I often times see a brand new website get published without any search engine optimization efforts built into it prior. When a website is being built that is the perfect time to really apply all SEO related efforts so you don’t have to add an additional step to the entire process down the road.
Here are some areas that should be addressed while a website is being built:
Keyword Research: Conduct keyword research prior to building the website or during so you can use the data as ammo through the building process. Once you determine your navigation and your pages you will then be able to isolate which keywords you want to target for each page.
URL Structure: Once you have completed your keyword research you now have great data to build out your URL structures. When choosing your keywords during the building process you can now identify your targeted keywords and use them to increase your search engine optimization efforts through your URL structures.
Installing a Blog: If you where interested in having a blog on your website now is the time to install it. Do it while the developers and designers are inside the website so you can kill two birds with one stone. Having them do it later on will only cause more work and money for you.
Design Elements: With page load time being such a hot topic in today’s search marketing industry now is also a good time to keep in mind all the different widgets, scripts and images you use throughout your website. These design elements tend to slow things down so keep that in mind now while you are building rather than a year down the road.
Content Structure: For search engine optimization to really work how it is supposed to you have to have some decent content on your website. The minimalistic route is great but search engines need to be able to read what is in front of them. The only way they can do that is through the use of text. Keep space available for text and put it in place now rather than having to redesign pages later to make room for it. Oh, remember that keyword research we did in step 1? Yeah it is now time to apply those keywords to the content as well.
Meta Info: Each page of your website is going to have the ability for title tag information letting visitors know and understand what the topic is on a certain page before they even arrive their through a search engine. When a visitor views a link and snippet in the search results the link they are clicking on is the title tag information for that page. Apply custom meta information prior to publishing your website live for everyone so you can get the full benefit of the search engine optimization.
User Experience: If your web designer is great at design but not so much on the user experience side of things get someone to go along the side of your designer and help them implement various items that will keep people on your site. Things like videos, and social media communication tools to enhance the experience your visitor will have on the site.
Conversion Metrics:Conversion metrics are very important because they are going to translate directly into actions on your site. At the end of the day the ultimate goal of your website is to get your traffic converting one way or another. This could be through the means of a form, a phone number or a shopping cart. Regardless of what it is the website should have a goal with the design built around that goal. Don’t wait until you start marketing your website and find out you messed this part up.
