1. Use Web Analytics From Day
One Web analytics are a powerful tool for tracking and measuring traffic to your website. Many companies will have someone who manages web analytics over time and makes sure that your content marketing efforts are indeed pushing traffic to your site. However, it is important to have analytics in place from the very start in order to effectively track and understand your SEO ranking. Make sure to set some clear goals about what you’d like to accomplish and the measures you intend to use to help you do so. This will make it much easier for you to implement software to help you understand which of your strategies are actually working and which ones might not be that productive. There are many helpful tools that can help you measure analytics, such as Google Analytics, Coremetrics, Websphere, Hubspot and Raven Tools. It’s important to pay attention to certain components of these analytics, such as which keywords are driving traffic to your site, where organic traffic is coming from, what traffic is being driven by blogs, etc.
2. Avoid writing content for SEO purposes
Many companies are tempted to create keyword-heavy blogs that fill their site up with keywords and phrases that will increase their search rankings, but these can often be clumsy and difficult to read. Your clients come to your site in search of useful, relevant information and if they find lots of meaningless content, that will only damage your reputation, and over time, your rankings. Develop a reputation for offering unique and interesting content that your users will actually find compelling, i.e. write to benefit your target audience, not for SEO purposes. When it fits, you should include the keywords you have researched that drive traffic to your site. Start a blog and keep it filled with smart, important and timely info – you’ll soon develop a following and a great reputation for being a thought-leader in your industry.
3. Take advantage of page titles and meta descriptions
Page titles and meta descriptions are great opportunities to help you optimize your search rankings. Surprisingly, many web design companies, and therefore their clients skip this valuable step.
Important: just because Google doesn't use meta data in their algorithm today doesn't mean they never will again! Plus, Bing, ask.com and other search engines still use the data.
Page titles are an incredibly important and often underused opportunity to boost rankings. Page titles have to be 70 characters or less and should make sure that the words you are trying to rank for are listed here. For example, if you want to rank for keywords related to a pet store, make sure to title each page with targeted relevant words such as “organic dog food” or “cat toys”, etc. Make sure that the keyword that you are using is hyper-relevant to the content on that page. Also, keep the titles short as longer ones also won’t rank as highly in searches. Meta descriptions are the descriptions that appear below a result in a search query. They must be 150 characters or less and they should offer a concise, informative blurb about exactly what people can expect to find on your site. If the meta description includes the keyword that was searched, it will appear in bold in the result.
4. Plan to expand
Search engines are getting better and better at determining the “quality” of a website based on the value of its content. The more value your content actually has for your customers, the higher it will appear in search engines – this means that you want to fill your site with information that provides valuable insights that people will want to read and share. From day one you need to have a plan that includes the type of content you plan to produce, how often you will produce it, where it will be placed, how it will be shared, and how your success will be measured. Including a continuing content plan will save you time and money by ensuring that any needed elements (e.g. a blog, social media inclusion on the website, etc.) are accounted for and integrated from day one. SEO trends are leaning toward developing content that is informative, concise and that encourages people to share. By keeping a close eye on analytics, you can better understand what content is keeping your customers interested and engaged. Content that has more of a purpose than boosting SEO or driving a sale will, over time, contribute to both of those goals.
Follow these tips and you’ll have your new website ranking higher in searches from the start!
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