SEO
It’s typically when a site launches and traffic is slow to start that owners start thinking about search engine optimization. It’s very common and after investing time and money in a great new website to realize that the work is only just beginning.
One of the best things to do is make sure that your meta data, specifically page titles are in good shape. This will help set the foundation of your keyword strategy and create opportunities to build search exposure. For instance, in a recent conversation with a client I was asked to do an initial audit on the new website to help prioritize our search optimization strategy.
Using Moz, I used Open Site Explorer to see what pages on site were already building a reputation and the quality of the titles in place. I quickly found that the top pages on site, many of which were category pages as this particular site uses WordPress, had empty meta titles.
It was also clear that there was a low volume of backlinks on the web for this site which help when building out your initial search footprint.
So as a result of this particular quick health check, the first items prioritized in the search strategy will be:
- Make sure category pages have well formed meta titles and do not present thin (aka poorly written or low quality) content.
- Seek opportunities for quality back links to the site. Low hanging fruit are typically profile pages (ie. Yelp, Foursquare, industry association sites, social media profiles and of course any partners or affiliations you can ask for links from).
Once we start cleaning up those initial items we will pivot into optimizing on page content for top landing pages and monitoring any new technical issues. This will start to set the bar for quality when it comes to new content and make the most of the investment in the recently built website.
