Building Your Website? Here Are 10 Must SEO Tips to be Considered

Ah, the prospect of a brand new website: so much potential, so much possibility, so many SEO tips to consider – seriously, so many! If you’re feeling overwhelmed, like many who have gone through the process, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up 10 core guidelines to make sure you’re building a strong SEO strategy into the very foundation, which is your website. Why do You Need an SEO Strategy? You might have the world’s most amazing content centered around the most incredible product, but without a solid SEO strategy, nobody will know. That’s because the search engine, which crawls and organizes all of the information on the internet, needs to be able to read and identify the value in your content in order to show it to its users. Without an SEO strategy your website is invisible. And truthfully, there’s no better time to solidify an SEO approach than during (well, before) the creation of your website. Here are 10 SEO tips to consider: 1. Go Small: There’s A LOT of competition out there, and while you should have every ambition in the world as you’re starting out, you also need to consider what niche you’re going to fill in an already full market. Think small and super narrow to ensure you’re positioned well to become the number one trusted authority on that given subject. Don’t succumb to FOMO and stick to a very defined subject. This will help you gain search engine visibility far more easily than ranking 38th for a broader, more competitive topic. 2. Know Your Audience: Without a proper audience research you don’t have a clear understanding of their interests. Get super specific and try to anticipate and fill your site with all of the answers to questions around this topic. You really cannot build an SEO friendly website without in depth research into your specific niche audience.

3. Research Keywords: You need to know what your audience is asking and looking for. To optimize your chances, pick longer cluster keywords or phrases that are less competitive. As a new site you sadly stand no chance in the highly competitive keyword arena, so it pays to know your angle and think low volume, but high intent. For example, people searching for “best law firm in Durham area” are probably looking to hire a lawyer, so look for the intent behind the phrases. 4. Prioritize Speed: The loading speed you’re generally going for is lightning fast. Seriously, think faster. You’ll want to implement this strategy into your framework and design, the size of images and the amount of widgets you choose to connect to your site. Nothing can kill your SEO efforts quite like a slow-loading site. 5. Link Up: This may seem counterintuitive, but sharing other people’s valuable content makes you look good to! At least to the search engine. Make sure to include links to outside sources and you’ll get more juice in the process. 6. Think Mobile: A site has to have mobile compatibility to get seen on Google – that is a fact we all need to accept. Add this feature to your website and the search engine gods will be pleased. It’s pretty fair considering mobile use is growing at exponential rates and you’ll benefit greatly from the added traffic. 7. Have Analytics Ready: Analytics are the key to a successful SEO strategy, so make sure you have your Google Analytics and Google Console as well as your Facebook pixel fully functional before you start driving any traffic to your site. 8. Don’t Forget Meta Data: Each page on your website should have an SEO optimized metadata description. This helps the search engine crawlers easily identify any relevant keywords and search phrases and suggest your content to its users. 9. Have Clear, Readable URLs: Each one of your URLs needs to clearly communicate what that particular page is about. Be sure to remove any unnecessary numbers or special characters that might make it hard to decipher. 10. Focus on Content: Your site will not rank on Google if you don’t bring valuable information to your audience. Here, again, try to stick to a very specific sub-category and then publish long, valuable content on every aspect of that topic. When you’ve finished, move on to the next sub-category, and so on, until you’re practically drowning in traffic! So there you have it, ten practical steps you can take to make your new site SEO friendly from the start. The best thing you can do to boost your SEO is provide genuine value to your audience. So it’s very important, even with an SEO strategy in mind, to your human audience ahead of the crawlers. Of course, you’ll need to stay consistent and keep up with fresh, relevant content to see lasting success, but like a strong foundation, these tips will let you grow your success. Now that you’ve got a strategy, go out there and dominate that incredibly specific niche!