Launching a brand new website is an exciting time for any business, but it can also feel like setting sail into unchartered waters, especially when it comes to optimisation. In the digital age, a website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) can be the difference between thriving online traffic and getting lost in the vast expanse of the internet.
For newcomers to search engine optimisation (SEO), the process can seem daunting, with many factors influencing a site’s ranking. However, several straightforward strategies can significantly improve a website’s search engine performance, even for those just starting out.
This article discusses a curated list of quick SEO tips for your website. These strategies are designed to enhance your site’s visibility and lay a solid foundation for more advanced SEO efforts in the future. From ensuring your website is crawlable by Google to optimising your meta tags, each tip is a step towards making your website more appealing to search engines and users alike.
1. Map Out Site Structure Before Building
You wouldn’t start building a house without blueprints and architectural design, so you shouldn’t start building a site without mapping out its structure beforehand. When you design a house, you include the measurements of each room. The same is true when building a website. You must include all the pages you want and the content on every page.
Most of the time, the home page is navigational, introducing the brand or business and leading users to other pages on the site. No matter your business type, you want your website to be arranged in a way that makes sense and goes from general (homepage) to specific (service pages). This is one of the most important and quick SEO tips for your new website.
2. Make Sure Google Can Crawl and Index
When you launch your website, you want Google to be able to crawl and index it right away. So, how do you get it to do that?
Robots.txt file
When a crawler or bot comes across your website, the robots.txt file is one of their first stops. So, what is a robots.txt file?
A robots.txt file is a file that tells Google which sections of a website should not be crawled. For example, if you have a shopping cart on your website, in the robots.txt file, you can tell the bots not to crawl it as it doesn’t have any value on search engine results pages.
Robots Meta Tag
Similar to the robots.txt file, a robots meta tag tells search engines whether or not they should crawl and index a page. However, robots meta tags are a piece of code applied to the header of a single page. If you want to just block one page from the index, a robots meta tag is a much better option than using the robots.txt file.
When you’re in the development stage of building a website, your staging website will be blocked from the search results using either the robots.txt file or a robots meta directive. It's crucial to make sure that this is removed when your site goes live; otherwise, Google won’t be able to index your new site.
XML Sitemap
Now that you’ve told Google what you don’t want it to crawl, an XML Sitemap is where you can tell Google what you want it to see. Having and submitting an XML Sitemap to Google can make crawling your site more efficient and ensure the most important pages are regularly crawled and indexed.
Note: You can also request indexing of your site in Google Search Console to help speed up Google's search for the site. The most effective way is to request indexing of your homepage using the URL Inspection Tool.
3. Submit Your Sitemap To Google Search Console
How do you create and submit a sitemap to Google Search Console?
Most reliable hosting platforms automatically generate a sitemap for you. However, if they don’t, you can generate one using free tools such as XML-Sitemaps. Once you’ve got your sitemap, head to Google Search Console, where you can submit it using the following steps:
- Sign into Google Search Console
- In the sidebar, click on your website
- Click on “Sitemaps”
- Paste the URL of your new sitemap
- Click “Submit”
4. Check Content Is Valuable To Users
When you’re looking for something on the internet, you want to find relevant information to your query and answer your question. When writing content for your website, whatever the niche, you want to provide high-quality content that is valuable to your users. This is one of the most important parts of SEO for a new website in Australia.
When it comes to ranking on Google, the higher the quality of the information in the content, the better.
5. Optimise Page Titles And Meta Descriptions
When building and launching a new website, you want potential users to find it easily on search engines, so basic SEO for a new website includes optimising page titles and meta descriptions. Good title tags that include the main keyword improve your page's relevance and encourage clicks from search engine results pages.
Optimising title tags and meta descriptions is relatively straightforward, but here are a few steps to follow when doing so:
- Include the focus keyword: If you want to rank for a specific search query, such as “plumbing services Brisbane”, you must put that keyword in the title tag.
- Keep the titles short: It’s best practice to keep them between 50 and 60 characters. If they are too long, Google will trim them.
- Make them catchy: While it’s important to include the focus keyword in your title tags, it’s also a good idea to make them catchy to stand out. For example, in your title, you could include a question to catch the reader’s attention or include numbers (e.g. 10 helpful tips) that will encourage your readers to click.
6. Strategically Implement Internal Linking
Just like external links (links to your site from other sites) are good for SEO to build authority, internal linking between pages on your website is also important.
So, what is internal linking?
Internal linking refers to the practice of linking from one page to another within the same domain, and it serves several important functions, such as:
- Navigation
- Website hierarchy
- Page authority distribution
- Content contextualisation
- Improving user engagement
7. Check Site Speed
In the digital world, people are used to things loading very quickly. Therefore, if your website or webpage takes more than three seconds to load, the chances of users clicking out of your site increase.
So, how can you check site speed and ensure your website loads fast?
You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to see how fast your website or webpage is loading. The tool also provides recommendations for improving your site's speed if it is loading slowly.
8. For Local Businesses: Google Business Profile Is A Must
If you have a local business, such as a bakery in the Brisbane City area, having a Google Business Profile is a must.
A Google Business Profile is a local listing that has information about your business. After claiming your Google Business Profile, the information you add can show up in Google’s web search results and in Google Maps. When you’ve claimed your Google Business Profile, when someone in Brisbane searches “Brisbane City bakeries,” your business information will appear alongside other bakeries in the area, increasing your visibility and click-through rate.
Why SEO Isn’t Always Quick And Easy
SEO isn’t always quick and easy because it’s a complex process that involves improving various aspects of your website to meet search engines’ ever-changing criteria.
With lots of competition and search engines constantly updating their algorithms, getting to the top of search results can take time. You need to create high-quality content, ensure your website is technically sound, and build a reputation as an authoritative source. All of these efforts are ongoing and take time to show results, making SEO a long-term investment rather than a quick fix.
Effective SEO Strategies With Anchor
Are you looking to build a new website for your business or already have a website but want to improve your SEO?
Look no further than Anchor Digital. Our team of web developers and SEO experts have the tools, knowledge and experience to create a website that is both SEO and user-friendly. With carefully thought-out navigation and by following SEO best practices, we can design and create a fully optimised website before it is launched.
Would you like to learn more? Drop us a line today.
