by samJust about to launch a new site? Maybe it’s just been launched? While you’re very, VERY, unlikely to launch your site and watch it perform fantastically in search results, don’t let that deter you from taking some measures early on that will give a helping hand towards later success.
We’d just like to point out that there are heaps of other things that can be done to benefit a site’s performance in search, but we haven’t yet got any plans of writing an SEO encyclopedia just yet. For now, here’s some food for thought:
Google Analytics
To say that Google Analytics enables you to track and monitor usage of your website is a massive understatement. Track the amount of sessions the site is experiencing; how many people are visiting only one page then leaving your site; what devices are being used to access your site, and much much more. Best not to leave this one too late – analytics will only begin providing valuable data once the tracking code has been placed on your site. Nope, no historic data available upon installation unfortunately. If you aim to do quarterly or yearly comparisons of site usage then the earlier this is installed, the better.
Google Search Console
Search Console also gives you access to valuable information about your site such as who’s linking to you as well as any errors found by Google’s web crawler. While Google will crawl and index your site in its own time, you can actually simulate a crawl. This is useful as you can determine early if any pages (that aren’t meant to be) are blocked to the GoogleBot. Ideally, your site should be launched with a sitemap. This is a small file that helps web crawlers (like Google’s) learn about how content on the site is organised, to help them intelligently crawl the site. While it won’t help you create a sitemap, you’re able to add/test it through Search Console once it has been made. All in all, it sounds pretty handy doesn’t it. Did you know we actually wrote a whole post dedicated to why you shouldn’t ignore Google Search Console? If you fancy the read, you can find that here.
Titles and Meta Descriptions
When a site is displayed on a search engine results page, viewers will use two things to quickly gauge what it’s about: the title and meta description. It’s easily done, but you or your web developer may have overlooked an easy opportunity to let search engine users learn what they can expect from your page. What’s more, having keyword relevant titles will only help from an SEO perspective (but don’t go keyword stuffing here – Google doesn’t like that).
Don’t worry too much about meta keywords (oh, how times change!), but meta descriptions still play a part in SEO. They’re not direct ranking factors, however a well-written meta description will sell the page and ideally improve click-through rates which will contribute towards your rankings. Top tip: keep your titles below 55 characters and your meta descriptions between 150-160 characters.
Redirects
Maybe a new site has been commissioned to replace an old one. Don’t worry about telling people to go to the shiny new site instead of the old one, that’s far too much time and effort. By putting 301 redirects in place, you’ll be permanently telling your visitors’ browsers “Hey this page isn’t here anymore, go to this one instead” – trust us, it’s much easier this way.
Thanks for reading our ‘SEO Tips for New Sites’ article. Be sure to visit the rest of our Digital Marketing Blog for all the latest happenings in Digital Marketing.
We’re Digital Clicks, SEO specialists working in Cambridge with clients across the whole country. We specialise in SEO campaigns, especially when one wants to optimise for a local SEO campaign in Cambridge. For more information, any help or advice for your campaign or to know more about how we work, don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of the team.
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