From web development to branding and design, there are plenty of moving parts when launching a new website, but your SEO strategy shouldn’t be an afterthought.In fact, your SEO strategy should be one of the primary considerations before you even start your website. To take things a step further, the best case scenario would be that your website structure is fully built based on the SEO strategy you already have in place. Doing this from the get-go saves lots of headaches for things like web development, content formatting and design, URL structures, and more.

How to Prep Your SEO Strategy for a New Website

New websites have no indexed pages, don’t have backlinks, and thus also have no authority.As time presses on, Google starts to sniff out and apply changes as your website matures (assuming the SEO strategy is done right), and you’ll soon see that there are some other websites to contend with.A new website can start by focusing on longtail, low-competition keywords until it works its way up. Over time, with proper SEO strategies, your new website can grow to compete and even overtake the strongest of competition.

Why is SEO valuable for new websites?

The right domain name is associated with SEO equity, so aligning your company and brand name with your domain name is critical. When you have a new domain, you’re essentially starting your SEO from scratch.

1. Pick the right domain name (you can’t change it after!)

The average user won’t wait longer than three seconds for a website to load, so ensuring an excellent host is the first step of your SEO strategy.

2. Choose a high-speed website hosting provider

It’ll provide you with tons of that that you need to achieve SEO success. With Google Search Console, you can check things like:<ul><li>Page speed issues</li><li>Organic keywords that bring in website clicks</li><li>Your average click through rate (CTR)</li><li>Sitemap submission</li><li>Crawl and index errors</li><li>Page performance</li></ul>

3. Set up Google Search Console

When analyzing and making a list of your competitors consider these questions:<ul><li>How is their company similar to yours? How is it different? Check out their unique selling points.</li><li>What topics do they write about?</li><li>What keywords are they already ranking for?</li></ul>Every business has product and service competitors, but that doesn’t mean they have an SEO strategy that’s worth trying to outperform. The key here is to identify who sells similar stuff, writes similar content, and is piling up top keyword rankings. Those are your “SEO competitors”, and they’re who you want to beat.

4. Study your SEO competition

Keywords connect search queries to your content listed in the SERPs.Google’s goal is to use the keywords used in search queries to identify & present the most valuable information to searchers, aka “search intent”.Longtail, low competition keywords that exactly match what you’re selling, are your direct path to ensuring SEO has a major impact on your revenue & long-term profitability.Understanding search intent plays a major role with buyer journey stages, so ensuring that you’re crafting content that’s appropriate for buyers in the awareness, consideration, & decision stage is crucial.

5. Research keywords and create your keyword map

<ul><li>Prioritize sections of your keyword map: Such as product or service pages, as those have the highest likelihood to result in conversions and generate revenue for your business.</li><li>Optimize your content: Don’t forget to use keywords in the H1, URL, and metadata. </li><li>Track your keyword rankings: Once you publish content, keep an eye on how it’s performing. Content can move up over time as Google perceives your content to be trustworthy, you provide a good user experience, & your Domain Authority increases. </li><li>Post consistently: Publish at least 4 new website pages per month. </li></ul>

6. Build a strategic content calendar (and keep posting)

Putting keywords in your URL is super important for ensuring that your content is being set up properly.In the words of Rand Fishkin, “if there’s other keywords you haven’t used, or URLs you haven’t targeted with certain keywords, you do so during this process. This way you’re covering your tracks, making certain there are words and phrases that are covered early on.”

7. Ensure an optimized URL structure

Just like you go to check your core vitals at the doctor, you should do the same for your website to steer clear of any unnecessary issues.SEO is no longer just about putting keywords in the right places, it now also involves content format, design, page load speed, as well as user behavior — like time on page and bounce rates.In a nutshell, sustainable SEO success no longer ends with the click, you have to wholeheartedly satisfy your readers while they’re on the page in order to consistently rank.

8. Review Core Web Vitals and page experience

Accessibility simply means how easy it is for users (and search engines) to access the information on your website. This element is taken into consideration as a ranking factor. You want an accessible site for everyone, right? Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your content is being indexed and crawled correctly, but you can also take these steps to ensure that happens:<ul><li>Optimize alt text in images (for screen readers)</li><li>Use enough contrast (make sure your colors are easy on the eye)</li><li>Correctly label elements like buttons</li><li>Make your font size big enough to read</li></ul>

9. Observe accessibility

Whether for SEO or not, your website content shouldn’t just be published and sit there. The phrase “build it and they will come” is completely untrue when it comes to SEO.You have put in the effort to create your content, so it deserves to be shown to your audience. Think about where you already have a strong presence and harness that.

10. Promote

Your SEO strategy should be one of the primary considerations before you even start your website. Instead of fighting to make your website SEO-ready later on, start with this holistic SEO checklist for new websites and save yourself valuable time and resources

Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free online tool by Google consisting of a series of dashboards showing you how your site is performing on Google.It allows you to access a wide range of important data about your website. For example, you can:<ul><li>see how your page is performing in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) for various keywords</li><li>find out if you have any problems with content appearing on Google (or indexing, to use the technical term)</li><li>check out what sites are linking to your content</li><li>see how your website is performing by the device used</li></ul>

What is Google Search Console?

Setting up Google Search Console is quite easy. Head over to its welcome page and log in with your Google credentials.After signing up, you will be asked to enter your web address in one of two boxes. The left-hand box is for a Domain Property and the right-hand box is for a URL Prefix Property.

Setup Google Search Console

Most people using Search Console select the domain property option. You’ll get the information on how your whole website is performing on Google. This includes all the URLs, subdomains and web protocols (http://, https://, www).In the past, you had to verify all the protocols separately but thanks to the domain property option, all you need is to enter your domain and all the variations will be included.

Domain Property

You should use this option if you only want to cover an exact URL format. For example, if you enter https://www.website.com/blog into the required field, only this URL format will be tracked. This option is often used for targeting a specific language mutation on a multilingual website, e.g. https://en-gb.example.com

URL Prefix Property

There are three different permissions levels in the Search Console:Owners: This will probably be you. Owners can view all the site’s data and use all the tools. They can also give other people access to the Search Console. You can also create delegated owners, who have the same control over Search Console as you.Full Users: Can view all site data and use most of the Search Console tools. They can’t change permissions. Neither can they share access to other G-suite accounts or change the web address.Restricted Users: Can only view Search Console data and generate basic reports.

Users, owners and permissions

The Overview Report is the first page that loads when you access Search Console. The dashboard contains a snapshot of key information about your site.<ul><li>Site performance report: How many people have clicked on your website from Google</li><li>Coverage report: Information whether your pages are indexed properly on Google</li><li>Enhancements report: Provides information about enhancements (such as AMP) you’ve made on your site</li><li>Manual actions report: This will show you if Google has given you a manual penalty</li></ul>

Overview

There are 3 main sections you can adjust or click on to show the data you need:<ul><li>top filter</li><li>4 main metrics</li><li>data tabs</li></ul>The various variables you can add include:<ul><li>Search: Choose to filter the results by web, image, or video</li><li>Date: Filter the results by date range. You can also compare date ranges.</li><li>Query: Filter by specific keywords, or even exclude keywords</li><li>Page: Select a page that you want to focus on</li><li>Country: Filter search results by country</li><li>Device: Filter search results by the device used</li><li>Search appearance: Filter by looking at Rich Results and other variables</li></ul>

Performance report

There are four metrics above the graph:<ul><li>Clicks: number of people who visited your site from Google</li><li>Impressions: total number of times your content was seen on Google</li><li>CTR: what %age of impressions resulted in a click</li><li>Position: avg ranking your content has in Google SERP</li></ul>There are 5 tabs you can select:<ul><li>Queries: keywords your content is ranking for</li><li>Pages: how pages & blog posts on your site are performing on Google</li><li>Countries: how your website is performing by country</li><li>Devices: what device do people use to access your website</li><li>Search appearance: whether your structured data appear in the search results</li></ul>

Performance report (contd.)

The index report shows the total number of pages that appear in the search results. If everything is green then things are good.The red box is where problem pages are displayed. You want the number of problematic pages to be as low as possible, ideally zero.Under the details section, you can sort issues by status, type, validation, & pages. If you notice sudden spikes or drops in your indexed pages, there’s probably a technical problem.It’s important to keep on top of these problems and resolve them quickly. Issues with technical performance will affect your visibility on results pages.

Coverage report

A sitemap is an XML document that outlines how your website is structured. Your sitemap will help Google crawlers navigate your site. This helps Google find and index your content quickly.You can tell Search Console where your sitemap is located on your site by entering the URL.An extra benefit to providing a sitemap in Search Console is that you’ll be alerted of any issues. These include differences between the structure of your site and what Google sees.

Sitemaps

The Enhancements page allows you to view the enhancements you have made to the site.There are many reports you can find under Enhancements, and many of them will appear only if you have the specific feature implemented on your site.The 3 most basic reports:<ul><li>Mobile usability report: how your site works on mobile</li><li>The Accelerated Mobile Pages report: AMP are stripped-down versions of a page designed to load very quickly on mobile</li><li>Structured data report: Structured data allows you to present additional information in Google SERP</li></ul>

Enhancements

Hopefully, you will never have to view this report. By default, it will show No issues detected. If a manual penalty has been applied to your site by a Google employee, then the penalty will appear in this tab.Google will apply manual penalties to your site if they think you have been doing anything shady. For instance, you might get a manual penalty as a result of buying backlinks.A penalty from Google can harm your search rankings or result in your site being de-indexed. It is crucial to resolve any manual link penalty if you want to avoid SEO problems.

Manual actions report

You can view the backlinks pointing to your website. From the table, you can see the pages that have the most internal and external links.You can see the top linking sites and anchor texts.The report is a great starting point to find:<ul><li>which pages of your website have the most links</li><li>what websites link to you the most</li><li>what are the most common anchor texts</li><li>what pages have the most internal links</li></ul>In the Top linked pages report, you can click on a specific page to see who links to it.

Links report

These are some features from the old Search Console. They are not available for domain property so we won’t go into much detail here.The legacy tools include:<ul><li>International targeting – you can set a specific target country (used for hreflang)</li><li>Removals – you can remove URLs from the search results</li><li>Crawl stats – you can view and regulate the frequency of crawls by Google</li><li>Messages – messages from Google</li><li>URL parameters – you can let Google know about various parameters you use</li><li>Web Tools – access to other tools</li></ul>

Legacy tools and reports

Google Search Console is an essential SEO tool. Yet, some people find it a little bit scary and complicated at first sight. Here's everything you need to know about Google Search Console.

Every SEO should use Google Search Console. Read this simple beginner's guide to learn about all the features of this tool.

Discover the most interesting and off-beat ideas in marketing and advertising! 

Marketing & Advertising

Google Search Console: A Beginner’s Guide (+Tips) | Mangools

What's gonna work? Teamwork!

Someone said all of us are creative, nahhhh...That's not true! Our brains function in different ways, some are analytical and logical while some are critical and practical.Industry experts are not inclined to write that's why Ghost Writers are created, so they can be the voice of the SME's who can't express what they know in words. Properly addressing questions and knowing what's works best during the "transfer of knowledge" is crucial to extracting information from these amazing beings.Communication is key, structure the interview the way the interviewee wanted to be interviewed.

How would an SEO specialist write a content brief for an industry expert with very little writing experience?

Establish an invisible thread of trust between all the parties, always emphasize to the SME that: <ol><li>The writers who are interviewing them are there to help them convey what they want to say in plain English</li><li>They have the authority on how the interview will be conducted (as long as they are comfortable with everything)</li><li>They have the last say on everything, so you as the SEO need to be assertive that whatever goes out there in the public was reviewed and approved.</li></ol>

Build a ground of Trust for the Subject Matter Experts

Creating a workflow that will determine how things will flow in the pipeline will give your team a quick overview of what will happen with the draft that was created.Having this mind map will give trust to all parties that there is a process being implemented to make sure that the asset that was created is properly being taken care of.If the Topic Expert wants to revise something during the review process, he/she can address it to the writers before it goes to the Editor for Proof Reading.Seamless Process, Better Results.

Create a Content Work Flow

As an SEO, company managers might get excited about the collaboration with an expert because the content will have more authority, thus they might request these particular insertions:<ul><li>Tell them all of our features.</li><li>Make sure you mention these selling points!</li><li>Don’t forget we won those two awards last year.</li><li>Can you drop this quote from our CEO in there?</li><li>Here are two case studies you should mention.</li></ul>We can do "some" of this in a moderate way but make sure that the content is for the readers. Nobody cares for your companies achievements unless you show care first by providing informative content.

Always remember to write for the Readers

SEO, Topic Experts and Writers needs to have a common ground on creating a content, this article will help them know the little things that will make their project a success!

A reader asks, What's the best way for our SEO pro to create briefs for our topic expert to write about, and where does the editor come in?

What's The Best Way For SEO, Topic Experts & Writers To Work Together?

Targeting proper keywords is as crucial to successfully operate a website as creating eye-catching images or coming up with a winning URL. To assess which keywords are or are not worth targeting, webmasters use various tools and techniques — by far the most popular the keyword difficulty score. It’s important that you opt for low-scoring keywords only, as the higher the rating, the more difficult that given keyword is to target and exploit properly.

How to Use Keyword Difficulty in Your Content Strategy  

Keyword difficulty is one of the most basic SEO metrics — a rating that tells you how hard it would be to target a given keyword and optimize your webpage. The higher the score, the more difficult it would be to achieve decent results while focusing on a given keyword, which also means that it would be harder for you to win against the competition and invite new customers to try out your products.

Why You Should Care About It 

Start out with lower-ranking, longer keywords that potentially have the shorter one within them. Such long-tail keywords, despite having a lower number of searches, can still turn out to be extremely beneficial, especially for niche businesses or websites targeting a single and clear user group. They also have far lower keyword difficulty, meaning that it will be easier to rank for them.﻿

1. Settle for long-tail keywords

At first, aim for keywords with difficulty scores lower than 50. Try to make your approach a little bit more paced and nuanced, and only try to rank for the higher-rated ones when you are sure the quality of the site content matches the quality offered by the websites typically targeting the big keywords..

2. Start with lower-volume options

Before you try to rank for any given keyword, it’s crucial to understand your website’s audience and its needs — well enough to be pretty much convinced that you know what they are looking for, even if their intent is not exactly clear.

3. Keep user intent in mind

Is there a particular high-ranking keyword that you wish to try and target, no matter what? Then consider creating a hub page on your site, which will help organize and gather the necessary information which you will be able to offer users searching for a given high-rated keyword in the future.

4. Hub for difficult keywords

Keyword difficulty is a vital consideration, to be sure, but there are other things to take into account before deciding if a given keyword is worth targeting. Perhaps, even if the keyword difficulty is high, targeting it is worth a shot if the ROI is attractive enough and the potential conversion rate is satisfactory..

5. Don’t forget other aspects of SEO

Proven techniques to help assess a keyword difficulty score correctly and use it effectively in overall SEO efforts.

How to Use Keyword Difficulty in Your Content Strategy

Our agency is a big believer in data. We track website metrics, social media metrics, email marketing metrics, and pull in great <a href="https://www.greenmellenmedia.com/heat-maps-what-value-do-they-provide/">tools like heatmaps</a> to take things even further. However, a problem that can quickly arise is having too much data. It’s easy to build a giant report that shows everything, but the result of that is often that the key metrics get buried.

More data = less value

The biggest offenders tend to be digital marketing agencies and SEO agencies that send 100-page reports to their clients. It’s always a big red flag. Usually means it was outsourced by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing.Experts know how to make things easy to understand, not harder.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter

Our dashboards work well, but really any method that you use to take lots of data and break it down is an excellent way to provide more value to those you serve.

Our agency is a big believer in data. We track website metrics, social media metrics, email marketing metrics, and pull in great tools like heatmaps to take things even further. However, a problem that can quickly arise is having too much data. It's easy to build a giant report that…

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

#seo

TOP STASHERS

RELATED TOPICS

IDEAS ABOUT #seo

How to Prep Your SEO Strategy for a New Website

Google Search Console: A Beginner’s Guide (+Tips) | Mangools

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

What's The Best Way For SEO, Topic Experts & Writers To Work Together?

How to Use Keyword Difficulty in Your Content Strategy

More data = less value

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#seo

TOP STASHERS

RELATED TOPICS

IDEAS ABOUT #seo

How to Prep Your SEO Strategy for a New Website

Google Search Console: A Beginner’s Guide (+Tips) | Mangools

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

What's The Best Way For SEO, Topic Experts & Writers To Work Together?

How to Use Keyword Difficulty in Your Content Strategy

More data = less value

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career