Launching a new website can be an exciting experience, but it can also feel overwhelming. There are many things to consider when launching a site for the first time – including SEO! In this blog post, we will discuss how to launch your website with SEO in mind from the ground up. I’ll share insights on what you should do before you publish content, and offer tips for when you’re ready to start marketing your site!
Step 1: Marry your targeted keywords with your navigation.
In a perfect world, you’d have a page for each targeted keyword. But this is not a perfect world. So, instead, focus on matching up the main keyword for that page with what it means to you in the navigation bar.
Here are some recommendations:
– Use variations of your targeted keywords in each nav item and subnav items (e.g., “read about SEO“)
– Don’t forget to include related topics or closely linked terms as well! (Eg.: “Want more info? Check out our blog.”)
If you don’t have time for that now but want to keep future updates easier – go ahead and designate a couple pages as landing pages on your site by adding them at the end of your existing navigation scheme while keeping these best practices in mind! That way when new content goes live, you can update your navigation to match.
Step 2: Identify “Sub-Keywords” and include them in your content.
You can also think of this as “long tail keyword” optimization. A lot of businesses make the mistake of going right for the “getting the sale” keywords.
The reality is that potential customers are all at different points of the buying journey, so instead of going right for the sale, build goodwill by being there in the research journey.
Step 3: Best technical practices to be considered.
Page speed and SEO – these two things are intrinsically linked. Google has said that a few seconds of loading time can affect your SEO rankings, which is why it’s important to have page speed in mind when you’re launching or relaunching a website.
If at all possible, load the content asynchronously and prioritize what you want first – less relevant elements like ads should come later. This will not only improve your page speeds but also create a better user experience for your visitors because they’ll see more of what they came to see quickly without having to wait for ads and other non-essential components of the site before getting back on track with their research!
Mobile Optimization and SEO – Google has made it clear that they prioritize mobile-friendly websites, so if you don’t have a responsive design or the site doesn’t work well on mobile devices, this is something to keep in mind.
You can use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test Tool and see how your website fares! You’ll want to fix as many of these issues before going live with your new site – once content goes up there’s no turning back!
At the end of the day, successful SEO comes when you’ve successfully considered your customer’s buying experience.