As a new business owner, you may already have your business
plan, products and services ready to be released to the world, but you may not
have a customer base yet. If you are a business with a physical storefront, your
physical location may be your first priority, as it should be. However, after
that or perhaps if your business operates solely online, you will need a
website in order to drive traffic and attract new customers.
Having an aesthetically pleasing website is important, but
almost equally as important to the appearance of your site is being able to get
good rankings in search engines. This is where your website will be the most
successful in attracting new customers at a low recurring cost. In order to reach
good rankings in search engines, you have to establish a good foundation for
your website in terms of search engine optimization (SEO).
A good SEO foundation usually comprises of a few key areas
that are most important in a new website launch:
Titles
The page title is the first thing search engines read when
they scan through the html code of each page of your website, otherwise known
as “crawling” a website. It is important
that you have a title for every page so the search engines can properly identify
the topic and nature of your page. These
titles should include targeted key terms relevant to the page and to your
business. For example, if you are a
florist in Sacramento, a common SEO title might include the key terms
“Sacramento”, “florist” and your best selling flowers. It is highly recommended
to keep page titles to between 50-60 characters.
Meta Descriptions
Meta Descriptions give search engines a description and
written statement of what that page is about. Meta descriptions are usually
text snippets comprised of 160 characters or less that are displayed in search
results to help the user understand more about the page on which they are clicking.
It is important that each page has a meta description, as it is your way of
conveying a targeted message to your audience and to the search engines.
Content
Quality content is considered one of the most important
elements of a solid SEO strategy. Most
search engines now consider original quality content as their number one
ranking factor on their algorithms.
Before you launch your website, make sure every top-level page (such as
Home, About Us, Products, Services, or any other link at the top of your
website) has quality content. Quality
content is generally more than 300 words and not “keyword stuffed,” meaning
that in the content, you should include your targeted keywords only about 2-3
times throughout the page.
Internal Linking
Internal linking provides a way for search engine “spiders”
or the bots that scan your website’s code, to navigate through your website.
Think of your website as a spider web, where the more you can connect the lower
level pages to your higher level pages, the more value your website has as a
whole and the stronger the web is. In
the content of your pages, it is recommended that you should be linking a
minimum two to three times to other pages on your website. For example, if
you’re talking about your seasonal flowers on your florist website, you could
link the word “perennials” to the perennials you have for sale.
Audit Tools
Prior to site launch, it is highly recommended to install
Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools file (known now as Search
Console). Both tools assist you with
making sure your website is active and will allow you to review any errors your
site may have that prevent Google and other search engines from properly
“crawling” or scanning your website. You
will need to set up a Google
account in order to have access to both tools.
Having a good SEO foundation is critical to the success of
any new website launch. If you are not very
tech savvy, it is best to work with an Digital marketing and web development
company to get these areas in place prior to launch.
At Sales & Marketing Technologies, we have been helping
businesses grow and thrive online for over 20 years. Our teams of skilled
designers, developers, and marketers can get your business where it needs to
go. If you’re ready to start enhancing your website or marketing efforts,
contact us today.