How to SEO Proof Your Website

You’ve had a great new business idea, registered your domain name and started to build your website. How can you make sure it’s easy for Google and other search engines to discover and rank?

SEO is a long-term process and results are rarely immediate, but the first steps you take after you launch a new website can have a big impact on the website’s potential to rank in Google search for its target keywords and start bringing in traffic, leads and sales.

Get things right at the beginning, from an SEO perspective, and you’ll save yourself hours and hours of work further down the line fixing a website that wasn’t originally built with SEO in mind. Below, we’ve listed seven first steps that you should take whenever you launch a new website to make sure it’s designed from the very beginning to rank for its target keywords and attract as much traffic as possible from organic search.

#1 Website Structure

The structure of your website has a huge effect on its ability to rank. In order to rank effectively for your target keywords, you need to structure your website so that each page targets its own set of closely related, highly relevant keywords.

Here’s an example:

Imagine selling men’s shoes, then further dividing this into sub-categories such as leather shoes, casual shoes, trainers, boots, and so on.

Structuring your website like this has several benefits. First, it creates a clear theme and target keyword for each page on the website, instead of having one page target multiple keywords.

It allows you to closely target each keyword on each page for maximum relevance. It also allows you to further break down each category into subcategories.

This structure lets each page target its own primary keyword, as well as a set of secondary keywords. A website structure like this, with each page dedicated to its own set of keywords, gives each page greater relevance and improves its potential organic search visibility.

#2 Google friendly content

In the world of SEO in 2024, content is king and as part of your holistic content curation marketing strategy, great content helps your website rank. Before you start any active SEO efforts, it’s important to make sure your website has content that engages and helps its users.

Data shows that pages with 2,000+ words of content typically rank higher in Google search than pages with short, light content. Going into detail might take more time, but it has a positive effect on your website’s ability to rank in organic search for its target keywords.

Research also shows that long, detailed pages are more likely to get links than short pages. As time-consuming as it might be to develop long-form content for each of your pages as you build your website, doing so can pay for itself in a greater number of inbound links to each page.

A great way to think about your content is as the solution to someone’s need. We’ve previously written on using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a source of inspiration for your content. If you can solve a crucial need, your on-page content is far more likely to attract valuable links.

For optimal on-page SEO, include your target keywords in your content occasionally, but don’t overdo it. Google’s algorithm is smart enough to detect keyword stuffing, and it will usually lead to your website being penalized in the rankings for its target keywords.

Instead of stuffing keywords into your content, use them strategically. Add your keywords to H1 and H2 tags on your page. Add long tail keywords to H3 and H4 subheadings. Once you finish writing each page, double check it to make sure your keywords fit naturally into the content.

#3 Optimizing Title Tags

Your title tag is the text that Google will display as your page title for every search result, as well as the text that will display in the user’s browser when they visit your page. It’s important that all of your pages have title tags that are optimized for their target SEO keywords.

A good title tag should accurately describe the content on your page while mentioning the main keyword you’re targeting for SEO.

Google will crop your title tag if it’s longer than 60 characters, so make sure you keep your page titles brief and simple. It’s best to use your target keyword as close to the start of the title tag as possible for optimal SEO.

#4 Add engaging action-focused meta descriptions

The meta description is the short snippet of information that appears below your website’s title and URL in Google’s search engine results. Although meta descriptions aren’t a ranking factor, it’s important to give each page on your website a relevant, keyword-focused meta description.

One reason for this is that your meta description can have a huge effect on your page’s CTR, or clickthrough rate. A detailed meta description will encourage users to click your result instead of a competing website, increasing your total share of search impressions.

Each page of your website should have its own unique meta description that explains the page in more detail and offers a reason for users to click. If you’re using WordPress, Yoast SEO is a good choice to consider.

#5 Setup Google Analytics and add your website to Google Search Console

Once you’ve built your website, developed content and given each page a unique title tag and meta description, it’s time to install Google Analytics. Google Analytics is free tracking software that lets you monitor how people use your website, as well as how they find it.

From an SEO perspective, Google Analytics is a great tool for spotting opportunities to further optimize your website for specific keywords. Installing Google Analytics as soon as you launch your website gives you data right from the beginning, helping you further optimize later.

Search Console is Google’s platform for webmasters. It gives you access to valuable data about how your website performs in organic search, from the keywords for which it ranks to its search CTR for each keyword, total keyword impressions and other valuable metrics.

#6 Build a long term SEO strategy

SEO is a long process, and it’s rarely enough to simply launch a website and wait as the leads, sales and revenue start to roll in. If you’d like to rank for competitive keywords, you need to put together a long term SEO strategy with clearly defined goals, milestones and objectives.

This strategy could involve content marketing, or it could simply be a matter of reaching out to website owners to highlight link building opportunities.

There’s no one “right” way to do SEO — since every website is different, everyone’s SEO strategy is ever so slightly unique. If you’re still unsure how to go about doing it, engage an SEO agency to do this for you. Checkout the following article for more insights.

This article was first published by the Digital Marketing Institute