriers during the first few weeks. Be creative, inspired and don’t give up if things don’t work right away. Good luck!