A website without SEO is almost like a car without wheels. You can park it in a corner, but it can’t drive you home. Similarly, just creating a website and putting it online will not solve any business purpose until you provide it with SEO to drive in user traffic.
There are a host of other benefits associated with SEO which include improved site rankings and maximum popularity of the site. Here are a few SEO tips which a new website should adopt to reap rich dividends.
1. Emphasis on strategy
Even before you start designing your website, you must devise a clear cut SEO strategy for your upcoming website. You must frame the strategy keeping in mind your competition. Your competition could be rival sites or keywords and phrases. You shall have to study the top 5 ranking rivals and their authority.
2. Keywords
Regular keyword searches need to be conducted. It is a time consuming job, but absolutely necessary. These regular searches will help you in gathering keywords for your website design and architecture. This shall be followed by establishing link structure and off page SEO.
3. Segmentation of Traffic
It is always a good SEO approach to segment the user traffic by segregating the content. You can’t have the same rules for all web pages, so you have to have specific conversion of data per page. A consolidation needs to be done of information, action calls and images. You need to design web pages using multiple keywords in headers, Meta tags and Meta descriptions.
4. Building internal links
Your site’s links to other sites need to be revamped by using the co-occurrence strategy of relevant keywords. If you are intent on a specific keyword of your webpage then build up internal links of the subsequent pages towards that particular page with keyword variations to achieve higher rankings.
5. CMS platform
It is advisable to design a website using a CMS tool like WordPress or Joomla 3.0 for better SEO results. The new and latest themes of both these CMS tools are more SEO friendly. The other benefits of a CMS are plug-ins and easy editing of site content. Sites created using WordPress are user-friendly and professional looking.
6. Permalink settings in WordPress
SEO friendly settings can be activated in WordPress using the permalink. Yoast’s WordPress SEO plug-in can be used and configured on your site. Titles and Meta tags can be set for your blog posts, media and web pages. The posts are automatically updated according to titles and descriptions, while keeping other fields blank for you to fill in. This is an excellent plug-in which goes that extra mile to take care of all SEO related technical issues of your site. It also helps you to write better content for your website. It forces you to focus on chosen keywords for your article and ensures that the keyword is used at various places in the article.
7. The architecture of your site
Always ensure a flat architecture of your site which can help in building relevant pages for the root folder with matching target names and conventions in the URL structure.
8. Always keep content updated
The domain authority is extremely important for good SEO. You need to develop it gradually as it cannot be achieved overnight. The content needs to be updated regularly to develop domain authority for search engines and visitors. Updating site content is a good influence of visitors and keeps them interested in your website. You also need to target specific audience with your content. Different content appeals to different kind of audience. The content which appeals to corporate category will virtually have no appeal with teenagers. Optimized meta titles and descriptions should be added for updated content regularly.
9. Long tail keywords
Keywords which are made up of at least 3 words determine maximum traffic on a site. You need to lay specific attention to such long tail keywords. Keep a close watch on your site metrics and build up a log and make variations in keywords accordingly.
10. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an important tool for gaining vital information on the user traffic. The Google Analytics tracking tool will help to analyse the audience and user activity on your site. It can even pinpoint the content which is inviting maximum user traffic.
I hope that I have addressed to all basic SEO techniques required for a new website. In case the readers feel that a particular point has been left out, they can always reach out to me and give their valued comments and reviews.
Author Bio: Anna Brown is an SEO analyst at Xperts Infosoft; New Delhi based SEO Services Company in India. She has a vast experience in SEO and web designing. She knows about all the ins and outs of the trade. Her other interests includes travelling and listening to country music. Reach out to her on Facebook or Twitter.