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Imagine this, you’re building out a new website, your agency just delivered, and SEO isn’t in the scope you decided on.
Once the website is designed and developed, what’s the next step?
It’s making sure that the SEO metrics are all aligned and measured regularly, but before we hop on the tracking aspect, let’s first understand what metrics you need to be tracking.
SEO checklist for new website, that you should be implementing as soon as your site goes live.
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If you are interested in monitoring your website’s search engine performance, setting up a Google Search Console will help you do just that.
As part of your SEO checklist for new website, here are the steps you need to follow:
Create an Account on Google Search Console➡️Add Website Property➡️ Verify Website Ownership➡️Submit Sitemap ➡️Monitor Indexing and Performance
A robot.txt file gives instructions to crawlers about which sections of the website they should access and which ones not to access.
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For example, if there are two ‘Contact Us’ pages, one with updated information and the other with old data. You wouldn’t want the latter to be indexed, as it would lead to confusion amongst your target audience.
Open Text Editor ➡️Define User Agents ➡️Use Allow and Disallow Directives➡️ Add Sitemap Location
Once you have created a robot.txt file, upload it to the root directory of your website. This file would be accessible via /robots.txt.
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A mobile-friendly website is crucial for a smooth user experience and inevitably rankings. You can check your website’s mobile friendliness through free tools available online.
This gives you insight into how your page looks to people viewing your website from their phones.
Following an SEO checklist for a new website ensures that your site is mobile-friendly, improving user experience and search rankings.
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For this, you can use PageSpeed Insights. It will help you understand the website’s loading speed and how well it’s performing.
This tool evaluates your website’s loading speed, identifies performance bottlenecks, and provides actionable recommendations, key steps in any SEO checklist for a new website.
The performance is divided into two sections; Mobile and Desktop.
It is ranked on different factors such as:
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An SSL Certificate verifies the authenticity of your website and makes sure that the visitors’ information is protected.
Choose the Right SSL Certificate ➡️ Generating a Certificate Signing Request ➡️Install SSL Certificate on Server ➡️Restart Apache ➡️ Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS➡️ Update Links on the Website.
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Installing an SSL certificate on your website showcases your company as one that can be trusted by brands. And internally, it can also help you protect against cyber threats.
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If a webpage that was previously available is no longer accessible, it means that a 404 error has occurred.
It can happen due to multiple reasons such as a change of URLs, or alteration to website structure.
Identify Broken Links➡️What Might Have Caused This➡️Updating Internal and External Links➡️Setting up Redirects
For this purpose, you can use tools such as Ahrefs (specifically the Site Audit option).
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Canonical tags are HTML elements that help search engines understand which version of a webpage should be considered the primary source.
For example, two similar pages exist, such as:
Add a canonical tag to help the search engine identify which one is the correct version.
To add Canonical Tags to your website, simply input this line of code:
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And if you are using any CMS platform such as WordPress, you can simply use built-in settings or plugins to use Canonical Tags.
Pro Tip: You can use tools such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider to help identify duplicate content and revise any incorrect canonical tags.
Schema markup is a standardized format used to provide search engines with additional context about a website’s content.
It helps search engines understand the relationships between different elements on a page, which improves search visibility and can lead to relevant search results.
Identify the Relevant Schema Type➡️Generate JSON-LD Code ➡️ Implement the Schema Markup➡️Validate the Schema Markup
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Before you begin writing your blogs or content for your landing page, keyword research is important.
See what keywords your competitors are ranking on, and target ones that are relevant to your business offerings.
If you are running a SaaS company, that’s similar to Salesforce, here’s how your keyword research would look like through Ahrefs.
Pro Tip: Target the keywords that have a low ‘Keyword Difficulty’, this will make it easier for your business to rank on Google.
Write compelling and keyword-rich title tags and meta descriptions.
The former should be under 60 characters, whereas the latter should be about 150 characters long.
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Pro Tip: You can use tools such as Detailed SEO, to see how Google sees those title tags and meta descriptions you wrote. This will help you make any changes if necessary.
Adding links to your website, both internal and external, is important if you want to ensure that it ranks on Google.
If your blogs are linked to your Service page, it becomes easier for the user to navigate through your website. It helps streamline the user’s journey.
Whereas, if you write a blog and quote different sources or industry experts, that’s called external linking. Any link that doesn’t redirect back to your website is classified as such.
Pro Tip: When publishing, make sure that all the internal links are do-follow whereas all the external links are no-follow. You don’t want to give your traffic to your competitors.
Off-page SEO focuses on activities that take place outside your website.
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When establishing your brand as an authoritative, you need posts not only published on your website, but also in online magazines. This is called guest posting.
It can help boost relationships with like-minded businesses.
For backlinks, you can acquire them by answering journalist’s queries and requests.
When reading your response to a query, the journalist will see you as an authoritative figure to comment on. And in exchange, would link your website to the blog they are writing.
Pro Tip: To get relevant backlinks, use platforms such as Qwoted. You can see the journalist and magazine you’re pitching content to.
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About 5.07 billion people use social media to engage with customers and understand more about their target audience.
For different platforms, your brand needs to have a different tone, here are some examples:
Being active on social media platforms will help you build a community and become a name that people can trust.
Pro Tip: You can use Canva to design posts, CapCut to edit videos, and ChatGPT for descriptions and post captions. Once the post is ready, you can use a scheduling tool such as SproutSocial.
Now that you’re at the end, wondering
“How are we supposed to implement all of the above, continuously monitor performance, keep an eye out for issues and resolve them, and repeat this every month”
Well, there’s a solution.
Working with an SEO agency. This agency would help you implement all of the above and make sure that your website is performing well on all metrics.
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