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Embedding SEO into a website from scratch, even before launch, sets your website up for success from
the start. And yet SEO is often an afterthought, even for large companies with big budgets. "We're
launching next week so let's check SEO" is certain death.
This data from Gartner on the percentage of marketing budget invested per channel confuses me. Below
you can see that most of the budget is spent on things like website, digital commerce, and mobile
marketing. But all along the line, it's SEO, as if it had nothing to do with any of those priorities.
When launching a website, there are four stages to consider, each with its own tasks and steps. In each
of the following phases, the person in charge of SEO must cooperate with the other teams (design,
development, UX, strategy and others):
Launch website
The strategy and planning stage of a web launch is fundamental to its success. This is when you lay the
foundation.
In SEO terms, the most important steps in this step are keyword research and content architecture.
Before the web design team gets to work on the concepts, the SEO person needs to provide the
keyword and architecture strategy. This is because these SEO tips will help shape the way designers and
developers build the site.
Keyword research
Keyword research is one of the most important steps in an SEO project. As a website publisher, you
need to understand who your target audience is and what search queries they use to find your products
and services. Then this information serves as the foundation for your website in terms of the design and
content you create for it. More on that next.
Read more:
Content Architecture
Once the keyword research is done, the SEO person can start theming the website. It involves mapping
the structure of the website according to the major keywords important to a website. A sitemap mockup
will show the pages to be created, including top navigation and sub navigation.
This is what we call here at Bruce Clay Inc. the SEO silo. The SEO silo can make or break a website's
perceived expertise, rankings, and even user experience.
Read more:
5 times the SEO silo can make or break your search engine ranking
The construction stage is usually the longest stage in a website project. During this step, the designers
and developers build the site. But from an SEO perspective, there are two key tasks: creating content
and working with developers on a technical level.
Content creation
Every silo or category of navigation should be filled with quality content. It means creating quality
content that is built with an understanding of Google's quality standards. It also means creating web
pages based on real-time SEO data based on the highest ranked competitors for those target keywords.
You'll want to get this data before you create the pages. This way, the content meets or exceeds what
your competition is doing on the first page of search results.
And anyone can get that data through the right tools, including our WordPress SEO plugin. You can read
more about it below.
Read more:
How a WordPress SEO plugin can help you optimize your content for keywords
EAT and SEO: you can't have one without the other
Technical strategy
SEO is not a core strength of many web designers and developers. So, they often inadvertently build a
site that prevents search engines from doing their job of crawling, indexing, and understanding a
website and its content. For example, Flash and JavaScript implementations sometimes create barriers
for search engines.
But this is just one example of what can go wrong and what needs to be optimized when building for
SEO. As Google tweaks its algorithms to reward sites that provide a good user experience, performance
issues are also becoming concerns for SEO.
Read more:
Before launching the site and during the launch, the SEO person should be involved in overseeing some
critical things. This step should be fairly smooth if the previous steps have been completed correctly. But
you still have to make sure everything is in order.
Pre launch
The website should be crawled using an SEO tool to see if there are any errors. You can use a crawler
like Screaming Frog or our tools in the SEOToolSet for that. As part of this task, you will want to see that
the number of pages created and crawled is the same. If there is a difference, the next step is to
determine the cause of the problem and resolve it.
It is important to configure basic SEO scans before launch. This will help you look at the website and
access valuable data as soon as the site is published. Without this data, it is impossible to improve
website performance through data-driven decisions.
Read more: 7 Google SEO Tools Every Website Builder Should Use
Technical articles
At this point, things like XML sitemap, HTML sitemap, and robots.txt file should be configured correctly.
But you'll want to test them. In some cases, web developers or others may forget to remove the
Disallow: / directive from the robots.txt file (used to prevent indexing of pages during build and test).
Read more:
To throw
Getting started with SEO tasks involves a lot of tracking. In particular, you monitor errors and indexing.
Errors
Using SEO tools, including Google Search Console, check and fix any technical errors that might arise.
Common issues include 404 errors that prevent users from accessing a web page or other issues.
Indexation
Depending on the size of the website, search engines can take a few days or weeks to fully index a site. If
it appears that some areas are not indexed, investigate and resolve the issues. Is there an adequate
internal mesh to ensure maximum indexing?
Step 4: Post-launch
The work doesn't stop once the website is successfully launched. SEO is an ongoing process - there is
always things to test and optimize.
Content
Regularly add new content to the site. Create more supporting content for your silo structure and link
the pages appropriately.
Connections
Maintain your link profile. You want to make sure you have high quality, relevant links compared to
other types.
Read more:
SEO is over when Google stops changing things and all of your competitors die
Once the site is live, regularly check the performance of the home page and other important pages that
you want to rank. Tools like PageSpeed Insights or Google's Lighthouse help with this. You can increase
your ranking by providing a measurable page experience.
Read more:
What marketing managers need to know about updating the Google page experience
SEO is essential to building a website that is not only functional but also capable of competing in search
results. If you are part of a website launch team, remember these principles:
We have helped many customers with web migrations and new site launches. If you want advice to
ensure the success of your strategy, contact us today for a free quote and consultation.