One of the things that businesses must constantly have to make is to seek experts in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to give recommendations on how companies have to design of a site so that they can be better indexed by search engines and appear in preeminent places.
The sad thing is that many of the things we recommend should be done during the phase of Web development before publishing the site. Many web developers do not yet understand the basics of SEO. This leads to reconstruction and modification which sounds more expense again.
So if you’re designing a new business site, using some sort of template system to create sites, a type CMS (Content Management System: WordPress, Joomla ,..) or have hired an outside firm , here are some things you should make sure they are in place before launching the site. So let’s take a little work for your SEO experts and avoid further review and modification. Following these guidelines will make websites more friendly to search engines from the beginning.
1) As a preliminary step, perform keyword research before developing the site. SEO begins with keywords. And if you’re thinking of marketing a site on search engines, you should know what keywords you want to rank for before you start building the site. Make sure this is done first.
Once the page is finished, with all the requirements of on-page SEO and posted on Internet:
2) Enlist the page in Webmaster Tools (Google), Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Tools. Create your sitemap.xml and a robots.txt file to make it easy to search engines indexing your site as quickly as possible. The use of these tools will give you vital information to improve you website:
-Search queries where it appears
-State of your site (tracking errors ,..)
-Links to your site
-Diagnostics (infections or malware)
-Suggestions
-Speed-site performance and load
-Seeing as web spiders see it
3) Follow the evolution of views using Google Analytics. It is essential to know if someone visits your website and who. Configure Google Alerts and set the name of the brand, product, etc.. to know and who you say you will link (creates a Link alert: yourdomain).
4) Using the indicators link: and site: make sure your site has been indexed by Google. For Yahoo and Bing do a search with the domain name.
5) If it is a local business, that is to say, with a physical address, enlist the business in Google Places to have a beautiful place in local searches. If within the territory covered by Street View then it offers a view of those businesses. It also gives us a site plan to insert into the client page. Put the phone number, email and mailing address as text, not images.
6) Create interesting content, original and valuable to your users. If it’s good for users then is good for Google.
7) Find or create links to your site from other sites of similar theme and high PR (PageRank). Enlists in some directories like Dmoz, Yellow Pages (the free), Hotfrog, Vulkan, … and get good links by posting news, comment on blogs and other varied initiatives.
8) Follow the Web Standards for HTML, CSS and database programming.
The more you follow the rules, the easier it is for someone to come later and make changes or modify the site. It’s a real problem when the code of a site or database is so complex that needs to be rebuilt with the entire order to be changed.
9) Show yourself in Social Media: create a business page on Facebook and a Twitter profile and buttons at least for readers or clients to follow you. Create alerts in SocialMention for instance, to monitor it.
10) Be patient, plain and simple.
11) If, despite all these wise counsel had any shadow of doubt, you may consult the Google Webmaster Forums and find appropriate responses. Or you may see Webmaster Help from a Google staff if possible.
12) Tip: Make an account (in case you do not have one) on Google, Yahoo and Bing. My advice is that each project must have your own, do not use your own staff to do so, this will save you problems later. It is best to allow your own. You can also use an CATCH-ALL email account, where all mail from a domain (which you create as you wish) is directed towards a single account.
All these tools are free. Think well before paying for a service.
