When launching a new site, it can be a lot to focus on that can go wrong, let alone getting the SEO right. Of course, you are going to want your product and/or service to rank highly in the SERPs, but getting there can be a challenge or downright impossible without a cohesive strategy in place to get you there. Before launch, every business owner should have a clear idea regarding the following items:
who their target audience is
what their brand name is
what their target keywords are
Once these three core tenets are understood, the foundation for a strong SEO strategy can begin to take shape. Below are the steps that each new site should take when implementing their new SEO strategy.
Include Target Keywords in URL and Site Title
The keywords that you determine to be the most important should certainly be included in your site’s URL and site title. By including your site title as part of your site’s SEO as it appears in search results, you will be asking Google to include both it and the URL in the SERPs, which will likely lead to a higher ranking if it leads back to high-quality content that is relevant to the keywords in question.
Add Target Keywords to Opening Paragraph and Meta Description
When creating content, be sure to include your target keywords for the piece in both the opening paragraph and the meta description. While desktop meta descriptions typically cut off around 150 characters, mobile meta description show up to 200, which can afford more opportunities for keyword insertion and should be the benchmark to shoot for when optimizing for SEO. Also, the higher up in your opening paragraph the keywords appear, the more powerful they are.
Utilize and Optimize Headers
Depending on the CMS and/or theme used, there should only be one H1 tag per page. In some cases this may not be possible, but a page with multiple H1’s and nonsensical order will only confuse Google, which may rank your content lower as a result. To avoid this, be sure to organize your content by hierarchy: H1, H2, H3, etc. For example, if you happen to make a larger point in H2 and need to bring up a smaller point below it, title that section H3 and use the appropriate keywords.
Secure Your Website with HTTPS
One facet of SEO that has gotten more attention in recent years is the use of “https” over “http”. Going into 2023, some sites simply will not link to nor work with a site that does not provide a secure, encrypted connection for its users. Many self-hosted web services provide either their own service or partner with valid SSL certificate providers who can help provide site owners this service.
When migrating from http to https, be sure to add 301 redirects for all of your site’s URLs as well as verifying all versions of your site via Google Search Console.
Regularly Publish New, High-Quality Content
The best way to rank for a high number of desired keywords is to create top-quality content on a consistent and regular basis. This includes knowing what your target audience is searching for, creating content specifically for them to consume/share, thus propagating your brand to their friends/family by word-of-mouth.
While some site owners have turned to AI solutions to create this content, a lot of it is low-quality and not meant for human consumption, but rather designed towards search engine optimization, which is more likely to lead to a manual penalty for spun content than long-term returns.
How Little Egg Solutions Can Help
We are Little Egg Solutions. We specialize in crafting high-quality websites and white hat SEO strategies that net our clients organic results that last. From reputation management to writing articles, we can do it all. If you are interested in learning more about how we can help your little egg grow, please give us a call. We would be more than happy to help.