Launching a website is an exciting as well as a complicated task. No matter what your level of experience is, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, ranging from those minor and almost unnoticeable things to the major things which can ruin a site and the efforts that have been put in. Everything, therefore, needs to be done with utmost care. The best way is to create a checklist which would consist of all the best practices that need to be followed.
A good SEO would help in delivering superior quality content, intuitive user experience as well as optimal performance. Listed below are a few of things that must be considered before you head on to launch your website.
Check the Domain
If you have finalized a date for the time of the launch, then you most likely would have purchased a domain too. It is advisable to always do a quick check on the history of the domain regardless of wherever you are in the process. Tools like WHOSIS Search and Wayback Machine can be used for this purpose. However, WHOSIS Search isn’t a free tool, and you would be required to pay for it. But, the cost would be worth it if you find any negative history that is associated with the domain and can cause harm to the reputation of your site in the long run.
HTTPS Security
This year, Chrome launched an update which notifies visitors, in case they click on an insecure website. By insecure, Google just doesn’t mean the hacked sites or the one that has mixed content. Any of the sites which run on HTTP and still accept the sensitive information like the phone number or the credit card number of the user would be labeled as insecure. Therefore, it is important to get an SSL certificate which would provide the HTTP for your site. This is a very good idea in today’s times when the users are well aware of such things and wouldn’t provide sensitive information if the site isn’t secure.
Check the Host
You might have already done it but, it is till wise to check back on it once again. The main reason behind this is the fact that more than often people choose web hosts where servers go down more than often which in turn compromises the availability of the site. This affects the SEO of your site drastically. The traffic would reduce if people cannot reach your site. Hence, it is advisable to do a thorough research and choose a web host that doesn’t have any complaints against it. You can read the reviews of the users for your convenience.
Choose an SEO-Friendly Theme
There are a lot of themes available which claim that they are SEO friendly as they can easily integrate with SEO plugins. However, that isn’t enough. The wise thing to do in such a situation is to check how efficiently the theme performs. A theme that is truly SEO friendly would be clean-coded, responsive, and seamlessly quick-loading quickly and have a modern design. In addition, you can use SEO tools and plugins to help manage the different aspects of search optimization for your website.
Indulge in Keyword Research
The importance of keywords cannot be denied. A tool like ‘Answer the Public’ can be used to find out the keywords that are going to work best for your website and increase your Google rankings. One thing that you must remember is the fact the keywords should always be relevant and less competitive if you want your website to be on the top and be found out by the readers. The focus keyword or the primary keyword must be included in the title and the metadata at all times so as to keep things going.
Optimization of the Page
The content that is spun around the keywords would require being optimized. Keywords should be used in places where it is easy for the search engines as well as the visitors to determine what the page and the website are all about. A good SEO is where one primary keyword is used for each of the pages. Secondary keywords might also be used if necessary. But, never stuff too many keywords within the content.
Use SEO Plugins
There are several plugins available to help you boost your page ranking. Through the usability of these plugins, you can drive more traffic to your site. Once you install the SEO plugins to your site, you can run an analysis scan and get an appropriate feedback as to how the search results of your site can be improved. With the SEO plugins, sitemaps, customized metadata, and automatic links can also be included.
Assign Images to Each Page
As a website owner, you must remember to attach at least one image to each of the pages of your site. You can use the fields of metadata to add the ‘alt text’ after you have selected and uploaded the image that you want. This would enable the image to be found in the search. If you get the primary keyword into the alt tag, that would be even better for your site’s SEO. After you have done all that, you can then set a featured image for each of the pages. This would present an engaging image when the post is shared on social media.
Double-check the Content
It is advisable to check your content all over again to check for any errors that might have gone unnoticed the first time. The SEO experts believe that a page that has all the information would effectively improve the search ranking and thereby also increase the traffic.
Wrapping up:
When you are creating a website, you would be excited just to finish off all the work and launch it as soon as possible, but it is important to remember that you haven’t left out anything. Necessary efforts should be made to maximize the SEO before the site is launched and you would see how great it benefits you.
Let us know if you have any queries or tips which people must consider before launching their website, by dropping a comment below.
About the author:
Catherrine Garcia is a passionate blogger and a freelance Web Developer. She along with her group of freelance developers, are experts of creating Websites on CMS.
