So you\u2019re planning on launching a website and you want it as SEO-ready as possible\u2013but where do you start? We\u2019ve picked our most important points to get your website singing like a bird. Set your website up properly for SEO from the start, and it makes it a lot easier down the line.<\/p>\n

1. Do research.<\/h3>\n

Keyword and competitor research to be exact. Keywords are straightforward: when someone types a phrase related to your website into a search engine, you want to come up for that in the results. That phrase is your keyword. Every industry has a whole bunch of them. For us, we\u2019d target phrases like \u2018digital marketing agency, \u00a0SEO agency, content marketing agency\u2019.<\/p>\n

With competitors, it\u2019s a matter of gauging just who your online competitors are. Remember: an online competitor isn\u2019t the same as your offline competitors.<\/strong> Let\u2019s say you sell laptops and you have a brick and mortar shop. On the street, your competitors are PC World, Harvey Norman, and the likes. Online, if you\u2019re starting out, your competitors are not those big brands. Big brands are long established and have a lot of trust. You won\u2019t be toppling them for a while. Think realistically and target competitors at your level.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do I do keyword research?<\/h3>\n

A very easy gauge is to see what your competitors are ranking for. Google phrases. See who is on page one. You also need to\u00a0keep in mind how difficult it\u2019ll be to rank. Moz have a cool Keyword difficulty tool that\u2019ll tell you your chances of breaking in that keyword. Other than that, all you need is a Gmail account to log into Google Adwords Keyword Planner<\/strong>. It\u2019ll give you traffic estimates and keyword ideas. That\u2019s your base.<\/p>\n

2. Get familiar with onsite SEO.<\/h3>\n

10 steps. We mention them a lot because they\u2019re important. SEO is search enginge optimisation\u2013the process of doing anything to your website to get it to rank more highly. The ten factors are:<\/p>\n

\n
• Your URL<\/li>\n
• Page Title<\/li>\n
• Title Tags<\/li>\n
• Headings<\/li>\n
• Meta descriptions<\/li>\n
• Media descriptions<\/li>\n
• Social signals<\/li>\n
• Website speed<\/li>\n
• Internal and external links<\/li>\n
• CTR, Impressions, Bounce Rates, and Dwell time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  In no particular order! Your keywords from point one should appear in all the above. Keep it natural and don\u2019t shove too many in, or you\u2019ll find yourself in trouble with the long arm of the Google law.<\/p>\n

  3. Install Analytics and Search Console.<\/h3>\n

  Both are seriously useful for monitoring all kinds of stats: queries people have typed to find you, your bounce rate, your demographics. We\u2019ve got whole guides on how to use Google Analytics and Webmaster to tell\u00a0you how your marketing is going.<\/p>\n

  4. Keep usability and UI in mind.<\/h3>\n

  UI is like a joke: if you have to explain it, it\u2019s gone wrong. UI is user interface. Its brother is UX, or user experience. Both of these are the principle of making your website as easy to use as possible<\/strong>. If you\u2019ve got a cluttered, difficult site, you\u2019ll send your readers running. Which, in turn, will negatively impact your SEO as your bounce rate will climb and your dwell time will plummet\u2013which is a screaming flag to Google that something\u2019s not right.<\/p>\n

  Find a luddite. Get them to use your website. See if they can figure it out. Always keep responsive, mobile sites in mind too.<\/p>\n

  5. Make a sitemap and upload it.<\/h3>\n

  Sitemaps do great things for your SEO\u2013they\u2019re also a long-standing practice of web design. Sitemaps exist as way for you to tell search engines about your site: your layout, your content, any changes you make.<\/strong> If you don\u2019t have a sitemap, get one asap. You can build one yourself via an XML file or you can use third party tools like XML Sitemap\u00a0to do it for you.<\/p>\n

  Once, you\u2019ve got the file, submit it in your Webmaster dash.<\/p>\n

  6. Have a blog.<\/h3>\n

  Use it. If you\u2019re on WordPress, make sure you\u2019ve actually got a proper first post. If possible, have several posts ready to go.<\/strong> The more good-quality, original content you post, the better it is for your SEO and rankings. I\u2019ve written enough words about content marketing and blogging to warrant an ebook.<\/p>\n

  7. Get social up and running.<\/h3>\n

  Social signals\u2013shares, retweets, pins, +1s, etc.\u2013tell Google that your website it trustworthy. The more legit shares you get the better. Google, being biased, favours +1s and shares on Google+, but the myriad other social media platforms are plenty important. Make sure all your blog posts have a share box.<\/strong> Install Facebook like boxes and Twitter follow options on your homepage too. Make sure all your social links are easy to get to!<\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n

  8.\u00a0Keep an eye on your permalinks.<\/h3>\n

  We see a lot\u00a0<\/em>of websites with odd permalinks: example.com\/index#html.com or non-customised URLs like example.com\/?p=666. Your permalinks are another way to give Google an idea as to what your website is for. The more Google can tell about your website, the better it is for your SEO.<\/p>\n

  If you\u2019re changing your site, keep your URLs the same<\/strong>. Change them and you\u2019ll lose SEO value.<\/p>\n

  9. Do\/get a site audit.<\/h3>\n

  Site audits are great to keep up with SEO. SEO is a forever-changing beast. Once upon a time, all it was was spamming directories with links to your website. That\u2019d get you banned in a hot second now. SEO encompasses an awful lot now: everything from link-building to writing quality content. Getting a site audit ensures you\u2019ll follow the best practices and it\u2019ll keep your site ticking over, penalty-free.<\/p>\n

  10. Optimise your site for speed.<\/h3>\n

  Website speed is a factor in SEO and rankings, but it\u2019s not nearly as important as good content or keywords in your title tags, for example. It\u2019s still important\u2013and anything that makes your site better for the user is always a plus. Google have a really cool tool called PageSpeed Insights<\/a> that lets you test your page\u2019s speed and tells you what to do to fix it.<\/p>\n

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  So you\u2019re planning on launching a website and you want it as SEO-ready as possible\u2013but where do you start? We\u2019ve picked our most important points to get your website singing like a bird. Set your website up properly for SEO from the start, and it makes it a lot easier down the line. 1. Do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nuamarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}