Build A Website With SEO Strategies

Before you build a website, think about using SEO as the basis for site development. It might sound a little strange, but go with me on this. Let's see how many ways we can use SEO to create a site.

Build A Website With Mobile In Mind

One of the biggest Google algorithm changes in 2015 was update back in April that only shows mobile-friendly pages in smartphone search results. Because of this, the first consideration I'm telling folks who are starting a new website or updating an existing one is to make it mobile-friendly.

The easiest way to do this is by working with your web developer to find a responsive web design (RWD) template. In plain language, this is a mobile-friendly template that can adapt to various mobile devices.

Do Keyword Research To Build A Website

Do you really know what keyword phrases and terms your target audience is using to find your products and services online? This is a basic, but critical task you need to complete first.

If you plan by major topics, you can build pages that will go into a drop-down menu as part of your top or left hand navigation scheme to help your web visitors find the relevant pages quickly.

When planning your site's pages and the navigation scheme, do keyword research first to find the phrases you'll use for your content. You can use some very high level, generic phrases to build out your top-level navigation, then you can transition to some long tail keyword phrases for your interior pages.

Make sure you have enough room in each navigation label to put in long tail keyword phrases; otherwise, they might get cut off and confuse your web visitors.

You need a unique keyword phrase for each web page or blog post you're going to publish. Match up a phrase with each planned page or post when you're designing your site.

Start Identifying Relevant Linking Partners

Getting relevant, complimentary, authoritative websites to link to yours is a key part of getting better rankings in search results. So while you're planning your site, go ahead and do some link analysis to line up good link partners. You won't reach out to them until you have the site completely up and running, but make a list of those sites you'd like to have links from, and vice versa.

Local Business Directory Submissions

On the heels of linking, if you serve a specific geographical area, or have a physical location where customers need to visit to buy your products or services, be sure you've made a list of the important local business directory listings to create when your site goes live:

• Google My Business
• Hot Frog
• Yelp
• Super Pages
• Yellow Pages
• Dex

These are just a few of many, many relevant business directory websites you should create an account for, and make an optimized business listing to get better search engine visibility for locally based or geographical queries.

Create Page Content With Optimized Titles and Meta Descriptions

Make it goal to create one or two new pages per day when your site is being built. Once the web developer gives you access to the edit mode or dashboard, start uploading the content and optimized meta data, so that when your site is ready to go live, you've done all of your on-page SEO to get the best chance possible to start showing up in search results.

Want to learn more about SEO, or how to do these tasks? Let's get together for an SEO class soon, and you'll see how to do both on and off-page SEO.

If you're looking for online SEO training, we now have our basic SEO class up and running!

Until we meet next time, keep it safely between the ditches!

All the best to you,

Nancy McDonald

Image courtesy of khunaspix at FreeDigitalPhotos.net