SEO for Launching a Website

SEO for Launching

SEO is a daunting task when launching a website. This is a guide to helping you with the SEO for that new website. I’ll assume you’ve already done the market analysis and keyword research.

Analyse URLs

Put the data in a spreadsheet so you can begin analyzing it. You might want to launch in stages, with a beta version of the site up first, adding more pages at a later date.

Analytics

Remember to install the analytics code on the new site long before the launch. At least use the basic version or better yet use the advanced customized code which lets you do things like:

  • Enhanced in-page to show where people were clicking.
  • Event tracking to show interaction with video.
  • Page scrolling to see how far down people were going on pages.
  • Event tracking to show how often people clicked on contact details.

Sitemaps

The sitemaps will change whenever your URLs change so you should generate a new XML sitemap and resubmit a GWT to get the site indexed sooner.

Does someone else have Your Name?

Googled your site name and somebody else came up before you. You should have researched the name before deciding on it. But the exact match anchors aren’t as important as ranking highly for the right keywords so it’s not the end of the world. You’ll have to get busy with some link-building to overtake the rival though.

Make sure you use your exact name as the anchor text for all those links. If you have changed the name or URL of your site then get in touch with all the sites hosting backlinks and get them to make the changes you need. The earlier you start this process the better, as not all site admins will be prompt in getting back to you.

Keeping Working at it

You’ve worked hard up to the launch but the work doesn’t end here. You need to keep the team motivated for ongoing maintenance and analysis. You’ll start getting feedback from users about bugs you missed and usability issues that all need to be corrected. keep on top of all these issues with support tickets or some related system.

Launching a website is a lot of work and highly stressful. You have a lot of things to keep track of now, but don’t let it get on top of you. It all pays off in the end. If you happen to forget something, that’s OK, just fix it and look for a workaround. Nobody is perfect, but you must learn from your mistakes.