Written by John Rod
Congratulations, you have decided to create a new website for your new or thriving business. A well-designed website can be a company’s most important sales tool and an effective way to capture leads and gain new customers. Follow these tips to ensure better search ranking before you get into the nitty gritty of website development.
Research! Check out your competition and identify other companies like yours who are already doing a great job and ranking high in search engines. Always ensure to use unique content and be sure not to copy the hard work of others (Google has ways to identify plagiarism and will penalize you for copying others' content). But if you research which is coming up first, it may give you insights into why and allow you to rank higher as well.
Ask Google! Google has an array of developer tools and research tools that can assist you in identifying keywords (i.e. terms people are typing into search engines) for your business. To ensure you choose the right keywords, visit Google’s keyword planner here.
SEO Tips During Website Development
Content – Unique content is king. The quality of your content and keyword research are key factors, as well integration of the content into architectural features of your website, like crawl-ability and speed.
Titles and Descriptions – Titles are arguably the most important piece of metadata that a search engine will use. Your page titles identify what is on the page and why it is important. Having an array of page titles that cover your keywords can make or break your rankings in search engines.
Photos – Image searches are a largely overlooked aspect of SEO. Having all of the photos on your website accurately tagged with your keywords will allow Google and similar search engines to serve up the images on your site, allowing a direct link to products and services.
SEO Tips After Website Development
Add Blogs – Blogging is the easiest way to consistently add new content to your website, something that Google and other search engines love. Set a schedule to add a blog story on a set schedule, usually every week or month. Your customers will appreciate the content as well!
Make Changes and Updates – A website is a dynamic tool that can be easily and routinely updated with new content and information. Search engines will notice if your site becomes stagnant, and will actively track how long it has been since certain pages have been changed or updated. Analyze your traffic quarterly to review which pages and blogs are getting the most traffic and employ a strategy to update them with new copy and photos to give Google a reason to keep serving up those pages.
Create and Publish News – News articles contain a huge amount of backlinks. The amount of backlinks a given page has is a main factor in search ranking and can help push your pages to the top of searches.
It’s Time to Hire an SEO Expert
If you have gotten this far in the article, you probably have realized how in-depth SEO can be.
Understanding all aspects of search engine optimization and the integration into virtually every aspect of your website is our specialty. Knowing the ins and outs of local search Google Maps, paid vs. organic search, content optimization, and metadata and algorithms can be an overwhelming task for any business owner or marketing department.
Our cutting-edge digital marketing solutions help you attract the right customers, convert leads, and grow your customer base. For more information on how we can help you implement an SEO strategy and increase your ranking and visibility in search engines, connect with us here.