15 min read
How Do I Do SEO for a Brand New Website?
You have a brand new website, and you understand the importance of search engine optimization or SEO for new websites. You know that your new website will have difficulty gaining attention on the Web without the techniques. Why? Because your website is competing with millions of other sites on the Web.
SEO is the legal technique used to attain a high ranking on Google and other search engines. When your website ranks high on Google for your niche, you will attract more visitors. Your goal is to turn those visitors into paying customers for your product or service. The more paying customers you get for your business, the more profits for your business. That’s the ultimate goal for any company that sells products and services to the public.
SEO before or after website launch – which is more important? As Aaron Wheeler discusses in his MOZ SEO checklist article, both are important. Sites optimized before they launch and that continue after the launch are at an advantage over websites that were not pre-optimized. This is because pre-optimized sites will be immediately ready to gain an advantage on Google over sites that aren’t ready.
SEO Checklist for New Websites
1. Keywords and Keyword Phrases Must Be a Focal Point
An SEO website launch must include keywords and keyword phrases. Within SEO, keywords and keyword phrases are the most relevant words that best describe your brand or niche.
For example, let’s say the focus of your new website is wedding photography in Florida. Keywords would include words like “wedding,” “photography,” and “Florida.”
To better use such words, your goal is to create keyword phrases. So, for example, a keyword phrase could be “wedding photography Florida.” Here are more example:
Your ultimate goal is to create keyword phrases that are as targeted as possible. So, if you are a wedding photographer in Fort Myers, Florida, a targeted keyword phrase could be “wedding photography Fort Myers Florida.”
However, your words can get even more targeted. Let’s say you are a photographer who specializes in beach wedding photography. Therefore, a more targeted keyword phrase could be “beach wedding photography Fort Myers Florida.”
Use a wide variety of keywords and keyword phrases, making sure to include highly relevant ones. The more targeted your words, the better your chances of reaching the customers you want. Use keyword phrases across your website, including the title of your website, subtitles, in photo descriptions, in content, etc.
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Do not keyword stuff.
SEO requirements for new website as well as old website use include a fundamental rule. When using keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them as naturally as possible and to never keyword stuff. Keyword stuffing means that you’ve used an excessive number of identical keywords and keyword phrases. For instance:
Those who do that do so in an attempt to place higher on Google. It worked in the past, but today, Google considers such practices “black hat” practices. Therefore, the practice violates the terms of service of the search engine. Doing such a method is risky and will likely hurt you more than help you. Google can punish your website by either demoting its ranking or even remove your site altogether.
What are stop words?
Finally, keyword phrases can contain what is known as “stop words.” These are words that help to make a keyword phrase readable.
For example, in your content, if you wrote, “I specialize in beach wedding photography Fort Myers Florida,” it doesn’t read as a complete sentence.
On the other hand, if you were to write, “I specialize in beach wedding photography in Fort Myers, Florida,” the inclusion of the word “in” in-between “photography” and “Fort Myers, ” makes the sentence complete. Here are just a few of the hundreds of stop words:
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Now, the question becomes, should stop words be used? As SEO and podcast host Jacob Scoops explains, stop words can hinder SEO efforts by taking up valuable space.
Scoops advises that if you must use stop words, avoid using them in places such as web page URLs, image alt texts, etc.
Hire a keyword specialist if needed.
Keywords and keyword phrases are so crucial that you might consider hiring an SEO specialist to create the words if you believe you are unable to do an adequate job as a business owner. It is not unusual to lack the necessary expertise to create the most vital keyword phrases possible. Therefore, it may be worth the investment to hire a professional to handle this critical task. Or there are many sites that offer keyword research tools, like this one from Diib.
This tool also allows you to research the keywords of your top 6 competitors; allowing you to fine tune your strategy.
2. Include Well Written Content
Your website launch SEO checklist must include well-written content. That means that your content must be not only well-written and unique, but also original, and compelling. It should also be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Provide this kind of content, and you’ll be rewarded by Google, who gives you a better appearance on their search engine.
Do not plagiarize.
One of the most important aspects of SEO is content that is not plagiarized. Therefore, you should never use content that appears elsewhere. Not only can the person who owns the content take legal action against you, but Google can penalize you.
Your content should be targeted.
Ideally, before you even start a website, you should understand who your target audience is. If you don’t know who your target audience is, you can’t market your product or service effectively.
Knowing who your target audience is may seem like common sense. However, it is not uncommon to fail to get an accurate description of who you are trying to sell your products and services.
Using our example, you’re a beach wedding photographer based in Fort Myers, Florida. What kind of people are you looking to attract? It’s more than just trying to sell your products and services to those interested in beach wedding photography. Here are some questions to consider:
- Do you take photos of young couples, middle-aged couples, old couples, or all of them?
- Do you focus on daytime beach photos, nighttime beach photos under the moonlight, or both?
- Do you concentrate on pre-wedding, engagement photographing with couples in bathing suits, for example?
- Or do you take pictures of couples in their wedding attire?
- Do you take photos of couples who live in Florida, or are you targeting anyone who wants a Florida wedding photo?
So focusing on these questions, let’s say your target audience is – adult couples of any sexual preference or age, from any area, who want wedding photos in wedding attire taken on any of the beaches in the Fort Myers, Florida area. Your content should always be focused on this target audience.
What do you want to give your targeted audience?
Now that you know who your audience is, you must plan what information to give them. What is your product or service, and how will you attract eyes to your product or service.
Returning to the Florida wedding photographer, you’ll want to provide things like examples of the kind of photos you take, written content that explains your process and what you’re offering to a customer, helpful tips on how to pose in beautiful beach wedding photos, etc. For example, take a look at this blog from Fearless Photographers in Florida:
As we’ve mentioned, your goal is to attract visitors and turn those visitors into paying customers. To do so, your content must be compelling and highly interesting for your targeted audience.
We hope that you found this article useful.
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Keep your content the right size.
Your content should never be too long. But what is too long? In the 21st-century, our collective attention spans are shorter than ever. You’re competing with thousands of other websites across the Internet that offer wedding photographs. You don’t want customers turning away from your website because the content is too long. Therefore, make your content anywhere from 250 to no longer than 500 words.
Keep your content current.
It’s also important that you keep your content current. That means refreshing your content regularly. You will notice that some website owners refresh their content every day. Such a schedule may be too much for you to handle, but once a week can also be an effective way to reach your audience.
Avoid duplicating your content.
Your focus will be on original, well-written content and content that is not plagiarized, but even when it’s your content, you’ll want to avoid duplications. Writing fresh, well-written content takes time, but for search engine optimization, it’s worth it. Keep in mind that as a business, if you don’t have the time to write content for your site, you can hire ghostwriters to do it for you. Just ensure that you hire writers who can do an excellent job for your site.
Provide a call to action.
You’ve successfully attracted eyes to your website and niche, but it doesn’t end there. Now you need to take your visitors a step further. Your new website SEO checklist must include a call-to-action.
Using our Florida photographer example, you could include links or buttons that take viewers to a section of your website to fill out a quick form for you to respond. Make the process as easy as possible. Never make it difficult for potential customers to learn about your services. In fact, this step is arguably the most important SEO task. An effective call to action on a properly optimized site is the best way to bring as many customers as possible to your site. For example:
3. Include Quality Backlinks
Another significant factor of search engine optimization is backlinks. An SEO website launch may not include quality backlinks at first, but eventually, it should. A backlink is a link that links to your site.
Backlinks help to bring viewers to your website. Whenever you link a site to your site, that link should be not only high quality, but it must relate to your site. Beware of link schemes, which are subject to Google penalties. Here is that criteria:
For example,if you are a beach wedding photographer in Fort Myers, Florida, you would not link to a pornography site. This would be considered poor quality, in addition to having nothing to do with your business. However, you also wouldn’t link to, say, a grocery store. A grocery store may be a quality link, but it has nothing to do with wedding photography.
Your goal is to link to sites that relate to what you do. You don’t have to link to your competition, but you could link to related services, such as wedding makeup, wedding attire, wedding halls, etc.
It’s best to link to companies who will link to you. Therefore, if you link to a wedding makeup company, you would want them to link to your wedding photography company.
4. Include Social Media Sites
SEO requirements for new website launches must include social media. In the 21st-century, social media participation, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, is pervasive. Billions of people are on social media.
Therefore, just having a website is not enough. Being on social media has become an expectation by the public. In fact, many people will visit your social media presence before they go to your website.
Because social media is so prevalent, the links are dominant on search engines. Therefore, having a presence on social media, with search engine optimized content, improves your visibility on Google and other search engines.
A website launch SEO checklist should include social media, but do you need to be on every social media site? No.
Choose two to three strong social media sites that work well with your niche. For example, as a beach wedding photographer in Fort Myers, Florida, an essential social media site would be Instagram. Instagram focuses on photos.
As a wedding photographer, you would include examples of your photos and other beach photography. A presence on Facebook or Twitter would allow you not only to showcase images but content and links as well. Remember, keyword phrases should be included in your social media content.
5. Use a Site Map
There are many factors of a website that can kill your SEO efforts. That includes a site that is not organized. To keep your visitors on your site and not leave it immediately for another, they must easily navigate your site. SEO for new websites should include an easy way to navigate a website, and a sitemap quickly does that. Here is a simplified visual version of a sitemap. Obviously, yours would look different, possibly larger.
As explained at Google support, a sitemap is a file. It provides visitors with links to take you to pages, videos, and other content.
Google appreciates sitemaps. They can improve your site’s crawling for an appearance on their search engine, especially for large and complex sites.
A sitemap is typically placed on the front of a website, either on top or on the side. Wherever you put it, it must be placed in an accessible area for your visitors to reach.
6. Continue to Work on Your Optimization Every Week
When we consider SEO before or after website launch of new sites, we know that search engine optimization is essential before a site is launched and after a site is launched.
Therefore, continuing to work on optimization every week is important. That means tweaking keywords and keyword phrases as needed, adding content, updating social media, etc.
More specifically, if your website is falling in the ranking, you must immediately work to tweak keyword phrases and everything else to improve your site’s ranking.
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FAQ’s
In short, YOU BET! SEO is every bit as relevant as it ever has been. It is one of the most vital and effective marketing strategies for both short and long term results. Hopefully, this article has given you some helpful tips to getting your feet wet in SEO.
This is another simple answer, YES you can do SEO on your own. It won’t come overnight, however, anyone can learn how to do SEO and become an expert. It does, however, take time. If you are needing fast results, you may want to hire a professional to give you some tips.
There are many factors in SEO ranking and, more specifically, increasing your ranking. Here are some of the key elements to success: 1) High-quality, relevant content 2) Update content on a regular basis 3) Include metadata 4) Build backlinks 5) Include alt tags.
Great question! SEO tools analyze your webpage potential for ranking on SERPs. They give you information on backlinks and keywords for not only your website, but those of your competitors.
It can take anywhere from 4 months to upwards of 8 months to start seeing results from your SEO efforts. This will likely start with small, progressive steps that will strengthen over time.
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