SEO Elements to Focus on When Developing a Startup Website
When you are driving all your efforts in developing your startup website and calculating your on-site SEO factors, it is critical to have a procedure in mind to ensure that you have not overlooked any important attribute of your site or SEO. There are many factors that determine the overall success of your ongoing SEO campaign. In order to stay ahead in the SEO game, here are some of the things that need your proper attention:
Server Setup
Paying attention to hosting and server issues during the process of building a startup website is extremely necessary. Take a look at some the things that you should consider about server setup during the launch of the site:
- Manage Site Uptime: Monitoring site uptime tools are available that tell you the exact uptime of your site and whether it is reasonable or not. The objective of the uptime for your site should always be 99.999 percent and anything less than that is completely a terrible thing to witness. In order to get a hold of the situation, watch for web host time guarantees and see how they are going to use the monitoring tools for monitoring the site’s uptime.
- Set up HTTPS: Switching up to HTTPS will streamline the website and there will be no problem in migration if you set up the protocol as soon as your website is live. Check whether the HTTP (Hypertext transfer protocol) always redirects to HTTPS and never directs to a 404 page. In order to ensure that the setup is secure, you can test it by running an SSL or secure sockets layer.
- Use Proper URL Format: Make sure that the URL version is utilized exclusively and allows the HTTP to redirect to HTTPS.
- Verify IP Neighborhood: In case you witness web spam patterns with your Internet protocol neighbors, availing an IP neighborhood tool is vital since Google will be highly sensitive to your site after experiencing the spam on your site.
- Verify DNS Issues and Malware: In order to check for malware and DNS issues on your site, you can put Google’s free tool into use for a complete diagnosis of your site.
- Check Server Problems: Using tools like Screaming Frog will help you in crawling your site and see if you find any 302 or 301 redirects. Make sure that you block any 403 page or forbidden pages with robots.txt.
Indexing
Run your website and verify these points before and after the launch of your startup in order to make certain that the web pages are included in the search index.
- Sitemaps: Check that an XML sitemap is placed at example.com/sitemap.xml and it has been uploaded to Bing Webmaster Tools along with the Google Search Console. When checking the sitemaps for your site, make certain that they are dynamic and come with a perfect URL structure that is consistent throughout the site.
- Indexed Pages: For addressing the indexed pages, see how the results are matching with your current database by using Google site: example.com. In case you find out that the number is higher than it should be, there is duplicate content on your site. On the other hand, if the number is low, it means that not every page have been indexed appropriately.
- Automatic Social Media Posting: This can be achieved by using a tool for publishing good blog content on the social media platforms. This will help your site to get more visibility and increase the likeliness of getting your pages indexed by the search engines.
- Rich Snippets: In case you are working on a semantic markup, make sure that the rich snippets are not broken and are properly visible. If it is broken or not showing properly, authenticate the markup to make certain that there are no errors.
Content
Needless to say, content is the main criteria that define the overall success of a startup website and how it is going to be visible on the top of the search engine rankings. Ensure these content management factors on your site for a better SEO:
- Length of the Title: Form the title of your content carefully and check the length at which your blog’s titles are getting shortened in the SERPs. While there is no obligation to always reduce the length of the title, make sure that the user is able to comprehend the title before the cutoff point. The subject of the page that is visible on the search engine is the main factor that will drive the users to your startup website.
- Keyword Optimization: This means the inclusion of any targeted or main keyword in the title tag of your content. However, do not use repetitive keywords in the title tag and insert the most popular keyword at the beginning of the title tag. The only thing to keep in mind is making the title creative and sound good so placing the keyword is completely based on how the title and content is.
- Meta Descriptions: This factor makes crawling easier on your site, so check out for any missing Meta tags and descriptions. Verify and remove duplicate Meta descriptions and make sure that your page Meta description is not exceeding more than 160 characters.
Mobile
With the rise in mobile users, most of the websites are now being accessed from compact devices. For mobile SEO, you should check these elements:
- Mobile Friendliness: Opt for the Google Mobile-friendly analysis and check issues related to user experience while browsing your website on mobile.
- Focus on Responsive Design: For better user experience on mobile devices, your site has to be responsive while using and look reliable to the audience. On top of that, it should be aesthetically pleasing just like its desktop counterpart.
- Smooth Navigation: Ensure that your drop-down toolbar or menu is functional and opens with one touch, making it highly appealing to use.
Conclusion
Taking care of the basics on your website determines the overall success of your SEO campaign. Pay attention to the aforementioned factors and develop a great startup site.